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Installing and playing games on Frotz ||
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If you're unfamiliar with Infocom-style text adventures, you should
probably stop here and read the file HOW_TO_PLAY.  Then come back and
continue.

Now that you have Frotz installed, you'll probably want to play some of
those ultra-nifty text adventures on it.  These games come in files
which are compiled programs that run on the Z-machine, which
interpreters like Frotz emulate.  The best-stocked archive of freeware
games for use on Z-machine interpreters is the Interactive Fiction
Archive at http://www.ifarchive.org.  There are several mirrors of the
archive all over the world listed there.

Here are direct URLs to the zcode directories:

http://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archiveXgamesXzcode.html
ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode 


Here is the scheme I use for organizing my Zcode games:

/usr/local/share/zcode			This contains games written after the
					demise of Infocom.  Most are freeware.

/home/dave/.zcode			I sometimes put games here too.

/usr/local/share/zcode/infocom		This is where I keep my collection of
					genuine Infocom games.

/usr/local/share/zcode/infocom/sound	Soundfiles from "Lurking Horror" 
					and "Sherlock" go here.

/usr/local/share/zcode/infocom/graphics	Graphics files from Zork 0,
					Arthur, Shogun, and Journey go here.

I add this command to my .profile file:
export ZCODE_PATH="/usr/local/share/zcode: \
	/usr/local/share/zcode/infocom:$HOME/.zcode

Now, when I want to play Zork I, I will type "frotz zork1.dat" at the
command prompt.  Then I will then be told I am standing in an open field
west of a white house which has a boarded front door.

You can also just give a path to the game file.

When you save your game, all save files are put in the current directory
unless you specify a full path.  Please name your saves intelligently.

You MUST put sound and graphics in directories named "sound" and
"graphics" in the same directory as the gamefile.  Yes, this is a bit
confusing.  That's why Blorb will be so wonderful when Unix Frotz supports
it.

You'll probably want to make use of Frotz's new config file functionality.
The options in the config file mirror the command line options and free
you from having to remember to add something like "-Z0" to get rid of
complaints about buggy zcode or if you want to always play with white text
on black at a Linux console (instead of white on blue).  Sample config
files are included here as "frotz.conf-big" (which lists all possible
options) and "frotz.conf-small" (a shortened one listing the more
commonly-used options).  The Makefile defines where Frotz will look for
the frotz.conf file.  By default, this is /usr/local/etc and can be
changed at compile time if you like.  This file will be read if Frotz
notices you don't have a config file of your own in "$HOME/.frotzrc".