Vezza - Agon

Vezza is a tool for running Infocom compatible (Z-machine) text adventure games on the Agon Light or Console 8. It is designed to run only from the /mos directory. Screenshots of example games are provided to the right including zracer (a terminal based racing car game), Beyond Zork (an Infocom classic), and rogue (an early dungeon crawler converted to run on z-machine). Game files can be found all over the internet, including Index: if-archive/games/zcode (ifarchive.org) Recommended games include genuine Infocom games, PunyInform games, and games compiled with Inform 5 and Inform 6. 

NOTE: VezzaVT version uses terminal mode to enable extended text features. This causes issues with file creation in old versions of MOS (v1.03 and below) due to a known limitation. The old version remains available if required.

Common Features:

• 100% hand crafted assembly coded for maximum speed
• Full use of 80 character screen width
• Supports z1-z8 format games (note: no graphics support for z6)
  
• Runs as a moslet (from the /mos directory) for command line use
• Game files loaded into memory for speed, supporting up to 448K in game file size
  
• Colour support
• Timed input (allows real time games - this version has full timer support)
  
• Command line switch '-t' to optionally enable the Tandy bit

VDP mode version additional features (VDP 2.8.1+ required):

• NEW: "-fx" option to use one of 9 built-in fonts (x = 1...9)
• Supports "font 3" to draw semi-graphics map in Beyond Zork
• Arrow keys and function keys F1-F10 are supported
• MOS/VDP native, so exit to MOS supported
• Reverse text supported
• Underline supported (VDP 2.8.1+ version)
• All special/accented characters are supported

Terminal mode version additional features:

• Command list switch '-h' to to have more rows of text on the screen
  
• Arrow keys and function keys F1-F4 are supported
• Graceful exit to MOS supported on Console8 VDP 2.2.1 and above
• Bold, underline and reverse text supported
  
• Accented characters are displayed where available, otherwise are translated
• Named game save and load (note: will not overwrite previous saves and only shows a generic error message. Save requires the modified MOS  otherwise it will cause Agon to hang.)

Review:

Don't just take my word for it that this is a fun way to open up gaming opportunities for Agon Light, check out the review here at Agon News Network.

Where to get games from:

There are many places on the internet to get the game files from, including:

• Classic Infocom games at the Obsessive Complete Infocom Catalog - look for the Solid Gold or Masterpieces versions, otherwise expect quite a few bugs
• Index: if-archive/games/zcode (ifarchive.org) is an archive of  hundreds of compatible games written since the Infocom era - note that quality varies and some are not designed to run on 8 bit systems so your mileage may vary
• PunyInform built games are new and designed for 8-bit systems. There are many new games including jam entries here on itch.io: PunyJam#1 PunyJam#2 PunyJam#3
• Modern commercial quality games already pre-packaged on a boot disk, (also using PunyInform and designed for 8 bit) include Hibernated 1 and Tristam Island

Known limitations:

• Game exit cannot exit back to MOS on vdp 1.04 and below
• Some extremely large modern game files do not fit into RAM (>448k) - this does not impact any Infocom games.
• z6 game files emulation is experimental and does not support graphics
• Sound files are not yet supported
• Arrow keys and function keys are not as responsive as expected due to issue with the VDP code (Terminal mode versions only)
• Underline/Italic not supported (Native MOS/VDP version only)