============================= "Mystery House" Taken Over ============================= Occupation Kit, version 1.0 ============================= by the MHTO Advance Team ========================================== Nick Montfort Dan Shiovitz Emily Short Roberta and Ken Williams offered Mystery House to the public domain in 1987, in celebration of Sierra's seventh anniversary. We likewise offer the modifiable Glulx/Inform reimplementation of the game to the PUBLIC DOMAIN. See the end of this file for official notice of this dedication. NOTE: Other files are included for your conveneince, but are *NOT* public domain; their authors retain copyright. Inform is (C) Graham Nelson 1993 - 2004. reblorb.pl is a slight modification of perlBlorb, (C) Graham Nelson 1998. Blc.exe is (C) L. Ross Raszewski 2002. All files are provided with NO WARRANTY at all. Have fun. This kit contains everything the Linux, Windows, Mac OS X user should need to create a modified version of the first text/graphical adventure game, the 1980 Apple II program "Mystery House": (1) SOURCE CODE in the file "mhto.inf" -- this is Inform code. You can edit text within this file to change the messages printed by the game while leaving the workings of the game otherwise the same. (2) RESOURCE LIST in the file "mhto.res" for Mac/Linux users, or "mhto.blc" for Windows users -- this ties the compiled code together with the images that are used. (3) IMAGES in the "views" and "items" directories -- you can replace these with images of your own choosing without even recompiling the game. You need to create a new blorb file in this case, however. In addition to those Mystery-House-specific files, we have also included everything needed to compile the game and to blorbify the game and images together into a single file. (4) COMPILERS for DOS/Windows (invoked with "dos-compile.bat"), Mac OS X (invoked with "mac-compile.command"), and Linux (invoked with "linux-compile.sh"). You can use any of these to compile "mhto.inf", creating the file "mhto.ulx". If you change anything in the code, which includes making a change to the texts that are printed, you'll need to recompile. (5) BLORBIFIERS for DOS/Windows (invoked with "dos-blorb.bat") and Mac/Linux, involed with "mac-blorb.command" on Mac OS X and "linux-blorb.sh" on Linux. These package everything you've done in a single file, creating a "blorb" file, "mhto.blb", that contains both the compiled "mhto.ulx" file and all of the images needed by the game. Any change made to the code (including the text) or the images will not appear in the blorb file until you have reblorbified. (6) SCRIPTS to first compile, then blorbify in a single step: "dos-build-all.bat" for DOS/Windows, "mac-build-all.bat" for Mac OS X, and "linux-build-all.bat" for Linux. (7) FILES NEEDED BY THE COMPILER in the directory "libraries". You will also need AN INTERPRETER to allow you to play your modified Mystery House. We have tested the compiled reimplementation that we did on Zag 1.05, a cross-platform interpreter written in Java. It should work well of Mac OS X "out of the box." You will need to have the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) installed on your computer to run it on Windows. You can download it here: http://mirror.ifarchive.com/if-archive/interpreters-other/glulx/interpreters/zag/zag-1.05.tar.gz On Windows, you may prefer to use Git, which does not require the JRE: http://mirror.ifarchive.org/if-archive/programming/glulx/interpreters/git/wingit -1.0.6.zip =============== GETTING STARTED =============== First, make sure your setup will work by compiling the source code included, blorbifying it with the images included, and then opening the blorb file within your interpreter. ====> 1. Compile "mhto.inf". On the Mac, double-click "mac-compile.command". This will produce a window showing the compilation output, and wait for you to hit a key. On Linux, cd to the main directory (where this README.txt file is) and type "linux-compile.sh". On Windows, double-click on "dos-compile.bat". This will produce a window showing the compilation output, and wait for you to hit a key. The presence of a file "mhto.ulx" should indicate success. This is all you should ever need to do to compile the game. We recommend that you use the (older) Inform 6.21 compilers included, or other Inform 6.21 compilers, because other versions of the Inform compiler have not been verified as working correctly with our code. ====> 2. Create a blorb file "mhto.blb". On the Mac, double-click "mac-blorb.command". This will produce a window showing the blorbifier's output, and wait for you to hit a key. On Linux, cd to the main directory (where this README.txt file is) and type "linux-blorb.sh". On Windows, double-click on "dos-blorb.bat". This will produce a window showing the blorbifier's output, and wait for you to hit a key. The presence of a file "mhto.blb" should indicate success. This is all you should ever need to do to blorbify the game. NOTE: You can do both 1 and 2 by running "mac-build-all.command", "linux-build-all.sh", or "dos-build-all.bat" as is appropriate for your system. ====> 3. Open your "mhto.blb" within Zag or the interpreter of your choice. Once you have downloaded and expanded the zag-1.05 folder, double-click on zag-1.05.jar to launch Zag. Or, open the other interpreter that you have installed. From the File > Open File dialog or similar dialog, navigate to the location of "mhto.blb" and select it. This should run the reimplementation of Mystery House. Every time you make a change to the code, you should go through these three steps to see the result. If your changes introduce any errors into "mhto.inf," compiling (step 1) will fail, and "mhto.ulx" will be unchanged. Creating new blorb files will not ever solve this problem; you need to debug "mhto.inf" first until your code compiles. If you are repeatedly compiling and trying to fix bugs, it's best to do step 1 separately rather than using a "build-all" script. If you have only changed images and have not touched mhto.inf, you can start from step 2. Compiling again using the "build-all" script should not take much time, however. ============================ FULL DESCRIPTION OF CONTENTS ============================ blc.exe - Blorbifier for DOS/Windows dos-blorb.bat - Script for DOS/Windows to blorbify Mystery House dos-build-all.bat - Script for DOS/Windows to compile, then blorbify dos-compile.bat - Script for DOS/Windows to compile Mystery House inform.exe - The DOS/Windows Inform 6.21 compiler inform - The Mac OS X Inform 6.21 compiler items/ - Small images of items in PNG format libraries/ - Files used by the compiler LICENSE.txt - Explanation of the license terms for these files linux-blorb.sh - Invokes the Mac/Linux blorbifier from Linux linux-build-all.sh - Script to first compile, then blorbify in Linux linux-compile.sh - Script to compile in Linux mac-blorb.command - Invokes the Mac/Linux blorbifier from Mac OS X mac-build-all.command - Script to first compile, then blorbify in Mac OS X mac-compile.command - Script to compile in Mac OS X mhto.blc - Resource list for Windows for MHTO image files mhto.inf - Source code for Mystery House Taken Over mhto.res - Resource list for Mac for MHTO image files README.txt - This file reblorb.pl - Blorbifier for Mac/Linux views/ - "Full-screen" main views in Mystery House ======================= MODIFYING MYSTERY HOUSE ======================= See the file "mhto.inf" for comments to guide you in replacing text and changing code. The classic reference to the Inform programming language is the Inform Designer's Manual, 4th Edition (DM4), located at http://www.inform-fiction.org/manual/html/ Good luck! ======================== Mystery House Taken Over is a 2004 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. ======================== THE FOLLOWING DEDICATION applies to the modifiable Glulx/Inform reimplementation of Mystery House i.e., these files: dos-blorb.bat dos-build-all.bat dos-compile.bat items (all images in this directory) linux-blorb.sh linux-build-all.sh linux-compile.sh mac-blorb.commmand mac-build-all.command mac-compile.command mhto.blc mhto.inf mhto.res views (all images in this directory) Copyright-Only Dedication (based on United States law) or Public Domain Certification The person or persons who have associated work with this document (the "Dedicator" or "Certifier") hereby either (a) certifies that, to the best of his knowledge, the work of authorship identified is in the public domain of the country from which the work is published, or (b) hereby dedicates whatever copyright the dedicators holds in the work of authorship identified below (the "Work") to the public domain. A certifier, morever, dedicates any copyright interest he may have in the associated work, and for these purposes, is described as a "dedicator" below. A certifier has taken reasonable steps to verify the copyright status of this work. Certifier recognizes that his good faith efforts may not shield him from liability if in fact the work certified is not in the public domain. Dedicator makes this dedication for the benefit of the public at large and to the detriment of the Dedicator's heirs and successors. Dedicator intends this dedication to be an overt act of relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights under copyright law, whether vested or contingent, in the Work. Dedicator understands that such relinquishment of all rights includes the relinquishment of all rights to enforce (by lawsuit or otherwise) those copyrights in the Work. Dedicator recognizes that, once placed in the public domain, the Work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, used, modified, built upon, or otherwise exploited by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and in any way, including by methods that have not yet been invented or conceived. ======================== nm, es, ds 15 March 2005