Status Line

A z-machine interpreter
for the Pico-8

>play Zork on the Pico-8
You can't do that.

>say the magic word xyzzy
OK, now you can play Zork on the Pico-8.

>play Zork
West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

Welcome to Status Line

Status Line is a z-machine interpreter for the Pico-8. This allows the Pico-8 to run z-machine game files (past, present, and future), a game format best known from the classic Infocom text adventures of days gone by. Famous classics like Zork, Planetfall, Enchanter, and more can be enjoyed in the "cozy space" of the Pico-8.

Features

• Game graphics drawn "from the limitless imagery of your imagination" (according to an old Infocom advertisement)
• Can play almost every game in the "z3" format
  (notable exception: Seastalker; support is under investigation)
• Save/restore games in progress (see details below)
• Multiple color themes to recreate that "classic feel"
• Player-selectable text scroll speed
• Choose 24 or 12-hour clock for time-based games

Where Do I Find z3 Games to Play?

• Did you know the Infocom classics are archived on GitHub?
• There's also The Obsessively Complete Infocom Catalog.
• Have you ever checked out the Interactive Fiction Archive?
• Could I interest you in the Interactive Fiction Database?
• There are even games here on itch.io

How Do I Use Status Line?

When you launch Status Line, on-screen instructions will explain it to you. But the simple answer is, "Drag a z3 file into Status Line to begin playing." The game will load and initialize itself, then you'll see the introductory text appear. The Pico-8 has a very small screen, so sometimes "MORE" will appear as long text paginates. Hit any key to have the next page of text scroll onto screen.

I've Never Played a Text Adventure... Help!

Here's a handy guide for understanding the quirks and nuances that can often frustrate new players. Here's another great page with information for beginners.

I'm Inspired to Write My Own Text Adventure!

Great! To write a z3 game that is compatible with Status Line, I recommend you look into PunyInform

I Was Hoping for Cool CRT Effects :(

If you're on a Windows system try ShaderGlass. It is the tool I used to create the CRT effects for the banner graphic on this page. You can run it on top of *ANY* program, even the Windows desktop. It's fun and passes all mouse/keyboard/controller input through to the underlying applications. Here's Status Line with and without the effect.

Setting Preferences

At the title screen, hit the "Enter" key to open standard Pico-8 preferences. Player-selectable color themes, scroll speeds, and in-game clock options are found there. Your selections will persist as the defaults with each launch of Status Line.

Saved Games

When you `save` your game, you may use whatever filename you wish. Status Line will modify the filename with a unique identifier for the game you're playing.

Example: you save your game of Enchanter with the name `bedroom`. Later, when you "Restore" your saved game, you will find the file has been named `bedroom_32a7_save.p8l`. Status Line has appended your save game title with a unique identifier that associates it with the game in progress, and uses Pico-8's default file extension ".p8l"

Because all saved games share the same folder, this ensures that saved games from different games don't overwrite each other. Keeping your saved games in the default save folder will allow the `Restore` command to function smoothly.

When `restoring` a saved game, Status Line will ask you to "Drag in a _save.p8l file" and will open the default save folder for you. Drag-and-drop a save game with a matching identifier into Status Line to load and continue playing.

The Future of Status Line?

I am going to do my best to bring extended support with later updates. However, the tight limits of the Pico-8 may make some things impossible. Comprehensive support will likely need to wait until the debut of the Picotron.

Current goals are:

• Support Seastalker (google "seastalker sonar" to understand the problem)
• Get "sound effects" in for The Lurking Horror
• The text layout engine isn't as elegant as I'd like
• Robust cursor control (related to above point)
  
• Some opcodes that are difficult to handle gracefully on the Pico-8 are unimplemented
• Rework the memory subsystem to handle games over 128K
• General performance improvements
• Add support for z4 and z5 game files (e.g. A Mind Forever Voyaging and a vast library of post-Infocom Inform games)
• A blog post with notes of my learning process would be useful (especially to future me)

Known Issues

None at this time.

Notes on Downloads

• On first launch, the game may default to fullscreen. Open preferences ("enter" or "esc" key) and go to Options > Fullscreen to turn it off. This will allow you to use the file system drag-and-drop function and is a one-time setting.
• Windows and Mac users will likely get a security warning on first launch. I'm looking into ways to fix this, but right now it looks like it costs a lot of money to get the developer accounts needed to "sign" the app properly. If this is a deal-breaker for you, I totally understand.
• In the source code I tried to keep in comments to explain some decisions I made, and you can turn on logging for the various functions to watch the machine think (output to a text file).