Text adventures on Steam Deck

Discuss text adventures here! The classics like those from Infocom, Magnetic Scrolls, Adventure International and Level 9 and the ones we're making today.

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Text adventures on Steam Deck

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I have a Steam Deck and have tried some text adventures. Here is what works and what does not. I did not try to save on most of these.

Pressing the STEAM + X keys brings up the keyboard for these.

NOTE: I'll update this as things change and I get more info so disinformation is not in the original post. It is my intent to take photographs and inline them but I have not done that yet.

Zork: Grand Inquistor - Runs/starts. You can pick the New Game option using the right touchpad, and click with the right trigger button. The opening cinematic looks ok. I was able to navigate. The loudspeaker guy sounds ok and subtitles are enabled... this looks playable after a few minutes! I did not try saving.

Zork Anthology - Runs/stars, lets you pick from the three Zorks, Beyond Zork, Zork Zero and Planetfall. I was able to click on the display screen for Beyond Zork... after that, you must use the keyboard for input. You can't "see" what you are typing when the keypad comes up by default. I don't have a keyboard that would plug into the Steam deck, as it has a USB-C port. You can quit out of Beyond Zork and it takes you back to the main anthology page. I then went into Zork I, which looks and plays as it should.

Cryptozookeeper - Runs/starts. Music comes up, opening title screen looks good. Mouse click to get past the first screen works, and then a little mouse cursor comes up. You can pick New Game. Opening text comes up and it's too much for the game to display, but you can click the display touchscreen and it bypasses the "MORE" thing. From here it shows the game and looks nice and you can start typing. I did try to save when I first got the Deck and saving does not work. You can double-click on words and it will put the word on the screen... I am thinking that with Hugo, a "click to build a sentence" interface might work.

Jay Schilling's Edge of Chaos - Oooh, automatically restored me - thanks, Nikos! So it runs and starts. I typed in ">x me" at the start and a giant picture of Jay that is too large for the display appeared. I couldn't click to get past the MORE spot, I had to bring up the keyboard. I didn't try saving, but it auto-restored me, so maybe I don't need to worry about it.

Thaumistry - Asks if I want to enable screen reader compatibility mode. I said no. The very first options screen came up but then quickly went away. Not sure if that is because I had meat fingers and was still touching the touchscreen display or not. The opening letter appears, the game text appears and I can now enter input.

Hadean Lands - Runs/starts. The keyboard came up by itself after a few seconds. It seems to do that on its own. I know Zarf is aware. If you shut the keyboard "down", it lets you read the screen.

Spellcasting 101 - Ah, this is the Spellcasting collection, and when you start it, it asks you if you want to play 101, 201 or 301. Let's start with 101. There was a little trouble at first clicking on the "No" when asked "Do you want to restore?" But I finally got there. And then the display touchscreen worked as "The Any Key" and I was able to click around and start the game. For 101, it DOES seem like you can use the right touchpad to move about the word lists and double click on "Examine" and then double click on "cobweb." It's very sensitive, however. I did not try to save and I need to try 201 and 301.

Anchorhead - I see a white screen come up with File Edit View Window Help... Unfortunately, no text comes up. So you can't really start it or play it.

PataNoir - It's at a "Starting launch" screen for a bit.... then the Steam loading icon comes up... oh! Here we are. Little different than the others. I see the Table of Contents, so I'll pick Start a New Game. I see the first page of the game. The keyboard keeps insisting on coming up. I am able to go to the next page of the game - PataNoir has a beautiful interface, and it's a text adventure that looks unlike any of the others. The game tells us to type "desk" to start and I do so, and I get the description of the desk. So it looks playable!
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RealNC
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Re: Text adventures on Steam Deck

Post by RealNC »

There's an SDK for the deck. Actuall, proper support for it would require applications (like Hugor and QTads) to make use of it and query at runtime whether it's running on a steam deck.

Not something I'm currently looking forward doing. I don't even have a steam deck (not do I actually need one :P)

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: Text adventures on Steam Deck

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

RealNC wrote: Tue Sep 06, 2022 11:05 am There's an SDK for the deck. Actuall, proper support for it would require applications (like Hugor and QTads) to make use of it and query at runtime whether it's running on a steam deck.

Not something I'm currently looking forward doing. I don't even have a steam deck (not do I actually need one :P)
If you're good at something, never do it for free! My life is too chaotic to be able to commit money toward a venture right now, but I'm hoping things go back to normal in 2023. We should connect then if we have not already.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

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