Fivebyfivia is the result of combining two things I like: text adventures and a certain board game you'll be able to guess pretty quickly. It was written for the 2021 ParserComp.

The standalone version and web versions should be functionally equivalent. Most interpreters should work with the standalone version. They should also allow you to make a TRANSCRIPT in case you find a bug, or you are in the habit of sending transcripts (even uncommented, developers find them useful for post-comp releases to help balance puzzles, etc.!) You can report bugs here, at my email address in the ABOUT command, or at the GitHub repository.

So my developer side says "use the zblorb file," but I hope the web version is adequate. I'd rather have you play a web version than not at all, of course!

SHORT LIST OF POST-COMP RELEASES:

3.0.0: black and white squares in regular text mode, with some bug fixes/player conveniences as well.

2.0.0: allowed you to type in the next room to go to e.g. c2. Lots of tweaks based on regression testing script. New cover art.

SHORT LIST OF IN-COMP CHANGES:

1.0.3: Well this is embarrassing. I was pulling the zblorb in the zip file from the wrong location. So the web version may've worked okay, but the zblorb inside wasn't identical to the one on th epage. That is fixed now. I also added some clarifications about abbreviations and pumped up the ABOUT and CREDITS sections to let judges know everybody loves transcripts.

1.0.2: TUTORIAL command bug: I didn't reset the entire game state. It also uncovered a bug with stopping the tutorial early and that (due to a degenerate IF statement) I hadn't detected if the two kings were next to each other.

1.0.1: fixed erroneous debug text in a header file, missing cover art in ZBLORB file, and issues with the Parchment template

More information

Status	Released
Platforms	HTML5
Author	Andrew Schultz
Genre	Interactive Fiction
Tags	Chess, Text based
Average session	About an hour
Inputs	Keyboard
Accessibility	Interactive tutorial, Blind friendly

Download

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Click download now to get access to the following files:

Fivebyfivia Delenda Est.zblorb 276 kB

Walkthrough with graphics of final positions 164 kB

Text walkthrough 3.8 kB

fivebyfivia-1.0.3.zip 511 kB

fivebyfivia-1.0.2.zip 542 kB

fivebyfivia-1.0.1.zip (web browser files) 541 kB

fivebyfivia_release_3.zip 611 kB

fivebyfivia-w.zip 347 kB

Development log

Release 2: <square name> command and decent graphics
Sep 01, 2021
Adding graphics (sort of)
Aug 10, 2021
Fixes for release 2 + likely sequel = header file
Aug 08, 2021
Postmortem (initial release)
Aug 03, 2021
1.0.3 hotfix notes
Jul 14, 2021
1.0.2 hotfix notes
Jul 13, 2021
1.0.1 hotfix notes
Jul 06, 2021

Comments

salty-horse5 days ago

Hi,

I'm back (years later) with another suggestion: In the itch settings page, you should mark all of your parser games as having a "portrait mode" layout, so they will be playable on mobile devices. The current behavior forces them to be in landscape mode, where the keyboard hides most of the screen.

tildemania3 years ago(+1)

Hey, I'm a big fan of your past work. there seems to be a bug with the tutorial where the Queen and Rook stay on the board after the tutorial has ended.

Andrew Schultz3 years ago

Thanks very much for reporting this, and sorry you ran into the bug! I didn't give my testers time to look at this, as it was a response to several really good questions and requests, and I was already late. Then I didn't check a few obvious things. I think I've found a relatively simple and effective fix, but I might not upload for another 12 hours, because I'd like to do a bit of programmer-testing first.

Andrew Schultz3 years ago

This is fixed now. It helped me find a few other minor things. I'd like to acknowledge you in the credits. It was significant If you'd rather not be acknowledged, no problem, but if you would, how would you like to be referenced?

Thanks again for the kind words and bug report!

salty-horse3 years ago (1 edit)

Bug report:
The cover image (link) doesn't load -- gives the error "Anonymous caller does not have storage.objects.get access to the Google Cloud Storage object."

And I'm not sure it's working properly -- the parser box isn't visible in the itch frame, and if I view the game in a separate window, the > prompt does't appear on a new line, and the input box looks like an unstyled html input box, rather than what I'm used to with parchment.

Andrew Schultz3 years ago

Thanks. I wiped out the updated (working) web template when I mistakenly reinstalled the Inform IDE. I think it should work now. Sorry for the inconvenience.

salty-horse3 years ago(+1)

Thanks, it seems fine now!

Andrew Schultz3 years ago

Thanks for reporting this. I was able to look at ways to make the "release with interpreter" code a lot simpler next time, so that's a big chunk of progress.

Andrew Schultz3 years ago

One more thing ... I'm planning to tweak the CREDITS command, among other very cosmetic fixes -- I'd like to acknowledge you there as a bug finder. If not, no problem, but if so, how would you like to be referenced as?

salty-horse3 years ago(+1)

salty-horse is fine, but there's really no need. I just reported that something is wrong with the itch version, and haven't even played the game yet (sorry!)

Andrew Schultz3 years ago

No problem whether or not you ever get to it. It's great to have someone doing this sort of sweeper work, though next time around, I'll want to make sure it's someone else who is glad someone did it!