The prompting of this is the playable Milliways: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe prototype. Infocom's sequel to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Work began right after HGG was done, at Infocom, but it got lost in development hell until the company closed. Someone found playable prototypes in 2008 but they are in Z-code. There is no version of the game for any given system. Most likely it was started and tested on Apple ][. But by 1989 the game was on it's 12th developer and moved to Melbourne House. I have no idea what systems to guess Melbourne House (Beam) was developing Z-code on at the time (did they even develop any Z-code games ever, or just publish it?). Melbourne/Beam were simultaneously transition to 16-bit consoles and newer computer systems at the time but still developing for MSX, CPC, IIgs, and MS-DOS. MS-DOS actually seems like the most likely _target_ but maybe they didn't know that at the time. Then again, it was at this time they were developing for Apple IIgs for the time and doing their last Apple II game (a system they seem to have mostly avoided for it's first 5 years. They only ported 4 of their 98 games to Apple ][ in a 6 year period until giving up on the system.
Anywho, unpackaged Z-Code prototype. Where does it go?
What to do with unpackaged interpreter games?
2 messages