List of games that don't work 100% (using an iPod Touch)

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I am currently using Frotz 1.6 (the latest at the time of writing) using an 
iPod Touch iOS 5 (or whatever Apple's calling it. Also, don't ask me about the 
gen. It was bought in January 2013 and let's leave it at that).

This is to be a list of every game that doesn't, at present, really work 
smashingly on Frotz, as well as the reason why, as far as I could tell. I will 
add to it as I play the games. This list will include known problems, such as 
the .z6 games, because it's as well to have all these things in a big list and 
watch it dwindle to nothingness. :)

Let's begin.

007 - Alto Secreto: Crashes, simply put.
222 Contra el Cangrejo: after some seconds of working nicely, some weirdness 
ensues. The line that indicates where my text will go jumps up and down, I stop 
seeing what I'm writing, and before long, crash.

Incidently, there may be some issues with some Spanish games, probably the same 
issues that there are in Git (nevertheless they work fine on Glulx).

Balances (Glulx version): the problem is mostly due to the size of the screen, 
and the size of the hyperlinks. If we could pinch/zoom them, as per another 
suggestion, it would be perfect.

Glkchess: the display is quite off. Images are chopped in the middle. Without 
pinching, it's also not really playable. With pinching, however...

zRogue: I know, I know, it's an abuse, you don't *have* to run it. But it 
starts to display surprisingly well. Then something goes FUBAR and it 
completely stops responding. At which point there's nothing to do but to 
totally remove the game with DiskAid; because Frotz will save it as is, in its 
unresponsive state. ;)

Z-Chess: completely unplayable without arrow keys. I understand this is very 
specific, so a suggestion would be to define, in Frotz's settings whether not 
the arrow keys were currently emulated, and let the user define which keys 
would do, for the duration of the session. It's a bit of a hoop, yes, but very 
few games require this (which I know is an argument against it being 
implemented at all, naturally).

I will keep you posted as I play (might be a while since I'm currently playing 
a puzzle fest!). Feel free to add to this.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by ilprimoc...@gmail.com on 27 Jan 2013 at 11:16

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El Extraño Caso again - curious one, now. Double-tapping a word shows the same 
effects of double-tapping in "An Apple from Nowhere", making it impossible to 
double-tap any given word (other letters will be selected).

I actually dug a little deeper here. Turns out that this game uses a fancy 
image for the first letter of every important bit of text, like a description, 
similar to an old book. And takes care to indent the next couple of lines 
appropriately. BUT, for some reason, the first time that we see the first 
description after the introduction (the introduction can be skipped, which was 
great for my testing) there is no such indentation (which makes the image of 
the letter obscure the following line, as per noted on previous bug reports of 
"images covering text").

So my findings are: if I don't give the indentation a chance to occur, by 
skipping the introduction, the bug DOES NOT HAPPEN, and I can double-tap at 
will. However, once I "LOOK" at the room, the indentation will adjust itself, 
and every attempt now to double-tap a word will be thwarted. It's like the text 
I'm reading is overlayed on top of the text that iFrotz is reading, and when I 
select any given word, iFrotz will give me the word that it finds at the place 
where I double-tap.

I hope I'm not being too confusing... I think I explained it best in the "An 
Apple from Nowhere" comment.

Original comment by ilprimoc...@gmail.com on 5 Mar 2013 at 1:00

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I haven't looked into this yet, but I have a couple of comments.

The performance issues are most likely due to thread synchronization issues.  
The game engine (ZM or glk) runs in a separate thread than the UI, because that 
was the easiest way to architect it so that the UI was still responsive while 
the game is busy.  However, this means that Frotz has to pass messages between 
threads for every UI-related update, and for graphics operations, the latency 
can cause performance issues.  

To avoid spelunking in the filesystem to delete an autosave, you can do this:
 Go to the Frotz settings (in the Settings app, not Frotz) and turn off 'auto start on launch'.
 Launch Frotz, go to the game with the problem, and click the disclosure arrow, then click on the 'restart' arrow on the left side of the play/button.  That will start the game without using the autosave.  You can then manually restore your latest manual save.

I hope to start working on Frotz again and addressing all of these issues soon, 
with a new release planned sometime in the summer.   Hopefully I can figure out 
a way to speed up the thread synchronization and improve graphics performance.

Craig

Original comment by spath...@gmail.com on 17 May 2013 at 9:13

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Thank you very much, those comments are enlightening and the tip re the 
autosave is much appreciated! I hope you understand that, with all these 
reports, I have no intention of *rushing* you. It's my *pleasure* to aid in 
what way I can, and turns out to be testing, the future development of this 
great app.

Original comment by ilprimoc...@gmail.com on 17 May 2013 at 9:16

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Il Verso dei Morti - similar to "Glass Boxes", the images aren't resized but 
cropped. I am unsure whether this is something to do with the interpreter or 
the specifics of the code use.

Original comment by ilprimoc...@gmail.com on 20 May 2013 at 10:09

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Insider Information - this curious, unusual little game is actually unwinanble 
without arrow key support. If you load it up and type "type 2" "type candela" 
you'll get treated to "a page of source code". You navigate the various pages 
with the arrow keys. Any key OTHER than the arrow keys will exit the perusing 
mode. It's impossible, currently, in iFrotz, to read anything other than page 
0, and this has information important for finishing the game.

Original comment by ilprimoc...@gmail.com on 8 Jun 2013 at 11:48

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Insomnio de una noche de verano - has sound that doesn't play yet. But the game 
itself seems to run fine otherwise.

Original comment by ilprimoc...@gmail.com on 19 Jun 2013 at 9:46

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Isolda's Eyes - This game uses music, not yet supported by iFrotz. Seems to be 
otherwise playable, though.

Original comment by ilprimoc...@gmail.com on 25 Jun 2013 at 9:22

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Journey - More info in this one. It doesn't have graphics, so if it relies on 
them a la Zork Zero, it's unfinishable, but it's playable. With some quirks.

The game can be played in three ways, and here are how they work - or not - in 
iFrotz.

"Click an option to select it". Obviously, that one fails completely, as no 
mouse seems to be emulated by tapping, or at least by tapping what iFrotz 
considers to be the status line. Considering that tapping is a necessary thing 
in iFrotz already, and short of a toggleable "mouse mode" there's no real way 
to get around it, and this is the only game so far where it's become really an 
isse, it's probably not worth spending much time with.

"Use the arrow keys and ENTER to select". Without the arrow keys on iFrotz, 
this option is obviously useless, but if iFrotz were to support arrow keys, as 
other games also have need of it... there would still be the problem that 
apparently nothing gets highlighted. More on that below.

"Press SPACEBAR to toggle between the columns and the first letter of the 
command to execute it". In this way the game is playable (hurray!) but nothing 
ever gets highlighted. Nothing I can see, at least. Internally, it DOES toggle 
between the columns as I press space bar, and once I get used to it I can 
always guess which column I'm currently in... but it's a handicap and no 
mistake.

Original comment by ilprimoc...@gmail.com on 28 Jun 2013 at 9:47

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No, Quixe is Javascript and Frotz is written in C and Objective C.
It uses the git glulx interpreter (not to be use with the source code control 
system of the same name).

Original comment by spath...@gmail.com on 6 Nov 2013 at 8:02

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That's not it, then. Well, worth a shot. Thanks for the info.

Original comment by ilprimoc...@gmail.com on 6 Nov 2013 at 8:07