Rezrov is an Infocom game interpreter written in pure Perl.Infocom's game data files are actually platform-independent 'z-code' programs written for a virtual machine known as the Z-machine.
Rezrov's chief distinguishing feature among z-code interpreters is its array of cheat commands. It also features limited support for speech synthesis and recognition under Win32 (listen to a sample MP3 of speech output).
The interpreter can run through any of several user interfaces, depending on the perl modules you have installed.
Here are some screenshots of rezrov running under the current interfaces:
Here are some screenshots Beyond Zork using character graphics (new in 0.16):
- 3/6/2010: version 0.20 released. Six years later, maybe it's time! New cheats and bug fixes; see the README.
- 3/7/2004: version 0.19 released, featuring support for speech synthesis and recognition under Win32, typo correction, and various small fixes. As always see the README.
- 2/4/2004: and now the anticlimactic release of 0.18, which fixes some bugs (thanks to Amir Karger's "czech" test suite) and has some minor cleanups (see the README). I think it's an improvement, but I also think it's been so long since the last release that I've forgotten something really important about making a distribution file, and people will download it and it won't work and then I'll feel like an idiot. So maybe I'll wait a few days before uploading to CPAN. Please let me know about any problems.
- 10/6/2003: *yawn* How long was I asleep? Oh dear...
- My article about rezrov has been reprinted by O'Reilly in the book "Games Diversions & Perl Culture: Best of the Perl Journal". Or if you look around you might be able to find it online somewhere.
- I am finally getting around to that minor update I mentioned, uh, 3 and a half years ago. Quick OS X hint: copy a termcap file to /etc/termcap to get the termcap-based interface to work (I don't know why Apple doesn't install this file on their systems). Also, try setting your TERM variable to "xterm" rather than "vt100".
- The "edmonson@poboxes.com" email address mentioned in the documentation is dead, don't use it! The best email address to use to contact me now is mnedmonson@gmail.com.
- (see previous announcements)
Here you can read the most current documentation, the README, or download the most recent distribution (released March 6, 2010): Rezrov is also mirrored in the CPAN in my directory.
Activision, holder of the Infocom copyrights, used to have Zork I, II and III available on their FTP site for free download. Alas, they seem to be gone now, I have no idea of their current legal status. You can still get them from Pete's Infocom page.
Michael Edmondson (sic) has written a Perl program called Rezrov, a z-code interpreter for Infocom games (such as Zork), at http://www.voicenet.com/~mikeedmo/rezrov/. Inevitably, denizens of EFNet's #perl channel were playing Zork with a Net::IRC bot by the end of the week.I never actually saw this in action though; links anyone? Similar projects exist for the excellent frotz interpreter, e.g. FrotzBot and InfocomBot.
