Re: Inform: screen dimensions


22 Oct 1995 14:21:15 GMT

"Sam Hulick" <shulick@mango.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote:
> Actually, it matters not. It's the job of the interpreter to figure
> out the screen's maximum size. Code however you like.. let the
> interpreter take care of the dimensions and such.

Er, there's more to it than that. Many text adventure games have ASCII
graphic presentations of various sorts - in "Christminster" there's a
centered poem on the opening screen (width 60 characters) and an ASCII
graphic map (width 63 characters). In "Curses", there's the map of the
garden maze, the various hieroglyphics, and the extra bits of
information on the status line. And so on (think of "Beyond Zork" or
"Seastalker"). All of these features will look wrong if word-wrapped,
so the author has to take care to code them so that they look good on
small (and large) screens.

--
Gareth Rees