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I found out that the Kroz source code was released in GPL in 2009, approximately 20 years after release! Since anyone can make a new ZZT out of it, I thought someone might be interested in really modding it. and adding an editor if none is included.

So, What about giving it what it needs.

From 3d realms (GPL source code and binaries, Officially released!)
ftp://ftp.3drealms.com/freeware/krozfree.zip

EDIT: Requires Turbo Pascal 5.0, Also released by Borland for free

Some also require Turbo Pascal 3.0 version, Looks like reminants of the tools used are there, Not the whole thing!

Also, To see which of thoes apps uses 5.0 or 3.0, Look at one of the Readmes inside the packs for a list of titles.

EDIT 2: Some of the source is being rewritten by Nixon to load levels from external files. (see Nixon's post for more details)

interesting, there was apparently a flash implementation of kroz but the link from wikipedia is dead. admittedly i played kroz before zzt. I believe it was more ubiquitous in the shareware world. there are a few platformer levels in the later episodes if I remember right. I enjoyed those games but maybe a little unfair at times. not to say user designed worlds in zzt are any less unfair.

I have been looking through the code and found that the maps are in the source code itself. So to edit a map the whole program needs to be recompiled. I haven't been able to get Turbo Pascal 5 to compile the code yet, I think it has some file dependencies which I don't know how to fix. Perhaps re-coding the entire thing in something more friendly would be easier.

Edit:

I can now compile the code. You have to compile the individual files first to create the .TPU files. Ever time you change something it needs to be compiled and then the KROZ.PAS has to be compiled again as well. This is annoying.

Edit:

Started re-writing the code that loads the map data so it loads from a file instead. Editable games coming soon :D

WAH?

Great job, Nixon, I actually was to edit it myself too, the code is too messy for me to do anything on.

If anything, make sure you removed TURBO3.exe(?) and such from the pack (Violates GPL licence rules, because 3dRealms/Apogee forgot) and after redoing the code, Try sending it and legally state it's a clean GPL-compatible replacement

The code is very messy, it is especially hard considering I don't know pascal. Anyway, I have made it so you can change intial game values such as score gems and what not. You can also edit(as in, with notepad) the first map.

Here is the updated .exe
http://zzt.org/upload//Kroz.zip

If anyone wants the code let me know.

I don't know if you can do it without Turbo3.tpu, I think that controls at least keyboard input, well that's the first thing that errored. Maybe if I try using FreePascal.

hmmm, I keep dying, almost without reason but it seems like i can only take some many steps on the level. Like I can't grab the whips and make it to the door.

Thats odd, it is working here fine. How are you running it? You do die if you don't move for a little while, maybe your system is running it too fast? I am runnning it with DOSBox, which it runs too fast in, I must change that.

ah yes, it was running much too fast.

Ha ha...you want Kroz, people? I'll give you Kroz...all the original episodes, plus a new one, with graphical enhancements! Gratis.

http://www.chriskallen.com/cruz

You aren't kidding around about all the horrible timing issues in that game. But I was able to figure a lot of it out.

BTW this version has an editor (I don't know if the original game had one).

That's pretty cool! It runs slow as shit on my netbook, but then again, everything does :P Gotta get a new network card for my desktop....

Googling Kroz got you here?

I hope the web zzt version you are planning will have the oringinal ascii, or an option for it. What the built-in worlds call "lions" are used for aliens/people/wolves/you name it.

Not too shabby, Chris! It does run a little slow on my netbook.. Though, I'm only vaguely interested in Kroz.

I thought you were joking when you announced ZZT in flash! There's some stiff competition for a good interpreter on the web, as well as the need for a next-gen solution. But I wish you luck.

Commodore: Capital Omega makes a great Goomba! I'm in the process of porting the charset to Unicode whereby each pixel will become a scalable vector.

Commodore wrote:That's pretty cool! It runs slow as shit on my netbook, but then again, everything does :P Gotta get a new network card for my desktop....

Googling Kroz got you here?

I hope the web zzt version you are planning will have the original ascii, or an option for it. What the built-in worlds call "lions" are used for aliens/people/wolves/you name it.

Agreed; there are not very many "graphical enhancement" options for existing ZZT worlds, for the reason you mentioned--beautifully constructed ASCII art would be enhanced how, exactly? The text should be shown as it is in 80x25 text mode now; no changes planned.

Cruz isn't optimized, to be sure. But at least you don't need to deal with those death-within-seconds timing issues anymore.

Appetite4 wrote:

Commodore wrote:That's pretty cool! It runs slow as shit on my netbook, but then again, everything does :P Gotta get a new network card for my desktop....

Googling Kroz got you here?

I hope the web zzt version you are planning will have the original ascii, or an option for it. What the built-in worlds call "lions" are used for aliens/people/wolves/you name it.

Agreed; there are not very many "graphical enhancement" options for existing ZZT worlds, for the reason you mentioned--beautifully constructed ASCII art would be enhanced how, exactly? The text should be shown as it is in 80x25 text mode now; no changes planned.

Cruz isn't optimized, to be sure. But at least you don't need to deal with those death-within-seconds timing issues anymore.

I'd rather see a new ZZT format, with all of ZZT and SuperZZT's features mixed as well as a minimal subset of Megazeux's
features, If you want a document of my WIP ZZT Format (UltraZZT format) Give me a PM, and I will make a revision of it, It's only in planning but not in development, just keep that in mind!

Of course you also need to have a World or Board Format Importer for both ZZT and MZX, (and optionally MZX, but with no robotics code, as Robotic code must be revamped if converted to the my OOP-style language of choice) to go according to my clone specs

And for an example of some of my enhancement proposals making it into a clone, I'd give JZT a go, It has a mix of ZZT, SuperZZT, and a couple nods to Megazeux's Elements! (Water moves some enemies, Signs, Objects can die as an Item, etc.)

If needed, I recommend Bitmap files, split into 15 Bitmaps for use as graphical attribute emulation, should not be resized unless you add a feature needed to use size enhancements (as in if you want to recolor, you'll need to make sure you have your paint program resize it 2x or 3x then set the desired option).