Android app Thunderword by Wake Reality

This topic is for discussions related to Thunderword for Android by Wake Reality.

Wiki page about Thunderword: ifwiki.org/index.php/Thunderword

Canā€™t see it on Play atmā€¦

The ā€œThunderword [experimental]ā€ app is in open alpha test, hidden behind a page that warns that it is Alpha-quality work in progress. Beta-test release is coming April 2. Here is the link: Incant-Test.WakeReality.com ) or use the menu in Thunderword to pick one of the 8 built-in stories. Hope this helps.

Downloaded and poked it with a stick.

Sent report to development address on title page.

Didnā€™t download incantā€¦

Thanks for giving it a try and reporting the problem. I did read your email and the summary of the issue is that you canā€™t seem to get the story to take input on a 10" Android 4.1.2 tablet with any of the built-in stories using Thunderword alone.

If you want to spend further time, Iā€™d say the next step is to install the Text Fiction for Thunderword app and see if you can get input to work that way (app to app). Basic steps:

  • Join beta of app here: play.google.com/apps/testing/co ā€¦ extfiction
  • Install and start Text Fiction for Thunderword
  • You should now see the 7 built-in stories of Thunderword on the story list, press the Thunderword icon next to the story name to try app to app interface. I suggest ā€œSpirI7wrakā€ as a story to focus on for testing.

This should let me know if the problem is deeper in the layers of communications or just on the surface with the input on the older Android 4.1.2. I know right now there are a lot of seams and itā€™s time consuming, but there is progress. If you donā€™t have time, I understand.

Unfortunately, Text Fiction for Thunderword is ā€˜not compatibleā€™ with the Xoom, so it wouldnā€™t download. Text Fiction itself is already installed on the Xoom. Could that be blocking it?

Hello. The two apps can be used side by side, the can both be installed on the same device. The problem was that Android 4.3 was required. I uploaded a new version of the app to the Play Store that should now work on Android 4.0.3 devices and newer. Should be ready for download and install now.

Since you already know the interface of Text Fiction, here is a quick highlight of what to look for in the ā€œfor Thunderwordā€ enhancements:

When you pick a story to load, if you pick the text name of the story to the left, ā€œBronzeā€, it should run it local inside Text Fictionā€™s ZPlet engine. In addition, on the right side of each story name there is now a Thunderword icon that I circled in the screen shot. If you touch that icon it will run app to app using the Thunderword engines (Git, Gluxe, Nitfol, Bocfel, Frotz, etc). You also have a third choice, to long-press the Thunderword icon to launch Thunderwordā€™s native rendering. I hope this helps.

Ok. I loaded Text Fiction. It took about 12 hours to get around to the download.

Once loaded, it displayed both existing and built-in games. The existing games - a few infocom z files and a game of mine in development - worked fine when tapped. Tapping the built in games brought up a refusal text. Tapping or long-pressing the thunderword icon, usually did nothing or brought up a settings window and a terse message window, announcing for example a cold start, but nothing else.

Ok, so this indicates engine failure, game data is not getting in and out. Iā€™ll add some diagnostics and issue an update. If you have time, please try again after Google Play updates the Thunderword app and email me a copy of the App Log like you did the first time. Iā€™m also enhancing the Text Fiction side to show a message instead of just nothing / blank screen. Thank you for your persistence and time. I expect Incant!'s native Java Glux interpreter works fine on your system if you want to try that out in the meantime.

Will do.

Thank you. Update is now on the Google Play store.

There is now a web server built into Thunderword that can be used as a remote keyboard. You can use your desktop or another device such as mobile phone and tablet to get the keyboard out of the way while playing parser Interactive Fiction stories. Your Android device is the web server, there is no public Internet involved. Screen shot of a desktop PC browser (Mozilla Firefox browser) accessing it:

This is an option for those who donā€™t have a Bluetooth or USB keyboard to work with their Android phone or tablet. Let me know if you are interested in how-to activate and access this server. Thank you.

OK. Finally rejoined the land of the almost-living, and can reveal that the updated Text Fiction with Thunderword works fine on my Motorola Xoom with Android 4.1.2.

In addition to the built in games, which all respond to a tap on the Thunderword icon, the half-dozen z5 and z8 games on the tablet are detected and run without trouble.

Do I understand that Glulx games are also detected. I havenā€™t checked yet.

Great to hear you are felling better.

To answer you, no - not automatically (other than the built-in Glulx stories). The seams between apps is still pretty thick, so you have to fiddle with some menus to play Glulx stories in Text Fiction for Thunderword.

Iā€™ll put together some screen shots and post a link back here shortly. Update: here are some screen shots and numbered steps to reference. Hopefully this is a useful communications tool on what steps are gong on and helping each other out: github.com/WakeRealityDev/Scree ā€¦ ort-basics

I tried the incant! apk and it is great! I would love to play around with Thunderword as well but i find no apk or f-droid download (I will never use google play).

I think what you are doing is simply amazing, and I would not be surprised that after alpha and beta this might very well become the new android IF-parser standard. It might help attract the new generation to the rich history of IF works old and new. Great potential.

(P.S.
A slightly off-topic question: Is it possible to do multiple saves in Incant?
If i just write ā€œsaveā€ then there is only one slot to restore. Save + name does not work.
)

For Thunderword: Right now Amazon store is an option, although I really need to update the APK there. I can upload an APK to Github for sideload - and I should update the Incant binary too, as the one on Google Play is newer. Iā€™ll post back after I upload new APK files for sideload.

I havenā€™t looked at the save/restore code in Incant, Iā€™ll see if I can see what logic it uses for filenames.

Sounds absolutley wonderful. I look forward to this.

(Regarding saving in Incant i now just duplicate and rename the latest savefile in the filemanager before making a new one after restoring to get multiple saves. A bit clumpsy perhaps, but with newschool-tech it is easy to get to spoiled, complacant and lazy, and i do not mind the extra trouble at all).

Thatā€™s good for me to know. Thank you.

For side-loading APK files, here are the latest install packages for two of the apps, Text Fiction for Thunderword and Thunderword [experimental]: github.com/WakeRealityDev/Scree ā€¦ public_apk
These are the ones I updated on Google Play today. Iā€™ll try to get a fresh Incant! up shortly.

I made a new release of Incant! just now: github.com/WakeRealityDev/incant/releases - r36

Now it should create a unique name for each save file. The restore only picks the most recent. But at least it saves you a step of having to use a filemanager duplicate/rename step. Let me know if this works for you. This release may have a lot of new additions from the prior r12 - as I was publishing compile APK to Play Store and not keeping the APK on GitHub as current.