5.0.23 out now!

[Campbell]

ADRIFT 5 release 23 is finally available for download. There are two Windows downloads available. If you have not tried v5 yet, the easiest way is to download the full setup from http://www.adrift.co/files/ADRIFT5Setup.zip. If you already have a working version, you can download the files only version from http://www.adrift.co/files/ADRIFT5.zip. There is also a Linux version available from http://www.adrift.co/files/adrift-5.0.23.tar.gz.

The main highlights in this release are Direction Restrictions and Custom Status bar, plus the normal set of bug fixes.

The full list of changes is:

Enhancements
Optionalise CharacterName replacement
Export Modules Unique Prefix Key
WebRunner map
Allow Status Bar to be Modified
Direction Restrictions

Bug Fixes
Error when chosing location group in direction window
Looping sound incorrect converted from 3.9/4.0
Expressions in text mess us on entry
Executable crashes on restarting an adventure
Any character who has property
Character locks
Error in "Give object to character" task
Using AGAIN in Runner Issue
v4 difference where v5 library tasks execute
Inherited properties
Unrecoverable Runner Crash
Functions Can Cause Runner Error
Graphic problem
Functions Issue
Character walk name corrupt
Can't store GIF in Blorb/EXE
Events executing specific tasks
%Loop% variable when used in array subscript returns 0 or 1 instead of the proper loop index
Animated gifs do not work

As always, let me know if you find any major problems.

[adriftste]

Thanks for this release.

Quick question re: the new context sensitive menus in games options. How does this work? Is it based on the auto fill priority - if auto fill is set to 0 then that task won't appear in the menu?

[Lazzah]

Yay! Direction Restriction Messages work at last!!!!!

[Po. Prune]

Could any one please explain (by example) how the advanced option is working in the option menu?
It says a lot about executing tasks, but I'm not getting it.
Thank you.

[Po. Prune]

Just for info:
I loaded D-Day into the new developer and made a test run. The intro picture looked like this... Note the grey square...
It's not just on the intro picture, it goes on through out the game.
Help?

[Campbell]

Thanks for this release.

Quick question re: the new context sensitive menus in games options. How does this work? Is it based on the auto fill priority - if auto fill is set to 0 then that task won't appear in the menu?

Yes, I'm pretty sure that's what I did (not on PC at mo to double check). I don't think it should 'give the game away' because it's using General tasks which should be common verbs to use on the nouns in question. It should make it fairly easy to play games using the mouse alone tho.

[adriftste]

A few issues some minor but a couple are critical (for me):
Objects created with a key prefix are not recognised in functions or descriptions.
http://www.adrift.co/cgi/adrift.cgi?pag ... ugid=18485
Problems with 2 (or more) functions in a description.
http://www.adrift.co/cgi/adrift.cgi?pag ... ugid=18484

[Peter Pears]

Excuse me, I commented on Campbell's blog about what I'm about to say, and then I saw this thread and I thought this was a much, much more appropriate place for it.

Basically, I've been having severe trouble running v4 games with the newest ADRIFT - I get a "Error loading Adventure: Character entry chain of incorrect format" (I get the error in Portuguese, so I'm translating) on a lot of games. Off the top of my head (and the start of my collection) I can name "A Day at the Iachini House", "A Day in the Life 3 - Akari's Story" and "A Dream Come True", but I've idly tried opening other games and well, I get this a lot - though I did use to get some OTHER error on some OTHER games as well. When informed of this in the IntFiction forums, Campbell said he thought he knew what the problem was, and that it was fixed in the (then) most recent (and yet unreleased) version. Well, I'm sorry to say apparently only half of the problem remains - that other error I got, which I can't really remember now, seems to be fixed, but a lot of games still crash with the first error I mentioned.

Now, here's the thing - I can't believe I'm the only one to whom this is happening, but I can't find any mention of anyone else having these problems. Please, if you can run the three games I mentioned with the offline, Windows version of ADRIFT - newest release - please let me know. Then I'll know it's a problem on MY end (maybe because I have ADRIFTS 3.9, 4 and 5 installed). Otherwise, then it's confirmed to be a bug of some sort.

Also, I get a "Error loading audio: DirectX audio error - Application error" when trying to play "A School day" - but no similar error when playing "The Murder of Jack Morely", another game which uses sound.

Cheers

[Campbell]

Can you give me download links? I found Akari's Story and A Dream Come True on Delron, and they seem to load ok for me.

[Campbell]

Actually I think I may have found a problem, to do with bracket sequences. I don't get an error on load though.

[Peter Pears]

Ok, I've done some testing. I've deleted Adrift 3.8 and 3.9 and v5, and reinstalled v5 (incidently, the installer still installs build 5.0.22). I uninstalled v4 and uninstalled/reinstalled v5 again.

I still do get that error, but only on 3.90 games (v4 games are working very nicely). I don't know what to do about it, and am considering just leaving it be - it would be great if ADRIFT v5 could support all previous versions, but if it can't I'll just keep a runner for each version. Unwieldy, because I can only associate .taf files with one version of ADRIFT (wish I could rename them to t39 and t40 and such, but the runner looks at the extension, not the content, unlike other applications). But I guess it's the way it has to be.

The weird thing is how no-one else seems to have this problem...

EDIT - Oh, I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. I have all versions of ADRIFT installed in "C:\Interactive Fiction\Tools and Interpreters\ADRIFT", subfolders "3.8", "3.9", "4.x" and "5.x". If you need any other information that might help track this down, just ask.

EDIT 2 - Oh, by the way... I did play "A Day at the Iachini House" in Adrift v5 (even filed a bug report about a problem in the map). So at one point, it did work... I think it was release .22 that broke it. For me, anyways...

[Campbell]

incidently, the installer still installs build 5.0.22

The download.com site takes a few days to update. The Mirror link should have the latest setup exe.

it would be great if ADRIFT v5 could support all previous versions, but if it can't I'll just keep a runner for each version.

It should support 3.9, 4.0 and 5.0. I'm not sure there's a great need to support 3.8 unless you think otherwise?

EDIT 2 - Oh, by the way... I did play "A Day at the Iachini House" in Adrift v5 (even filed a bug report about a problem in the map). So at one point, it did work... I think it was release .22 that broke it. For me, anyways...

I can't find a link to that one.

[Peter Pears]

The download.com site takes a few days to update. The Mirror link should have the latest setup exe.

Ok.

It should support 3.9, 4.0 and 5.0. I'm not sure there's a great need to support 3.8 unless you think otherwise?

No, I agree there's only, what, half a dozen games made with 3.8? It would be über-sweet it ADRIFT did support them, but I appreciate that at this time, ADRIFT is concentrating on moving forward, and there's plenty of stuff left to do yet. Maybe in the future, when v5 is more stable, it might make sense to look back into this - for completion's sake. But at the moment, I agree that it's pretty much bottom-of-the-barrel priority.

I can't find a link to that one.

http://ifwiki.org/index.php/A_Day_at_the_Iachini_House

I quite enjoyed this game, actually.

[DazaKiwi]

Thanks for this release.

Quick question re: the new context sensitive menus in games options. How does this work? Is it based on the auto fill priority - if auto fill is set to 0 then that task won't appear in the menu?

Yes, I'm pretty sure that's what I did (not on PC at mo to double check). I don't think it should 'give the game away' because it's using General tasks which should be common verbs to use on the nouns in question. It should make it fairly easy to play games using the mouse alone tho.

The context sensitive menus is another great feature, however i still haven't figured out why some custom commands appear and some not. I was wondering if a tick box should be add for user to make sure a command is included in that context menu? Perhaps the player at the start of a game can choose if they want to have a basic context or advanced, basically allowing a beginner to use it as a help feature or play just using the mouse.

Even though listing all the commands you can issue with a given object tends to remove the sense of freedom, discovery, its still giving the player a choice that would be far less frustrating than guessing the verb or phrasing something correctly where a custom command is concerned, guessing the verb is one big stumbling block to players. So i think the user should be able to include any new commands they add that they want to appear in the context menus.

Also this would be good for conversation topics too. Maybe clicking on Ask Character opens up a secondary popup like a sub-branch with topic questions. Which would make the main context menus less cluttered with being able to have a tree like context menus. Somehow have topic groups? where new things discovered by player is moved to a group called Memory (like short term or long term memory), which could be done with specific discoveries important to the story via in actions so the user is always in control of what is important enough to be put in the memory group, some of which will be red herrings of course. The topic list of a NPC is then compared to players memory group and only ones that match are listed in the context menus for Ask or tell. Perhaps keywords or tags will have to be used for discoveries player makes, eg. reading a note that mentions a character or place. Which as soon as player reads the note, in that read task/action that name or place mentioned in the note is added to the PC memory group. The info might be a red herring or has no further leads but its up to the player to find out what is important. So not every object the player looks at or picks up will be listed, that would be silly, just those marked perhaps in a property by the user as they create their game.

Maybe some NPC gets annoyed if asked too many questions at once, so the player has to choose carefully what to ask and use their own intuition which topics the npc will likely know something about.

Adding a Note system into it as well..Adrift could do with a note system so why not implement one in this PC memory idea.
Perhaps the player can also type a command like "remember strange sign on wall" the location and object description can be stored in on the fly as a conversation topic, which means you could ask a npc about strange sign..the output could be something like a default sentence with inserts of object and its location, example in the ().. as "i came across a %objectName% (strange sign on the wall) at the %LocationOf[%ObjectName%]% (corner of Wellington drive), does that mean anything to you?" Runner then could ask player do they want to add a note to this memory. Maybe a 200 word limit, this is attached to the memory of object, character or location.
The said object could even have a alternative description just for the memory feature, being shorter when used in a default question output to a npc.."the strange sign on the wall depicted a headless horseman.." this would be more for narrative flow than anything.

This memory group could be accessed by the player too, to go over clues found ..eg. "recall all objects noted" or "recall all locations noted"...a context menu could popup with the list pertaining to which category player then can click on one and it will output the location it was in and its brief description (or one specifically for memory) followed with..and you noted..blah blah.

This would allow the player to make notes to refer back to later, being able to go back to a location or object or a character if they want to reexamine/re-question they will know where to go.
Adding to a note system, being able to view the map and all the locations currently has been explored, do you think it would be handy to be able to click on a location and a list of objects/characters that belong in the memory group be listed there? making a large game easier for a player to go back to a location, the map click list thing could be a form of memory access too. Maybe setting a waypoint for a location you want to go back to and the player will be given a direction to go as they move location to location on their way there. This could be only available after asking a npc for directions or a npc will take the player there for a coin.

Excuse me if this post is little too wordy and a little confusing..i hope the majority of it makes sense its late here.