The IF Archive contains many other interpreters: ZORKMID (cross-platform, open source, written in C, include debugging functionality ZIP only, supports big-endian and small-endan story files).
Zoom (Mac OS X and Unix-like, open source, website) can interpret multiple IF formats, including Z-code.Twisty (Android, open source, website, Google Play).Spatterlight (Mac OS X, open source, website): can interpret multiple IF formats, including Z-code.Parchment (web, open source, website): browser-based Z-code interpreter.GLUZMA ( Glulx, open source big-endian ZIP only).Gargoyle (cross-platform, open source, website): can interpret multiple IF formats, including Z-code.Frotz (cross-platform, open source, website).Most interpreters can handle any Z-code version, although version 6 is not as widely supported as the other versions. ZIP (rarely seen, conflicts with the common extension used for ZIP compression)Ī z-code game can be played on any platform that has an appropriate interpreter. DAT (used by Infocom for most of their commercial releases) z8 (current convention, depending on what Z-code version the file is) Z-code files can be packaged in Blorb container files along with other resources needed for the game, such as images and sounds. Text within a Z-code file is represented using the specialized character encoding ZSCII, a variant of ASCII that is encoded for compactness and a bit of obscurity (nothing resembling normal ASCII strings is visible in a raw dump of a file, making it harder to cheat in games by seeing descriptions this way). Infocom games were developed in the higher-level language ZIL, which was compiled into Z-code using a compiler that's apparently lost now. The first six were created by Infocom, while versions 7 and 8 were created by Graham Nelson, the author of Inform. It is sometimes referred to as Infocom format. A Z-code file typically contains an IF game which can be played using a Z-code interpreter. A Z-code file contains a series of instructions for the Z-machine, a virtual machine designed by Infocom. Z-code is an Interactive Fiction (IF) file format.