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Not sure if this is in the right forum.

I'm having trouble getting the blorb files to work when playing some of the infocom games with graphics and sounds like lurking horror and beyond zork.

Gargoyle doesn't seem to read the .dat files from the infocom compilation discs so I found the old infocom games in z3, z4, z6, etc format. I also found .blb files on the if-archive for the games with graphics and sounds but I can't get them to work. I put the in the corresponding folders like the z3 and blb for lurking horror both in the same folder, but I can't get the sound to play.
Beyond zork won't play at all since the graphics won't load.

I am using the windows version of gargoyle. Sound and graphics are enabled.

Anyone know how to get them to work?

I read that it is possible to insert the story file into the blb file. How would I go about doing that? Would it help? Is there anyway to open the blorb file and look at it or edit it?

Thanks for any help.

***edit: I guess it does play .dat files. I just had to configure it to. Still doesn't play with sound or graphics though.

Gargoyle doesn't offer (much) support for V6 games, and can't display graphics in Z-Machine games. You will need to use Windows Frotz for Beyond Zork.

For sound support, it should work if the files are in the same folder as the Lurking Horror game file and have names like SND3, SND18 etc. You can extract these from the ifarchive blorbs with a tool like gblorb.

You should also be able to reassemble the blorb to include the Lurking Horror story file. Extract the files using gblorb, then edit the SPEC file in a text editor. Add the first line so the complete file looks like this:

0	STORY0
3	SND3
4	SND4
6	SND6
7	SND7
8	SND8
9	SND9
10	SND10
11	SND11
12	SND12
13	SND13
15	SND15
16	SND16
17	SND17
18	SND18

Now, rename your copy of the Lurking Horror data file to STORY0. Open gblorb and load the SPEC file you edited, then type create. Save the resulting file as lurking.zblorb. If you see errors, make sure all the files (including gblorb.ulx) are in the same folder.

I've only tested this as far as creating the unified blorb file. I'm not familiar with LH and don't know how to get it to play sounds.

I gave it a try to edit the blb file with gblorb, I was able to extract the files from one of the blb file, but I keep getting errors when I try to load them.

I got this error when trying to load the spec file.


> load
Loading the resources table from a specification file...
Error: unable to open file, at line 1: 0 STORY0
Error: unable to open file, at line 2: 3 SND3
Error: unable to open file, at line 4: 4 SND4
Error: unable to open file, at line 6: 5 SND5
Error: unable to open file, at line 8: 6 SND6
Error: unable to open file, at line 10: 7 SND7
Error: unable to open file, at line 12: 8 SND8
Error: unable to open file, at line 14: 9 SND9
Error: unable to open file, at line 16: 10 SND10
Error: unable to open file, at line 18: 11 SND11
Error: unable to open file, at line 20: 12 SND12
Error: unable to open file, at line 22: 13 SND13
Error: unable to open file, at line 24: 14 SND14
Error: unable to open file, at line 26: 15 SND15
Error: unable to open file, at line 28: 16 SND16
Error: unable to open file, at line 30: 17 SND17
No resources were loaded into the table. There were errors in 16 entries.

I was trying this with sherlock holmes btw.

You will get those errors if the files don't exist, or if gblorb.ulx is in a different folder.

So gblorb.ulx has to be in the exact same folder as the files I want to put together? I put all the files into another folder called sherlock which is in the gblorb folder.

The files are all there. I just extracted them.

Yes, exactly the same folder (not a subfolder). For example if you follow the steps for Lurking Horror you would have a folder that looks like this:



For Sherlock it would be this:



Then you would just need to supply STORY0, and you could load the edited SPEC and build the file.

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I did it exactly as you said with all files in the same folder, but no luck.

I extracted the blb file
Then took the z5 file and renamed it story0
opened the spec file in notepad and added story0 to it

But then when I try to load the spec file to create the new blorb file, I get that same error.

Well, if you're not able to create the blorb file, you can still run the game with the SND* resources in the same folder as the story file. It's not as compact but the functionality should work.

For the life of me, I can't get it to work.

I'm using sherlock.dat version 26 which supports sound.

Tried putting the sound files in the same folder, in a folder named "sound", putting the blb file in the same folder, and in a sound folder. No luck.

Tried using frotz that came with gargoyle and tried windows frotz.

Is there some sort of setting I'm missing? Maybe another interpretor? I'm using windows xp btw in case it matters.

Can you post a transcript of a series of turns that would produce a sound in Sherlock?