adriagipas / run-zcode

Run Z-Machine story files on Unix

run-zcode

Run Z-Machine story files on Unix (support for Version 6 story files, and some strange opcodes, still not implemented).

Install

Requirements:

• git
• meson
• GLib 2.0
• Gio 2.0
• SDL 2.0
• SDL_image 2.0
• SDL_ttf 2.0
• Fontconfig

Git clone run-zcode

git clone https://github.com/adriagipas/run-zcode.git

Compile and install run-zcode

cd run-zcode
meson setup --buildtype release --prefix $(INSTALLATION_PREFIX) build
cd build
meson compile
meson install

Usage

In order to run a Z-Machine story file (example.z5) just type

run-zcode example.z5

or for a more verbose execution

run-zcode -v example.z5

It is also possible to specify a custom configuration file (example.conf)

run-zcode -c example.conf example.z5

By default, the game transcript (output stream 2) is redirected to the standard output. Using option -T,--transcript it is possible changed the destination file

run-zcode -T transcript.txt example.z5

It is also possible to extract the frontispiece (cover art) from a zblorb file using the option -C,--cover. For example, it could be used to generate thumbnails with thumbnailer like this:

[Thumbnailer Entry]
Version=1.0
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=X-Thumbnailer
Name=zblorb Thumbnailer
MimeType=application/x-zblorb;
Exec=sh -c '/home/USER/bin/zmachinethumbs.sh "%i" "%o" %s'

where zmachinethumbs.sh is:

if [ $# != 3 ]; then
  echo "$0: input_file_name output_file_name size"
  exit 1
fi
 
INPUT_FILE="$1"
OUTPUT_FILE="$2"
SIZE=$3

if TEMP=$(mktemp --directory --tmpdir tumbler-zblorb-XXXXXX); then
    if /home/USER/bin/run-zcode "$INPUT_FILE" -C "$TEMP/out"; then
        convert -thumbnail "$SIZE" "$TEMP/out" "$OUTPUT_FILE" 2>/dev/null	
    fi
    rm -rf $TEMP
fi

Configuration file

A default configuration file looks like this

[Screen]
lines=25
width=80
fullscreen=false

[Fonts]
size=8
normal-roman=sans
normal-bold=sans:style=bold
normal-italic=sans:style=italic
normal-bold-italic=sans:bold:italic
fpitch-roman=mono
fpitch-bold=mono:style=bold
fpitch-italic=mono:style=italic
fpitch-bold-italic=mono:bold:italic

Screen options control the window shape:

• lines: number of lines
• width: number of monospace characters
• fullscreen: run story file in full screen mode.

Fonts options control fonts shape:

• size: font size
• normal-: a regular font
• fpitch-: a fixed pitch font