Zorkington

zork west of house

Zork was not the first text adventure game, but it was the first to achieve commercial success.

In this project, you will create a version of Zork that takes place in the faraway kingdom of Burlington, Vermont.

Links

Tech

  • JavaScript
  • Terminal I/O
  • String parsing (for commands)
  • Word wrapping
  • State transition diagrams? [compsci]

Goals

  • understand state and state transitions, which are useful in many areas, e.g.
    • photo carousel
    • buttons, menus, other widgets
    • parsers
    • network protocols

Design

Your code will need to represent (or reify) several distinct states, including:

  • current room
  • room descriptions (immutable)
  • room connections (immutable)
  • room inventory (mutable)
  • player inventory (mutable)
  • player status (mutable) (hungry, tired, etc.)

Think about appropriate data structures for each of these. Note that you do not need to write code for these until you are actually implementing a story that requires them, but it is good to make a rough plan early on, to anticipate pitfalls and estimate how difficult upcoming stories will be.

Remember to refactor. Sometimes a data structure that works well for the simple case will need to be altered to work for the general case. In this project, the app will grow (more rooms, more commands) from story to story and your data structures should change to accomodate.

If you know about JavaScript classes and constructors, feel free to use them; otherwise you may save state in global variables like this:

let currentRoom = null;
function moveToRoom(newRoom) {
  if (canMoveToRoom(newRoom)) {
    currentRoom = newRoom;
  }
}

You may want to create a State Machine to represent the rooms.

And Don't Forget to Demo!

After implementing a story, before starting work on the next story...

  • Ask a teacher or fellow student if they have time to "play client" for a demo
  • Launch the program and let the client use it
  • The client should try to prove that the program does what the story says it's supposed to do
  • If the client rejects your story, keep coding until it works right, then do another demo

And during the day, take breaks, find other student teams and play each others' games!

Backlog

One Room

When the user launches the program

Then the console displays the following text

182 Main St.
You are standing on Main Street between Church and South Winooski.
There is a door here. A keypad sits on the handle.
On the door is a handwritten sign.
>_

(The chevron-and-underscore represents a prompt; the user should be able to type into it.)

And waits for input

And if the user types "gargle"

Then the game should output 

Sorry, I don't know how to gargle.

Read the sign

Given the player is in the room "182 Main St."

When the player types "read sign"

Then the game displays the text

The sign says "Welcome to Burlington Code Academy! Come on 
up to the third floor. If the door is locked, use the code
12345."

And returns to the prompt

Don't take the sign

Given the player is in the room 182 Main St.

When the player types take sign

Then the game displays the text

That would be selfish. How will other students find their way?

(assume " And returns to the prompt" after this and all future stories)

Blocked

Given the player is in the room 182 Main St.

When the player types open door

Then the game displays the text

The door is locked. There is a keypad on the door handle.

Speak friend and enter

Given the player is in the room 182 Main St.

When the player types enter code 12345 or key in 12345

Then the game displays the text

Success! The door opens. You enter the foyer and the door
shuts behind you.

And the player enters room 182 Main St. - Foyer

Unauthorized Access

Given the player is in the room 182 Main St.

When the player types enter code 54321 (or any code that is not 12345)

Then the game displays the text

Bzzzzt! The door is still locked.

And the player remains in room 182 Main St.

Foyer

Given the player is in 182 Main St. - Foyer

Then the game displays the text

You are in a foyer. Or maybe it's an antechamber. Or a 
vestibule. Or an entryway. Or an atrium. Or a narthex.
But let's forget all that fancy flatlander vocabulary,
and just call it a foyer. In Vermont, this is pronounced
"FO-ee-yurr".
A copy of Seven Days lies in a corner.

Inventory

Given the player is in 182 Main St. - Foyer

And the player has not yet picked up Seven Days

When the player types take paper or take seven days

Then the game displays the text

You pick up the paper and leaf through it looking for comics 
and ignoring the articles, just like everybody else does.

And the paper is added to the player's inventory

Display Inventory

Given the paper is in the player's inventory

When the player types i or inventory or take inventory

Then the game displays the text

You are carrying:
A copy of Seven Days, Vermont's Alt-Weekly

Drop Inventory

Given the copy of Seven Days is in the player's inventory

When the player types drop paper or drop seven days

Then the copy of Seven Days is removed from the player's inventory

And the copy of Seven Days is added to the current room's inventory

More rooms and more stories, e.g.

  • read paper or read seven days

  • go up or go upstairs

  • Alex C speaks gibberish until you get him a cup of coffee from Muddy's

    • then you can attend lecture or sit down or pair up or something

  • After class you are hungry (status) which makes your stomach growl before every prompt

    • buying and eating a slice of pizza at Mr. Mike's removes the status

  • xyzzy

Please write stories for each of these features before implementing them.

Icebox

  • Status line (showing room name)
  • Web User Interface for the game
  • write a word wrapping function and use it to format all output