Counterfeit Monkey and glulx issues

#1

Counterfeit Monkey truly stresses glulx, huh? I’ve been running in parchment/quixe and in gargoyle with different results sometimes.

For instance, in the beginning, right after coming out of the cinema with the backpack, I go talk to the ticket-taker and here’s what I get from parchment/quixe:

**>**ask about movie
What would you like to discuss: 1) when the movie starts, 2) what the movie is, or 3) buy a movie ticket?

**>**1
"What’s playing, anyway?"

“It’s a special showing of ‘Red.’”

**>**0
What would you like to discuss: 1) whether crime could ever be justified, 2) whether immigration laws are fair, 3) whether he has ever been in trouble with the law, or 4) buy a movie ticket?

**>**1
"Have you ever had any run-ins with the law?"

“That’s kind of none of your business, isn’t it?”

the numbering for topics seems to be off. I tried 0 to see it would actually ask topic 1, but instead it seemed to change subject entirely…

here’s the same situation in gargoyle:

> ask about movie
What would you like to discuss: 1) when the movie starts or 2) buy a movie ticket?

> 1
“When does the movie start?” we ask.

“Oh, um… not until this evening.”

> 2
“I’d like to buy a ticket to this movie,” we say.

He looks bored, but not surprised, by this request. “We’re past that part,” he reminds us.

> 0
“I’d like to buy a ticket to this movie,” we say.

He looks bored, but not surprised, by this request. “We’re past that part,” he reminds us.

> ask about movie
“I’d like to buy a ticket to this movie,” we say.

He looks bored, but not surprised, by this request. “We’re past that part,” he reminds us.

> ask about crime
What would you like to discuss: 1) whether crime could ever be justified or 2) whether he has ever been in trouble with the law?

> 1
“Hypothetically speaking, do you think a crime could ever be justified?”

“Uh, no,” he says. “Because if it’s justified, it’s not a crime. Like: if you kill someone in self-defense, that’s justified, but it’s not a crime, so you won’t have to go to jail.”

He sniffs. “What is this about? Are you taking a survey or something?”

We could claim to be taking a survey or say we are curious.

> 2
“Have you ever had any run-ins with the law?”

“That’s kind of none of your business, isn’t it?”

some options for the topic are missing, but at least the numbering is right

running on browser has those weird slowdowns, but at least typography is right: the inscription in the church renders greek letters alright, but in gargoyle all I get is a bunch of ???

I’m sure this isn’t the right place to place these issues, but I was in doubt whether to place it under quixe, gargoyle or the game repository itself. It sounds to me more like a problem in the interpreters, both of them.

#2

I’d file a bug on github. The game is behaving incorrectly. Leave it to the devs to determine whether it’s an interpreter issue or not and to redirect it if necessary.

You might want to check and see if you can reproduce the issue with the latest version from the repo.

#3

Huh. I’ve seen this sort of thing happen before on some games before, occasionally. I never bothered to track it, and it affected a small number of games anyway.

I wonder whether the problem is an extension being used. Anyway…

#4

if such games all use the same kind of threaded conversation, I guess it’s an extension too…

but I’ll try to compile the game from the repository and see whether it was solved

BTW, just compiled with latest I7 (from 2015): took quite a while and it starts in I7’s game window with some weird (perhaps debug) messages:

Counterfeit Monkey is starting. This may take a short moment.

The map of Slangovia is a subject.
The legend is a subject.
The invitation is a subject.
The pass is a subject.
The pasts is a subject.
The car is a subject.
The car is a subject.
The car is a subject.
The oil is a subject.
The fuel is a subject.
The legend is a subject.
The clock is a subject.
The modem is a subject.
The pea is a subject.
The preamp is a subject.
The reams is a subject.
The truck is a subject.
The gas is a subject.
The shuttle is a subject.
oil is a subject.
The word is a subject.
The ticket is a subject.
The tub is a subject.
The restoration gel is a subject.
The as is a subject.
The ode is a subject.

Can you hear me? >>

BTW, the relevant part:

**>**ask taker about movie
What would you like to discuss: 1) when the movie starts or 2) what the movie is?

**>**1
"What’s playing, anyway?"

“It’s a special showing of ‘Red.’”

**>**2
That’s not a verb I recognize.

so, the ordering is still wrong… plus, the topic about crime doesn’t show up. If I ask directly, I’m told the topic isn’t available for conversation.

#5

That Greek letter thing is obviously a unicode problem, but I cannot reproduce it in Gargoyle on Windows or OS X. What OS are you on? Have you changed the default font settings?

#6

I’m on windows 10 at home, default settings. Downloaded the gargoyle exe from 2011 at ifarchive, because the current repository at github seemingly provides no executables.

that is really minor, because I don’t read greek but Alex will swiftly translate the inscription anyway. The main problem are those dialogue options missing in gargoyle. Anyway, perhaps not much of a real problem because that’s truly not how asking questions should work in the game, I should probably better formulate my questions, being less general as in asking about just a word… but since it is still possible and disambiguation kicks in and seems to be broken, it might be an issue…

#7

There is a more recent build of Gargoyle for Windows.
On that forum.

#8

how about no? it’s an annoymous exe in a file sharing site, not an up-to-date exe in the repository, which a project like this should have.

#9

I’ve tried to fix the bugs with numbered disambiguation choices in the Counterfeit Monkey Github repository source now. Feel free to have another look!

1 Like
#10

Nice work! I’ve found it’s been cool to follow CM’s fixes via the Github repository, and it looks like I’m not the only one.

#11

thank you for the update. Unfortunately, differences in gargoyle (exe from 2011 in ifarchive) and quixe (builtin in webpage for release) behavior continue.

here’s gargoyle:

“Ticket,” says the ticket-taker automatically.

> ask about movie
What would you like to discuss: 1) when the movie starts or 2) what the movie is?

> 1
“When does the movie start?” we ask.

“Oh, um… not until this evening.”

> 2
“What’s playing, anyway?”

here’s quixe:

“Ticket,” says the ticket-taker automatically.

**>**ask about movie
What would you like to discuss: 1) when the movie starts or 2) what the movie is?

**>**1
"When does the movie start?" we ask.

“Oh, um… not until this evening.”

**>**2
"What’s playing, anyway?"

It lists 2 choices and after the update indeed the numbers match. But the question “3) buy a movie ticket?” doesn’t show up (as it wasn’t before) in either of them. these topic questions get really slow in quixe…

the question about crime (just after I give my spoof ticket) seems to be missing one too (under both interpreters):

**>**ask about crime
What would you like to discuss: 1) whether crime could ever be justified or 2) whether he has ever been in trouble with the law?

see my original post, it’s missing “whether immigration laws are fair”…

BTW, I noticed something I did not the first time around. After you unlock the barrier to the Fair and just before you enter it, Alex lists a few initial goals in the game. This in gargoyle, they don’t show up in quixe. I just tried from the ifdb page and noticed the tutorial voice doesn’t appear at all (even typing tutorial on) but it does in this updated CM release, but the goals do show up before going to Fair.

I added Release along with an interpreter to the source so I could have a webpage with quixe. The map is not showing there, just a pitch black image.

so, the game definitely behaves differently in quixe and gargoyle… these interpreters should match, I don’t really think it is an issue with the source code of the game…

summing up this update: topic numbers now match, but some choices seem to be missing from the topics; update fixes tutorial voice in quixe; seems to have broken GOALS, which doesn’t show up before going to fair in quixe, but do show up in gargoyle 2011 exe.

#12

Well, the list you got in the original post, with four discussion topics after typing 0, was in fact a bug. 0 was not supposed to be an option, but due to how Numbered Disambiguation Choices was designed, it would unintentionally list all the options not given as choices in the disambiguation question. It is not supposed to offer the question about immigration laws when you ask about crime. This is fixed in the current code.

The current code also deliberately does not list “buy a movie ticket” when you type ASK ABOUT MOVIE. I’m not sure when or why this changed, but it seems logical to me. What do you think? You can still try to buy a movie ticket by typing ASK ABOUT TICKET or BUY TICKET or similar.

The goals thing is a bug. It will print the goals message if you unlock the barrier before going through it, but if you have bumped into the locked barrier even once, it will never be printed. I’ll see what I can do about this.

#13

The GOALS bug should be fixed in the repository code now.

#14

Also note that the Inform Compiler currently does not support showing graphics with the “Release along with an interpreter” function. See this discussion.

#15

Many thanks for the corrections and explanations.