Very large (400+ boards) ZZT game

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Wym04fsu
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Very large (400+ boards) ZZT game

Post by Wym04fsu »

I have an idea for a game that I've been working on (on and off again for about 10 years now) that is extremely large. I know ZZT isn't necessarily the most suitable option for a game with the size I'm hoping for (think Final Fantasy games.) So far there are nine parts to it, and I've only fleshed out the first part.

Unfortunately, the first part is about 60 boards, not including all the STK and transferred boards etc, and memory issues are starting to develop.

Obviously I wasn't going to try to fit 450 boards in one world, but I have a lot of flags, objects, "stuff" going on. I can't really pinpoint what the problem is, but it made me realize I have to be more conscientious of saving space. Haven't really been giving that much thought yet lol

Ideally, I would like the entire game to be connected, e.g when the player finishes the first part with 450 health they start the second part of the game with 450 health, etc. I thought I saw something in the Utilities section of this site about transporting between worlds in-game, but I can't find it now, I stumbled upon it before by chance, and I can't find it on my computer. Pretty sure I didn't make this up, but I might have misinterpreted what the program was meant to do...

Anyways, if anybody has any idea what I'm talking about, or just any suggestions, aside from general memory saving tips, about very large ZZT games I would appreciate it. I'm not much for programming, so I'm hesitant about starting this process over and trying to figure out SuperZZT, Megazeux, etc. Thanks

P.S I don't know if in the middle of programming and suddenly being unable to save "...try saving the game with a blank formatted disk message" and the title screen going awall when I try to edit it is associated with a specific error, but if it is please let me know, thanks.

I seem to have started all of my paragraphs with an adverb(?). Craziness...
Microwave
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Post by Microwave »

http://zzt.org/utilities/

The last one, ZZTransfer.

I don't have many memory saving tips, just eliminate objects(both pre-made and programmed) that you don't need, and condense code.

I think Kevedit or ZZTAE tells you how much memory you're using on each board so you could use those to monitor it.
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Commodore
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Post by Commodore »

you can start running into problems with boards getting close to 15k and when world sizes get between 280-300k, it's best to use kevedit or zztae to check the size of individual boards, but you can also export the board and look at the size of the .brd file.

My advice for keeping memory down is to keep your code as tight as possible. put commands that follow movement instructions right on top of each other:

/e/e/e/e#die

use short labels and flag names but be careful because I think zzt can confuse similar label names.

Don't use the full command #send object:message, #object:message works just the same.

If an object uses a lot of #restart replace it with just a #re then put :re at the top of the code. That can certainly save some bytes.

And as Microwave said eliminate non-essential objects. Try to use text, dead objects and such, and blinkwall rays. (an external editor will help you here). But make sure the player can't touch whatever has had its stats forcibly removed, it will crash the game.

If a lot of your size is in text the player has to read, you can link your object to an external txt file, so long as you don't care that people can look at it if they want to. I forget the syntax for this offhand but I think it's in the help file.

As for transferring info. ZZTtransfer will work (and you'll make my buddy happy) but as far as I know you'll be the first to actually use it. Other than that you'd have to have some sort of code you enter at the beginning of the new file and just be satisfied with partial accuracy.
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Dr. Dos
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Post by Dr. Dos »

Visit the Museum of ZZT
Follow Worlds of ZZT on Twitter

Apologies for the old post you may have just read.
Wym04fsu
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Post by Wym04fsu »

Thanks for the replies!

I took a look at that article by Mad Tom about memory conservation...I think I'm just going to start over, lol. Wish I had learned about that bind command....

I'm pretty new here, but I'm just guessing that a majority of the games people make with ZZT are not very big in scope. Unfortunately I'm not very savvy with programming so I'm kind of limited to ZZT-OOP to make this game (no offense, of course, you can do some pretty cool things with ZZT.)
Wym04fsu
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Post by Wym04fsu »

Really pretty picture, Microwave.
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Zenith Nadir
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Post by Zenith Nadir »

<dan_death> one day u Nadir,or i sould say Mad Tom,was walking down the street,and all of a sudden an Italian Mafia assulted him and left him in the desert to die,and at night the mad tom wasn't dead yet,so he starded walking,but the he heard a howel,it was cyotes,they tore him limb from limb,rip is brains out,suck all his blood,and tore out his inteastines.THE END
he looked upon the world and saw it was still depraved :fvkk:

Overall: Rotton egg for breakfast
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