serious problem with a comp game

Dan Shiovitz wrote:
> But to take another example from the comp, has anyone been able to get
> Visocica to run? It appears that it may require some kind of DOS
> emulator to get it to work, but to the best of my knowledge nobody's
> managed it.

Nope. The game doesn't even run on DOSBox.
 >> Stay informed about: serious problem with a comp game 

Dan Shiovitz wrote:

> But to take another example from the comp, has anyone been able to get
> Visocica to run? It appears that it may require some kind of DOS
> emulator to get it to work, but to the best of my knowledge nobody's
> managed it.

How to get it to run:
1) Rename visocica.exe to visocica.zip
2) Unzip it.
3) Run the resulting .exe file.

--
Matthew
 >> Stay informed about: serious problem with a comp game 

"Dan Shiovitz" <dbs DeleteThis @cs.wisc.edu> skrev i meddelandet
news:egrhbt$7n0$1@cascadia.drizzle.com...
> In article <AvbYg.19908$E02.7830@newsb.telia.net>,
> Jacek Pudlo <jacek DeleteThis @jacek.jacek> wrote:
>>It's a Glulx game and it crashes the interpreter with a nasty "*** fatal
>>error: Illegal instruction ***". The following sequence causes the crash.
> [..]
>
> There've actually been at least two threads on this already, Jacek,
> though no doubt you missed both of them

As a matter of fact, I did miss them.

>>Should I contact the author? The organizer? Should I mark the game down,
>>or
>>abstain from judging it? I'm in a moral conundrum. Help me out, guys.
>
> Obviously, the nice thing about the comp judging system is that you
> should include whatever factors in your score that you personally feel
> are relevant.

It appears the game crashes with Gargoyle on *all* major platforms, not only
Windows, but also Linux and Mac. And it crashes at the very *beginning*. How
the author + 8 testers missed that one is, frankly, beyond me.

> This is an interesting general question, though. Stephen's policy
> seems to be to give a break to games that work fine on one interpreter
> but not on another.

That would have been a sensible approach, had the comp had 5 entries instead
of 40+.
 >> Stay informed about: serious problem with a comp game 

In article <AvbYg.19908$E02.7830@newsb.telia.net>,
Jacek Pudlo <jacek.TakeThisOut@jacek.jacek> wrote:
>It's a Glulx game and it crashes the interpreter with a nasty "*** fatal
>error: Illegal instruction ***". The following sequence causes the crash.
[..]

There've actually been at least two threads on this already, Jacek,
though no doubt you missed both of them (you can find them by
searching on google groups for "floatpoint gargoyle", unquoted). The
general conclusion has been to use the glulxe.exe executable rather
than the default git.exe (both of which are included with Gargoyle),
and that this will make it work fine. Iain's said it seems to be a bug
in git.

>Should I contact the author? The organizer? Should I mark the game down, or
>abstain from judging it? I'm in a moral conundrum. Help me out, guys.

Obviously, the nice thing about the comp judging system is that you
should include whatever factors in your score that you personally feel
are relevant.

This is an interesting general question, though. Stephen's policy
seems to be to give a break to games that work fine on one interpreter
but not on another. He doesn't have any control over how people vote,
of course, but he does generally post instructions on the comp page
for working around issues that seem to be terp/game incompatibilies
(I'm actually susprised he hasn't posted about the Floatpoint issue).

But to take another example from the comp, has anyone been able to get
Visocica to run? It appears that it may require some kind of DOS
emulator to get it to work, but to the best of my knowledge nobody's
managed it.

--
Dan Shiovitz :: dbs.TakeThisOut@cs.wisc.edu :: http://www.drizzle.com/~dans
"He settled down to dictate a letter to the Consolidated Nailfile and
Eyebrow Tweezer Corporation of Scranton, Pa., which would make them
realize that life is stern and earnest and Nailfile and Eyebrow Tweezer
Corporations are not put in this world for pleasure alone." -PGW
 >> Stay informed about: serious problem with a comp game 

Jacek Pudlo wrote:
> It appears the game crashes with Gargoyle on *all* major platforms, not only
> Windows, but also Linux and Mac. And it crashes at the very *beginning*. How
> the author + 8 testers missed that one is, frankly, beyond me.

That's odd. I managed to run it fine on a gargoyle-derived version of
the Glulx interpreter on Linux. Did earlier versions use Glulxe or
something?

--Michael
 >> Stay informed about: serious problem with a comp game 

On Sat, Oct 14, 2006 at 09:26:31PM +0000, Jacek Pudlo wrote:
[...]
> It appears the game crashes with Gargoyle on *all* major platforms,
> not only Windows, but also Linux and Mac. And it crashes at the very
> *beginning*. How the author + 8 testers missed that one is, frankly,
> beyond me.
[...]

They were probably told to use glulxe. And no, it does not crash right
at the *beginning*, at least not for me. I first ran it on Gargoyle /
Linux, and it worked up until I entered the embassy, crashing at random
points thereafter. After posting to this newsgroup, I received a swift
reply to use glulxe directly (the one shipped with Gargoyle works), and
I haven't had a problem with the game since.

To be honest, though, I don't feel the author should be penalized for
this one, because it's *Gargoyle's fault* for using git by default when
it should be using glulxe. Since the author obviously doesn't use
Gargoyle (otherwise she would have seen this problem immediately), and
any valid glulx terp does work (git is obsolete and can't handle newer
games), one can hardly expect her to anticipate this particular problem.

The content of the game itself, though, is another story.


QF

--
People tell me that I'm paranoid, but they're just out to get me.
 >> Stay informed about: serious problem with a comp game 

<matthew.wightman DeleteThis @gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1160868050.107729.163800@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>
> Dan Shiovitz wrote:
>
>> But to take another example from the comp, has anyone been able
>> to get
>> Visocica to run? It appears that it may require some kind of DOS
>> emulator to get it to work, but to the best of my knowledge
>> nobody's
>> managed it.
>
> How to get it to run:
> 1) Rename visocica.exe to visocica.zip
> 2) Unzip it.
> 3) Run the resulting .exe file.

Thanks for pointing that out, it would never have occurred to me
otherwise. But after doing all that, I find the game is in German
(as iis the accompanying walkthrough and readme) and my German's
just not good enough to attempt it. Am I missing something else?

-- Eric
 >> Stay informed about: serious problem with a comp game 

<quickfur.RemoveThis@quickfur.ath.cx> skrev i meddelandet
news:20061015053629.GA11000@crystal...
> On Sat, Oct 14, 2006 at 09:26:31PM +0000, Jacek Pudlo wrote:
> [...]
>> It appears the game crashes with Gargoyle on *all* major platforms,
>> not only Windows, but also Linux and Mac. And it crashes at the very
>> *beginning*. How the author + 8 testers missed that one is, frankly,
>> beyond me.
> [...]
>
> They were probably told to use glulxe. And no, it does not crash right
> at the *beginning*, at least not for me. I first ran it on Gargoyle /
> Linux, and it worked up until I entered the embassy, crashing at random
> points thereafter. After posting to this newsgroup, I received a swift
> reply to use glulxe directly (the one shipped with Gargoyle works), and
> I haven't had a problem with the game since.
>
> To be honest, though, I don't feel the author should be penalized for
> this one, because it's *Gargoyle's fault* for using git by default when
> it should be using glulxe. Since the author obviously doesn't use
> Gargoyle (otherwise she would have seen this problem immediately), and
> any valid glulx terp does work (git is obsolete and can't handle newer
> games), one can hardly expect her to anticipate this particular problem.

One can't? Really? Even to include a little warning at the beginning of the
game? Something like "Don't use Gargoyle, since it crashes the game" + a
link to Glulxe and Spatterlight. Would that *really* be too much to ask?
After all, the author *must* have been aware of the problem. I just can't
believe that eight testers (including the meticulous Dan Shiovitz) missed
it. Remember, I'm not the only player who's using Gargoyle.

Oversight, or arrogance -- you decide.

> The content of the game itself, though, is another story.

Which we are honour-bound not to discuss. You, Sir, are casting doubts on
your moral integrity.
 >> Stay informed about: serious problem with a comp game 

Jacek Pudlo wrote:
> [...]
> One can't? Really? Even to include a little warning at the beginning of the
> game? Something like "Don't use Gargoyle, since it crashes the game" + a
> link to Glulxe and Spatterlight. Would that *really* be too much to ask?

No need to. The crash itself is an indication that Gargoyle isn't
working, don't you think? :*|
 >> Stay informed about: serious problem with a comp game 

"Nikos Chantziaras" <realnc RemoveThis @arcor.de> skrev i meddelandet
news:egtcbp$1g9u$1@ulysses.noc.ntua.gr...
> Jacek Pudlo wrote:
>> [...]
>> One can't? Really? Even to include a little warning at the beginning of
>> the game? Something like "Don't use Gargoyle, since it crashes the game"
>> + a link to Glulxe and Spatterlight. Would that *really* be too much to
>> ask?
>
> No need to. The crash itself is an indication that Gargoyle isn't
> working, don't you think? :*|

But at the moment of the crash, the player doesn't *know* that. So your (and
the author's) argument is equivalent to a car salesman not informing the
buyer about the faulty brakes, figuring there's "No need to. The crash
itself will be an indication that the brakes are not working." For all the
player knows, downloading a different interpreter may be a waste of time.
And time -- as any judge will tell you -- is precious. My take on this is
that it's the author's responsibility to inform the player about interpreter
problems. Not doing so, wasting a judge's precious time, is plain arrogance.
 >> Stay informed about: serious problem with a comp game 

Jacek Pudlo wrote:
> [...]
> But at the moment of the crash, the player doesn't *know* that. So your (and
> the author's) argument is equivalent to a car salesman not informing the
> buyer about the faulty brakes, figuring there's "No need to. The crash
> itself will be an indication that the brakes are not working." For all the
> player knows, downloading a different interpreter may be a waste of time.
> [...]

Bah. You're boring. A car with no brakes is a thrill. An adrenaline
rush. I voted 10 for that game.
 >> Stay informed about: serious problem with a comp game 

On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 13:38:34 GMT, Jacek Pudlo <jacek.TakeThisOut@jacek.jacek> wrote:
>
>"Nikos Chantziaras" <realnc.TakeThisOut@arcor.de> skrev i meddelandet
>news:egtcbp$1g9u$1@ulysses.noc.ntua.gr...
>> Jacek Pudlo wrote:
>>> [...]
>>> One can't? Really? Even to include a little warning at the beginning of
>>> the game? Something like "Don't use Gargoyle, since it crashes the game"
>>> + a link to Glulxe and Spatterlight. Would that *really* be too much to
>>> ask?
>>
>> No need to. The crash itself is an indication that Gargoyle isn't
>> working, don't you think? :*|
>
>But at the moment of the crash, the player doesn't *know* that. So your (and
>the author's) argument is equivalent to a car salesman not informing the
>buyer about the faulty brakes, figuring there's "No need to. The crash
>itself will be an indication that the brakes are not working." For all the
>player knows, downloading a different interpreter may be a waste of time.
>And time -- as any judge will tell you -- is precious. My take on this is
>that it's the author's responsibility to inform the player about interpreter
>problems. Not doing so, wasting a judge's precious time, is plain arrogance.
>
>
>
>
>
>

But you wouldn't expect a car dealer to tell you that the car won't
run if you put leaded gas in it. You wouldn't expect him to warn you
that if you drive over nails, the tires will deflate.
A car with faulty brakes is a broken car. A game that doesn't run *on
a broken interpreter* is not a broken game. It's the terp that's at
fault, not the game.
 >> Stay informed about: serious problem with a comp game 

Jacek Pudlo wrote:
>> I voted 10 for that game.
>
> If you're referring to game in question, you've just disqualified yourself
> as a judge.

I used a fake email address. Actually, I used about 60 email addresses
and voted 10 for that game 60 times.
 >> Stay informed about: serious problem with a comp game