Return to Zork: ANOTHER new problem....

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LaughingMan008
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Return to Zork: ANOTHER new problem....

Post by LaughingMan008 »

Ages ago, I tried to beat Return to Zork. After 5 diff tries, I finally managed to get to the end, but could never get that damn bridge to raise. Well, I tried again last night, and have run into a different problem. Everything is done, and Im about to enter the citidel. But the problem is, every time I go to the cliffs of depression and turn around, I dont get the screen thats sposed to be there. I get a "corrupted" image of the broken bridge from the town in the "upper world" and theres no arrow to go left. Only forward and turn around arrows. Has anybody else had this?  :'(
Im playing it in the latest version of DosBox.
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DrPaul
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Re: Return to Zork: ANOTHER new problem....

Post by DrPaul »

I've had the first problem you mentioned (bridge not going down far enough) but I've never seen the new problem you described.

I don't know if this would help for your new problem or not, and even if it does, it's not really very satisfying.  But when I was sure that I absolutely did everything I was supposed to do, but the bridge still wouldn't go down quite far enough, I resorted to someone else's saved game just prior to crossing the bridge.  I know it feels like cheating, but maybe something like that is less frustrating than trying to figure out why the program is behaving badly.
LaughingMan008
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Re: Return to Zork: ANOTHER new problem....

Post by LaughingMan008 »

Would you like to try my save game and see if you encounter the problem?
The first one is before you approach the cliffs. The second is on the actual corrupted screen.
Last edited by LaughingMan008 on Wed May 14, 2008 10:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
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DrPaul
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Re: Return to Zork: ANOTHER new problem....

Post by DrPaul »

I tried using our saved games and I get the corrupted screen from both saves.  
It's pretty weird.  With the 1st save, I'm looking at the Cliffs of Depression.  If I turn around, it's the clown.  But if I move toward the Cliffs and then turn around, I get your corrupted screen.  If I move forward on the corrupted screen, I end up at the Snoots farm.

I'm playing this in DOS-Box on an XP.  I never played it in DOS-Box before, so I don't know if that's the problem, or is there something corrupted in your save files.  I'll try to fire up my old computer and see what your saved games do there.  Hopefully, I'll have time tomorrow to try it.
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DrPaul
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Re: Return to Zork: ANOTHER new problem....

Post by DrPaul »

I tried running your saved game on my old computer and it does the same thing you are seeing.
Just to make sure, I used one of my old saved games at the same location and it works ok.

Then I ran it on my XP computer in DosBox and it also gave the corrupted screen, but when I ran one of my old saved games in DosBox, it worked fine.

Since the Win95 and XP/DosBox implementations are capable of performing correctly and since both of them give the corrupt screen when started from you saved game, I would have to conclude that your saved game file is somehow corrupted.

You might try going back to an earlier save and replaying.  But it's possible that the corruption occured in an earlier save and has been psssed along, but not realized until now.  If that's the case, your screwed.  But maybe, it's just a problem with your last save.

P.S. I've never been able to get the bridge to come up all the way either.  I've tried it on two different computers, and neither will fully raise the bridge.
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