Some brilliant guy reverse-engineered the game engine and binary file formats for Deja Vu, Uninvited, Shadowgate, and Deja Vu II, then wrote an HTML5/JavaScript runtime. Both the Mac and Apple IIgs versions of all the MacVenture games can be played fully, including animation and sound, on the developer's site, here:
http://seancode.com/webventure
Don't miss the file format documentation.
That is really something!
If you have the wherewithal, be sure to download the Mercurial repository for the WebVenture codebase. It includes a ResEdit-like inspector that lets you peruse the atomic assets for these games, including all rooms, items, text descriptions, and more.
Inside of Shadowgate there is a reference to the "Tod Zipnick Memorial Secret Room" which is an Easter egg I don't believe anybody has uncovered previously. For those unfamiliar with the name, Zipnick was the founder of ICOM Simulations. He died in 1991, so this secret room must have been added for the 1992 re-release.
This is amazing!
He died in 1991, so this secret room must have been added for the 1992 re-release.
Surprisingly, it appears it was always called that. The same "Tod Zipnick Memorial" text appeared in the original 1987 version when I turned the Inspector on it, as well as in the IIgs version (released 1988).
There's a Usenet post describing how to enter the secret room, but I haven't gotten it to work yet...
I tried following these instructions in WebVenture and Mini vMac but couldn't get them to work, either.
Is there a ramp somewhere in the game? I don't remember one, but here are two intriguing text strings that refer to one.
$773:The ramp is too slippery for you to climb. All your efforts are worthless. If you keep this up, you're going to need a good night's sleep.
$788:With a flash of insight, you hurl the vial onto the ramp. Acid splashes in every direction, transforming the ramp into a flight of stairs!
I've been thinking about contacting Darin Adler through his website, Bent Spoon Software, about these MacVenture secrets. I hate to bother him, but he might be delighted to learn about WebVenture, especially considering how his contributions to WebKit (as Engineering Manager of Safari at Apple) have made this sort of browser-based magic possible.
The MacVenture games always had entertaining (if amateurish) writing.
The only thing I'm disappointed about is I'd rather see the classic Chicago font, which I imagine wouldn't be too hard to implement if your computer supports it.
Even if the developer had embedded Chicago as a web font, its anti-aliased edges would be inauthentic. As for the writing, all of the games are genre works: hard-boiled detective fiction, supernatural horror, and fantasy adventure. They might not be high art, but the writing inside the games is fun, playful, and more literate than most graphic adventures of this era.
Personally, I would like to this as downloadable, a la ScummVM.
The writing (on ALL the games) does have the occasional typos and often silly. Right at the start of Deja Vu, there's water coming out of the women's restroom in the bar. "Let's hope it isn't someone having major trouble" the text helpfully tells the player.
Forum poster reacts to remarkable feat of software engineering and landmark adventure game series it revitalizes: http://bit.ly/1fHTwRe
