1SFROTZ(6) Games Manual SFROTZ(6)
2
6 sfrotz - interpreter for Infocom and other Z-Machine games (SDL inter‐
7 face)
8
12 sfrotz [options] file [blorbfile]
13 At least one file must be specified on the command line. This can be
15 either a plain Z-code file or a Blorb file. A Z-code file is a com‐
16 piled executable for the Z-Machine. A Blorb file contains audio,
17 graphics, and other things in addition to the game wrapped up into a
18 single file. It can also optionally contain the Z-Machine executable.
19 If a plain Z-code file is supplied, then Frotz will check for a Blorb
20 file with the same base name but an extension of .blb, .blorb, or
21 .zblorb and load it if found.
22 If the file supplied on the command line is a Blorb file, then Frotz
24 will check to see if a Z-code file is contained within. If not found,
25 then Frotz will complain and exit.
26 An alternatively-named Blorb file can be supplied as the optional sec‐
28 ond parameter to the command line invocatio
29
33 Frotz is a Z-Machine interpreter. The Z-machine is a virtual machine
34 designed by Infocom to run all of their text adventures. It went
35 through multiple revisions during the lifetime of the company, and two
36 further revisions (V7 and V8) were created by Graham Nelson after the
37 company's demise. The specification is now quite well documented; this
38 version of Frotz supports version 1.0.
39 This version of Frotz fully supports all these versions of the Z-
41 Machine including the graphical version 6. Graphics and sound are cre‐
42 ated through the use of the SDL libraries. AIFF sound effects and
43 music in MOD and OGG formats are supported when packaged in Blorb con‐
44 tainer files or optionally from individual files.
45
49 -a Watch attribute setting. Setting and clearing of attributes on
50 objects will be noted in debugging messages.
51 -A Watch attribute testing. Every time the Z-machine tests an
54 attribute value, the test and the result will be reported.
55 -b <colorname>
58 Sets the default background color. <colorname> corresponds to
59 one of the Z-machine colors, which are as follows:
60 black red green yellow blue magenta cyan white
61 If color support is disabled or not available on your terminal,
62 this option does nothing.
63 -c N Sets the number of context lines used. By default, after a
66 ``[MORE]'' prompt, and assuming there is enough output pending,
67 Frotz will allow all the currently visible lines to scroll off
68 the screen before prompting again. This switch specifies how
69 many lines of text Frotz will hold over and display at the top
70 of the next screen.
71 -f <colorname>
74 Sets the default foreground color. <colorname> corresponds to
75 one of the Z-machine colors, which are as follows
76 black red green yellow blue magenta cyan white
77 If color support is disabled or is not available on your termi‐
78 nal, this option does nothing.
79 -h N Manually sets the text height.
82 -i Ignore fatal errors. If a Z-Machine interpreter encounters a
85 zcode error such as division-by-zero or addressing an illegal
86 object, the proper response is to abort execution. This is done
87 because the zcode program doesn't have a clear idea of what is
88 going on. There are some games out there that cause fatal
89 errors because the authors were careless and used an interpreter
90 that didn't properly check for errors. This option is intended
91 to get around such bugs, but be warned that Strange Things may
92 happen if fatal errors are not caught.
93 -I N Set the interpreter number. Infocom designed the Z-machine such
96 that a game could tell on what kind of machine the interpreter
97 was running. See INTERPRETER NUMBER below.
98 -l N Sets the left margin, for those who might have specific format‐
101 ting needs.
102 -L <filename>
105 When the game starts, load this saved game file.
106 -o Watch object movement. This option enables debugging messages
109 from the interpreter which describe the moving of objects in the
110 object tree.
111 -O Watch object location. These debugging messages detail the
114 locations of objects in the object tree.
115 -P Alter the piracy opcode. The piracy opcode was never used by
118 Infocom. This switch is really only useful for those who like
119 to toy around with Z-code.
120 -r N Sets the right margin.
123 -s N Set the random number seed value. The given seed value is used
127 as the initial seed value on every restart. This is helpful for
128 testing games like Curses which make random decisions before the
129 first input (such that the hot key Alt-S does not really help).
130 -S N Set the transcript width. By default your transcript files are
133 formatted to a width of 80 columns per line, regardless of the
134 current text width. This switch allows you to change this set‐
135 ting. In particular, use -S 0 to deactivate automatic line
136 splitting in transcript files.
137 -t Sets the Z-machine's Tandy bit, which may affect the behavior of
140 certain Infocom games. For example, Zork I pretends not to have
141 sequels, and Witness has its language toned down.
142 -u N Sets the number of slots available for Frotz's multiple undo
145 hotkey (see below). This defaults to twenty, which should be
146 sufficient for most purposes. Setting too high a number here
147 may be dangerous on machines with limited memory.
148 -w N Manually sets the text width.
151 -x Expand the abbreviations "g", "x", and "z" to "again", "exam‐
154 ine", and "wait". This switch is for use with old Infocom games
155 that lack these common abbreviations which were introduced in
156 later games. Use it with caution: A few games might use "g",
157 "x" or "z" for different purposes.
158 -Z N Error checking mode.
161 0 = don't report errors.
162 1 = report first instance of an error.
163 2 = report all errors.
164 3 = exit after any error.
165 Default is 1 (report first instance of an error).
166
169 -@ <listfile>
170 Use resource files listed in <listfile> (see NON BLORB
171 RESOURCES).
172 -% Use local resource files.
175 -F Run in fullscreen mode (see NOTES).
178 -m <msecs>
181 Set the timer interrupt cycle to <msecs> milliseconds, instead
182 of the default 100 (1/10 sec).
183 -N <mode>
186 Set the mode (date or name) for creating default file names for
187 save/script etc. For date, a timestamp is prepended to the
188 filename extension. For name, a four-digit number beginning
189 with 0000 is prepended to the filename extension.
190 -T Use traditional in-game requests for file names, intead of on-
193 screen dialogs.
194 -v Show version information and exit. This will display the
196 version of Frotz, some information about what's enabled and
197 what's not, the commit date of the source code, and a git(1)
198 hash of that commit.
199 -V Force the use of default monospaced VGA font.
202
206 Sfrotz supports the same hot keys as standard Frotz, plus the Ctl-Alt-X
207 combination for immediate exit, which may be used in case of emergency.
208 Note that these hot keys are enabled only when the Z-machine is waiting
209 for line input (for Z-machine experts: @read opcode), with the excep‐
210 tion of Ctl-Alt-X which also works in single character input mode
211 (@read_char opcode).
212 Alt-D Set debugging options.
215 Alt-H Help (print the list of hot keys).
218 Alt-N New game (restart).
221 Alt-P Playback on.
224 Alt-R Recording on/off.
227 Alt-S Set random number seed.
230 Alt-U Undo one turn.
233 Alt-X Exit game (after confirmation).
236 Ctl-Alt-X
239 Exit game immediately (no confirmation).
240
244 Sfrotz has a hardwired default screen size of 640x400. The screen size
245 can be changed by the values in this section, by the values found in
246 the Reso chunck of a Blorb file, and finally by the -w and -h command
247 line options (in that order). Note however that Sfrotz shall refuse to
248 set a screen width less than 640 and/or a height less than 400. NOTE:
249 for normal (windowed) usage, the screen size should obviously be less
250 than the PC screen resolution (taking into account also window decora‐
251 tions, taskbars etc.) For fullscreen usage, the size should preferably
252 be one of those supported by the PC video driver; otherwise, SDL shall
253 try to use the next higher available resolution, with black borders
254 around the Z-machine screen. In fullscreen mode, however, it may happen
255 that for some strange resolutions SDL accepts the request, but the
256 screen goes blank... In such a case, you may shut down the program by
257 pressing Ctrl-Alt-X.
258
262 The interpreter number is a setting in the Z-machine header which is
263 used to tell the game on what sort of machine the interpreter is run‐
264 ning. Sfrotz will automatically choose the most appropriate number for
265 a given Infocom-produced game. Should you want to override the number,
266 the -I option is available.
267 An interpreter should choose the interpreter number most suitable for
269 the machine it will run on. In Versions up to 5, the main considera‐
270 tion is that the behaviour of 'Beyond Zork' depends on the interpreter
271 number (in terms of its usage of the character graphics font). In Ver‐
272 sion 6, the decision is more serious, as existing Infocom story files
273 depend on interpreter number in many ways: moreover, some story files
274 expect to be run only on the interpreters for a particular machine.
275 There are, for instance, specifically Amiga versions. The DECSystem-20
276 was Infocom's own in-house mainframe.
277 Infocom used the following interpreter numbers:
279 1 DECSystem 20
282 2 Apple IIe
285 3 Macintosh
288 4 Amiga
291 5 Atari ST
294 6 IBM PC
297 7 Commodore128
300 8 Commodore64
303 9 Apple IIc
306 10 Apple IIgs
309 11 Tandy Color
312
316 Besides Blorb-packaged resources, Sfrotz can also render graphics and
317 sound from individual files, provided the latter are either suitably
318 named (e.g a common root with a numeric field specifying the resource
319 number), or listed in a suitably formatted text file.
320 Note that this feature is not automatic, but must be enabled by the -%
322 or -@ command line options. When the feature is enabled, resources
323 found this way override those in the Blorb file, if present.
324 This feature can be useful to game designers, as it eases changing and
326 adding resources without having to re-compile the Blorb file each time.
327 The format of the list file used with the -@ option (see EXAMPLE BLC
328 FILE) is identical to that of the BLC control file used by L. Ross
329 Raszewski's iblorb package, so one can use the same list for compiling
330 the final Blorb file for distribution.
331
335 Sfrotz can display text with Truetype or Type1 fonts, using the
336 FreeType2 rendering library. The location of the necessary font files
337 must be specified in the setup file. Also, antialiased rendering of
338 Truetype fonts can be specified. Please note that this feature in
339 sfrotz is still experimental, so don't expect too much (e.g., kerning
340 is not supported).
341
345 Sfrotz does not need Truetype fonts to work; in fact it has a default
346 monospaced font, based on an 8x16 VGA font, which can be used for both
347 the TEXT_FONT and the FIXED_FONT of the z-machine, with suitable
348 (though not very nice) modifications for the various styles. Even if
349 Truetype fonts are specified in the setup file, Sfrotz can be forced to
350 use the VGA font by the -V command line switch.
351
355 Sfrotz supports Unicode glyphs by way of UTF-8 as long as the fonts
356 loaded contain the glyphs you need. The default font provided by SDL
357 does not contain much beyond the Latin alphabet and some diacritical
358 marks. Inverted punctuation marks as used in Spanish are missing. Two
359 monospaced fonts known to work well with most commonly-encountered
360 alphabetic languages are Leggie and FreeMono. They can be found at
361 https://memleek.org/leggie/ (X11 BDF fonts) and
362 https://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/ (Truetype fonts). Logographic
363 glyphs (Kanji and Chinese are not currently supported.
364
368 If the ZCODE_PATH environmental variable is defined, Sfrotz will search
369 that path for game files. If that doesn't exist, INFOCOM_PATH will be
370 searched.
371
375 On startup, sfrotz will check $HOME/.sfrotzrc for setup information.
376 The setup file has four sections: Interpreter, Display, Fonts, and
377 Resources.
378 The Interpreter section deals with options having to do with how the
380 Frotz core works.
381 The Window section deals with screen display. Sfrotz has a hardwired
383 default screen size of 640x400. The screen size can be changed by the
384 values in this section, by the values found in the Reso chunck of a
385 Blorb file, and finally by the -w and -h command line options (in that
386 order). Note however that sfrotz shall refuse to set a screen width
387 less than 640 and/or a height less than 400.
388 NOTE: for normal (windowed) usage, the screen size should obviously be
390 less than the PC screen resolution (taking into account also window
391 decorations, taskbars etc.) For fullscreen usage, the size should
392 preferably be one of those supported by the PC video driver; otherwise,
393 SDL shall try to use the next higher available resolution, with black
394 borders around the z-machine screen. In fullscreen mode, however, it
395 may happen that for some strange resolutions SDL accepts the request,
396 but the screen goes blank... In such a case, you may shut down the pro‐
397 gram by pressing Ctrl-Alt-X.
398 The Display section is reserved for future developments.
400 The Fonts section is for defining the font directory, font files, and
402 if antialiasing is enabled (which is currently not supported).
403 The following eight statements: textroman, textbold, textitalic,
405 textbolditalic, fixedroman, fixedbold, fixeditalic, and fixed‐
406 bolditalic; specify the eight font faces used by the z-machine (not
407 counting the so-called graphics font used in Beyond Zork, which is
408 hardwired in the program), that is the normal TEXT_FONT and the
409 monospaced FIXED_FONT, each in four styles (roman, bold, italic and
410 bold+italic). A single face is specified by the file name (with its
411 suffix!), optionally followed by an @ sign and a number, indicating the
412 font size in pixels (default is 14). Multiple face files can be speci‐
413 fied, separated by pipe (|) characters; Sfrotz shall use the first one
414 it finds (see the example in EXAMPLE SETUP FILE). This feature allows
415 e.g. to use the same setup file on different systems.
416 The Resources section is for configuring graphics and sound resources.
418 Each template must contain exactly one C-style decimal format specifier
419 (e.g. Pict%d) to be substituted by the resource number.
420
424 [Interpreter]
425 Number = number
427 Set the interpreter number (default is 4, i.e. Amiga Interpreter)
428 Error Reporting = level
431 Set the error reporting level (same as the -Z option)
432 Ignore Errors = 0/1
435 Ignore (1) or not (0) non-fatal runtime errors.
436 Expand Abbreviations = 0/1
439 Set/reset expansion of g/x/z abbreviations. Expansion is useful for
440 old v1 games which do not understand such abbreviations. Default: 0
441 (the -xoption can set this switch.)
442 Tandy Bit = 0/1
445 Set/reset the Tandy bit. Default: 0 (the -t option can set this
446 switch.)
447 Wrap Script Lines = nc
450 Set the width (number of columns) of the transcript to nc. Same as -S
451 option.
452 SaveNames = date/name
455 Set the mode (date or name) for creating default file names for
456 save/script etc. For date, a timestamp is prepended to the filename
457 extension. For name, a four-digit number beginning with 0000 is
458 prepended to the filename extension.
459 [Window]
462 AcWidth = width
464 Set the screen width in pixels (default: 640)
465 AcHeight = height
468 Set the screen height in pixels (default: 400)
469 [Display]
472 (This section reserved for future developments)
474 [Fonts]
477 antialias = 0/1
479 Set antialiased rendering of Truetype fonts off (0) or on (nonzero).
480 Note that this option cannot be overridden by a command line switch.
481 fontdir = folder
484 Specify the directory containing the Truetype fonts. If this does
485 not begin with a slash, then the directory is assumed to be relative
486 to the user's home directory.
487 textroman = fontspec
490 Set the font file for TEXT_FONT, roman style.
491 textbold = fontspec
494 Set the font file for TEXT_FONT, bold style.
495 textitalic = fontspec
498 Set the font file for TEXT_FONT, italic style.
499 textbolditalic = fontspec
502 fixedroman = fontspec
505 Set the font file for FIXED_FONT, roman style.
506 fixedbold = fontspec
509 Set the font file for FIXED_FONT, bold style.
510 fixeditalic = fontspec
513 Set the font file for FIXED_FONT, italic style.
514 fixedbolditalic = fontspec
517 Set the font file for FIXED_FONT, bold and italic style
518 [Resources]
521 Dir = folder
524 Specify the folder for individual graphics/sound resource files.
525 Pict = template
528 Template for picture resource files.
529 Snd = template
532 Template for sound resource files.
533
537 # The # denotes the start of a comment
538 # Everything after the # is ignored, up to the end of the line
539 [Interpreter]
541 SaveNames=date
542 [Window]
544 # The following entries are commented out
545 # but they are the same as the hardwired defaults, anyway
546 #AcWidth = 640
547 #AcHeight = 400
548 [Display]
550 [Fonts]
552 antialias=1
553 fontdir=/usr/share/fonts/truetype/freefont
554 textroman=arial.ttf@16|FreeSans.ttf@16
555 textbold=arialbd.ttf@16|FreeSansBold.ttf@16
556 textitalic=ariali.ttf@16|FreeSansOblique.ttf@16
557 textbolditalic=arialbi.ttf@16|FreeSansBoldOblique.ttf@16
558 fixedroman=cour.ttf@16|FreeMono.ttf@16
559 fixedbold=courbd.ttf@16|FreeMonoBold.ttf@16
560 fixeditalic=couri.ttf@16|FreeMonoOblique.ttf@16
561 fixedbolditalic=courbi.ttf@16|FreeMonoBoldOblique.ttf@16
562 [Resources]
564 Dir=./ # the current dir
565 Pict=PIC%d # i.e. PIC1, PIC2, ...
566 Snd=SND%d # i.e. SND3, SND4, ...
567
571 Exec 0 ZCOD ani.z6
572 Snd 13 FORM busyalone.au.aiff
574 Snd 12 FORM s0020.au.aiff
575 Snd 11 FORM s0154.au.aiff
576 Snd 10 FORM s1484.au.aiff
577 Pict 10 PNG edleft.png0.png
579 Pict 11 PNG edleft.png1.png
580 Pict 12 PNG edleft.png2.png
581 Pict 13 PNG edleft.png3.png
582 Pict 14 PNG edleft.png4.png
583 Pict 15 PNG edleft.png5.png
584 Pict 16 PNG lauhoh.png0.png
586 Pict 17 PNG lauhoh.png1.png
587 Pict 18 PNG lauhoh.png2.png
588 Pict 19 PNG edfront.png0.png
590 Pict 20 PNG edfront.png1.png
591 Pict 21 PNG edfront.png2.png
592 Pict 22 PNG edfront.png3.png
593 Pict 23 PNG edfront.png4.png
594 Pict 24 PNG edfront.png5.png
595 Pict 25 PNG hoagie.png0.png
597 Pict 26 PNG hoagie.png1.png
598 Pict 30 PNG dott0.png
600
604 The Frotz homepage is at https://661.org/proj/if/frotz/.
605 A git(1) repository of all versions of Unix Frotz back to 2.32 is
607 available for public perusal here:
608 https://gitlab.com/DavidGriffith/frotz/.
609 The bleeding edge of Frotz development may be followed there.
611 The Interactive Fiction Archive is a good place to find games to play
613 with Frotz. Various ports and builds for Frotz may also be found here.
614 Here is its URL:
615 http://www.ifarchive.org/
616 Most distributions of Linux and BSD include Frotz in their package
618 repositories.
619
623 The Z Machine itself has trouble with the concept of resizing a termi‐
624 nal. It assumes that once the screen height and width are set, they
625 will never change; even across saves. This made sense when 24x80 ter‐
626 minals were the norm and graphical user interfaces were mostly unknown.
627 I'm fairly sure there's a way around this problem, but for now, don't
628 resize an xterm in which frotz is running. Also, you should try to
629 make sure the terminal on which you restore a saved game has the same
630 dimensions as the one on which you saved the game.
631 Audio latency might be unreasonably long depending on the settings of
634 your operating system. Linux generally has things right. The BSDs may
635 need some sysctl(8) settings adjusted. See the sound(4) or audio(4)
636 manpages for more information.
637 This manpage is not intended to tell users HOW to play interactive fic‐
640 tion. Refer to the file HOW_TO_PLAY included in the Unix Frotz docu‐
641 mentation or visit one of the following sites:
642 http://www.microheaven.com/ifguide/
643 http://www.brasslantern.org/beginners/
644 http://www.musicwords.net/if/how_to_play.htm
645 http://ifarchive.org/
646
650 This program has no bugs. no bugs. no bugs. no *WHAP* thank you. If
651 you find one, please report it to the Gitlab site referenced above in
652 FURTHER INFORMATION.
653
657 frotz was written by Stefan Jokisch for MSDOS in 1995-7.
658 The SDL port was done in 2009 by Aldo Cumani and is currently main‐
659 tained by David Griffith <dave@661.org>.
660
664 frotz(6) dfrotz(6) nitfol(6) rezrov(6) jzip(6) xzip(6) inform(1)
665 2.51 SFROTZ(6)