Restaurant At The End Of The Universe game outline?!
Um, yeah, hi, I think I need to see that RestaurantATEOTU outline kind of immediately, please?!
Well done on recovering it, btw!
Um, yeah, hi, I think I need to see that RestaurantATEOTU outline kind of immediately, please?!
Well done on recovering it, btw!
Comments
Hi There!
The plan is to make public all the documents and source codes to the original games as far as we can. I have permission to publish the original source codes and to remaster the original games.
However, I need to check that these documents in particular, i can make them freely available at this time. Due to the fact that this project was a cooperation between Magnetic Scrolls and Infocom, i am not 100% certain of their confidentiality status.
I will look into it.
Aha! Perhaps Jason Scott @textfiles might be able to advise? He helped archive the Infocom Cabinet:
https://archive.org/details/infocomcabinet
Hi again. I've discussed this briefly with Jason Scott, and he has some helpful and positive-sounding info for you, if you want to DM him @textfiles or get in touch with him however you prefer..?
To clarify, what I was trying to say was that Jason has info about Infocom that might help you straighten out the confidentiality status of the docs.
Oh, huh. Is there another source for the source code than the Infocom backup drive that was passed to Activision? A copy of the latter has been in the hands of certain collectors for some years. It's a project that didn't seem to get far. Infocom didn't use standard libraries, instead copying the main libraries from previous games. The version I know is only a couple rooms and a few hundred lines of source outside the game libraries.
I didn't realize the project involved Magnetic Scrolls.
(Also, blessed by Jason Scott's name)
https://strandgames.com/blog/magnetic-scrolls-trove-recovered
I hope the Strand guys can resolve the "confidentiality" issue with these notes because they're obviously of considerable historical interest, and it would be great to be able to read them!
Sorry for the delay. I keep meaning to follow this up. Currently re-building The Guild of Thieves...
So long as you get round to it before the end of the you-know-what...
@hugh - @ahope1 mentioned this conversation on a HHG fan group on facebook and I just have to help in nudging you. I would love to see those documents if it's at all likely they could be put into the public domain (i.e. scanned without you ending up in jail or forced poverty as a result).
Pretty please? Or just send them to me and I'll read them and send them back
Hi, I tried to contact Steve Meretzky, but he didn't reply. I thought he might be the best person who might have known about this project from the Infocom side.
I'll try another idea. Thanks for reminding me. I do want to get this sorted.
@hugh I asked Jason Scott, in the context of your discovery of the Restaurant game proposal documents, how ex-Infocommers feel about old Infocom docs being published. Jason replied, "Generally, the Infocom people or ex as they say, don't care unless it's private communications". So it sounds like they wouldn't object if you published the Restaurant docs. What are your specific concerns about doing so?
Good point! Thanks for reminding me about this (again).
I've just written to Jason Scott. Hopefully he'll be able to investigate.
didn't work.
Looks like he uses google for mail. bad idea.
does he have any other email address?
sending again just in case.
bounced again :-(
He has responded when I've sent DMs to it.
Any luck DMing him on Twitter? (See my previous posts above.)
I don't use Twitter, it's spyware. Last time i looked into installing it, it wanted access to everything on my phone - just to tweet! In a browser it won't work unless i disable a lot of security features.
Jason Scott's advertised email address doesn't work anymore. I've tried several times now to send to that address and it always bounces. Perhaps he has another email address that we can reach him on. Anyone know?
I DM'd Jason on Twitter again, and he said that the address you used should be working fine. However he did suggest that you try this alternative address: Jscott@archive.org
Probably won't matter, but Google suggests that the address is actually jscott@archive.org (with a lowercase "j").
E-mail addresses are no case sensitive
twitter pfui
Only use twitter when I need to have an issue resolved, and then it's on the PC (web browser).
@The_Librarian. I used to use twitter in the browser, but it doesn't work anymore. It now uses IndexdDB storage for cross-site retargetting (because most people have wised up to 3rd party cookies). If you block DOM IndexedDB storage, it wont even let you type into the password box.
@ahope1 Thanks for the alternate email, i'll give it a shot.
Any joy?
No reply. i sent several emails without response.
Boo!
I've sent you what I think is a private message. (I used the Messages/Inbox envelope link, anyway.)