Post #421012

2026-02-25 11:47 UTC

Today&#39;s &quot;I never saw Zork II do that before&quot; bug is... The JIGS-UP routine doesn&#39;t kill the player, it kills the current actor. That&#39;s a feature. But when a timer routine is run, it doesn&#39;t change the current actor back to the player. So simply by talking to the robot, I can save myself from death by timed event. I had hoped to use this on the Wizard, but apparently his action routine terminates too early. That too may be a bug, but one that cancels the first one. #Infocom

Replies (5)

@et_andersson@idlethumbs.social 2026-02-26 10:45

It does work on the demon, though. #Infocom

Open ##2397226
@et_andersson@idlethumbs.social 2026-02-26 13:41

If I understand things correctly, when you type "ROBOT, something" the "ROBOT" part is rewritten as a TELL action. V-TELL checks if there are more commands (the "something" part), and if there are it sets WINNER to PRSO and HERE to the winner's location. (Strictly speaking, it should probably use META-LOC instead of LOC.) The Wizard's action routine handles the TELL action before it can reach V-TELL, so WINNER never changes. Which is wrong, because he's supposed to respond to some commands.

Open ##2397227
@mike@sauropods.win 2026-02-26 14:38

@et_andersson@idlethumbs.social This is truly beautiful.

Open ##2397228
@brouhaha@mastodon.social 2026-02-26 15:29

@et_andersson@idlethumbs.social I liked giving commands to the aquarium, glacier, and some other inanimate objects. I think they ran out of attribute bits for objects, requiring some to be shared, but I haven't verified that. You can tell the aquarium to GO EAST, for example, and it might get eaten by a grue. Another fun one: > AQUARIUM, DROP BABY And then there's the ever popular: > READ UNICORN Possibly also a reused attribute bit? > READ STAND takes it, but it's still firmly bolted to the table.

Open ##2397229
@arcanetrivia@blorbo.social 2026-02-26 17:47

@et_andersson@idlethumbs.social It's neat that the grammar in the message printed is still handled properly - that it says "has died" and isn't just blindly inserting "The robot" in where "you" would normally be to yield "The robot have died."

Open ##2397232