Description of App
[*Warning* Playing Frotz involves reading, thinking, and typing. If you just want to blow stuff up, this is not the app for you!]
Burned out on all the new-fangled graphics and dazzling eye candy on your shiny new iPhone or iPad? Nostalgic for a simpler time? Then take advantage of
those crisp high-resolution fonts to relive the glory days of the Great Underground Empire, or play any of hundreds of great works from the Interactive
Fiction archive.
Frotz lets you play free works of Interactive Fiction (a.k.a. text adventure games) on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad.
Frotz plays titles written in the Z-Machine format. This format was invented by Infocom and was used to produce classic text adventures from the 80s such
as the Zork Trilogy, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Trinity.
In the past decade, text adventures have experienced a renaissance due to the efforts of a diverse Internet community of talented interactive fiction writers
and fans. Many of these games are written using the same engine that powered Infocom's titles, thanks to the Inform compiler and authoring system created
by Graham Nelson.
NOTE! If you have suggestions for improving Frotz or encounter bugs, please go to the support link and report them. I have no way to respond if you only
report bugs in reviews!
Frotz for iOS - Interactive Fiction at Your Fingertips
Comments
Version 1.5.3
This was once a FREE app but now is selling for $0.99 in the App Store. It appeared they started to charge for this during the summer.
What's New in Version 1.5.3What's New in Version 1.5.3- Readability: Wider margins and spacing for better readability on iPad.
- Unicode: Improved Unicode text support for games with non-Latin characters.
- Updated glulx support: Now conforms to standard spec 3.1.2.
- Graphics improvements: Performance and stability of games using glk graphics improved; Frotz now supports inline images in text.
- VoiceOver support: Fixed bug preventing automatic announcement of new output in glulx games.
- Keyboard: Improved support for playing with a Bluetooth keyboard (you can now scroll via keyboard and no longer have to tap the screen).
- Other bug fixes: New FTP server compatible with more clients; restored 'Open in' functionality for launching Frotz from other apps.
App now free as on this date
Update
Version 1.7
Just love playing these old games. Reminds of the good days of the 80's. Now with a new update. Now supports iOS 7 and 8! Some VoiceOver improvements. Nicely done and so glad to see that this is still alive and kicking.
What's New in Version 1.7
- UI makeover with support for iOS 7/8.
- Search Bar in Story List.
- Word auto-completion now uses the current game's vocabulary/dictionary.
- Fixed issues with accented characters/Unicode support.
- Improved support for graphics windows, inline images, and hyperlinks in glulx games.
- Fixed problem where VoiceOver wouldn't read new text right after the game clears the screen.
- Ability to long-press keyboard toggle button to hide and lock keyboard (for menu-only command input).
- Update to glk spec 0.7.4, git library 1.3.3.
- Now works again on 1st gen devices with iOS 3.
- Other minor bug fixes.
Does it support glulxe (*blb)
Does it support glulxe (*blb)?
Glulx
Yes, Glulx files are supported. Most of them nowadays use gblorb rather than .blb, just FYI. But yes, some of my favorite games are Glulx-only.
Now if only it supported Tads.
basic question
Bear with my being a bit slow here, but where are you guys getting these games, and how do you get them onto your iPhone? can you download them directly to the device? Sorry, just an embarrassing gap in my knowledge here.
and another thing
And, wouldn't it be marvellous if there were still a way to write these games? Back in the day I used to use the Adventure Games Toolkit. That was years ago, but wouldn't mind turning my hand and my imagination to one of these again. i also agree about TADS; it would be great to play some of those games again.
When the main menu, the
When the main menu, the browse IFDB button takes u to where u can find and download titles dirrectly to your device. Only wish u could sort them by genre there r soooo many. Agreed about tads too. Haven't found an interpreter that works well with nvda so have not played a tads game in 10 years. Would be nice to finally get to finish what i started back then.
Putting games into frotz
Hi. I have hundreds of games in dropbox that I want to get into frotz. I can open them from dropbox into frotz and import them 1 at a time, but if you can imagine that gets old fast when there are so meny. Is there any way I can get them all into frotz at once? Thank you.
Upload
Hi. you could use itunes or if frotz can start a wifi server that'd be the best way to get them in there. Do you source your games from ifarchive.org?
Thanks
Yes. I use ifarchive.org as well as some other sites I have forgotten. Yes. Frotz does have a wifi file server. I will try that, but I think even with that I can only do one at a time. I also can't zip the games up then put the .zip file in frotz because frotz does not support unziping zip files.
whats new in update
- Now plays TADS games (v2/v3)
- Improved support for iOS 9 and 10
- Performance improvements / 64-bit support
- Various bug fixes
Just tried playing "Sunset
Just tried playing "Sunset Over Savannah." It's a very old game. It is not playable in Frotz. A real pity, since I can't get it to work in Zoom, either.
ETA: Disregard the previous paragraph. TADS games do indeed work in Frotz. But for some reason, "Sunset" didn't work when I tried to download it from the Frotz browser. Perhaps the games have to be downloaded in Safari and transferred over.
did you
Did you try all the links? I'm only asking this because sometimes when you click on a link, it won't let you download the story file, but if you click on another link, it lets you download it.