A while ago, we begged for a handheld ASCII game console. Those among you who did not think we were mad will be delighted to find that Frotz, previously only available on jailbroken iPhones, is now offered on the App Store!
Frotz is an interactive fiction interpreter, and will run countless classic text adventures. A bunch of them are included with the app, which is free of charge.
Product Page [App Store]
Project Page [Google code via Touch Arcade and TUAW]
Sweet, now I can be eaten by a grue in style!
But will it play Scott Adams Grand Adventures games? Those were always my favorites…
A stack of Scott Adams games have been ported to Z-code. But they’re in a zip file, and Frotz’s Archive browser doesn’t seem to be able to handle it. So you’ll have to download them, unzip them, and then transfer them into Frotz using FileMagnet or something.
Doesn’t this violate the apple developer agreement which says that you can’t create a program that will load and execute code?
Apparently — get this — Apple is being reasonable about that clause. Crazy times, huh?
See author’s comments at http://emshort.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/frotz-in-the-iphone-app-store/#comment-5384