Around 1986, a group of high-school Apple II enthusiasts decided to write a game. The result was a game "system" called Death is a Four Letter Word (DIAFLW) that consisted of a runtime engine and simple editors that allowed for the creation of custom "scenarios". The game was originally written for DOS 3.3, but was hastily converted to ProDOS as it was obvious that the scenarios would be getting to large.
The game was pitched to SoftDisk Magazine and some work was started on converting it to their needs. The project was never finished.
In 2024, the original source code to the game was unearthed and the original programmer decided to fix up the project enough so that it was playable again. The resulting source code is in this repo and one can download a generated disk image from itch.io.
The game is written in 6502 assembly, but some of the code was entered in the mini-assembler. Thus source code for 95% of the game exists in Merlin format.
There is a build script in this repo that is capable of generating a .2mg file from the sources. It requires several tools to be installed:
If one places the CiderPress CLI in a subdirectory named 'ciderpress' (ciderpress/cp2.exe) and places the Merlin package in a subdirectory named 'merlin32' (merlin32\Windows\Merlin32.exe), then the following commands will build the DIAFLW_Release.2mg file:
python -m virtualenv venv .\venv\Scripts\activate.ps1 python build.py
One can adjust the pathnames to CiderPress and Merlin at the top of the build.py file.
Note: fhpack.exe is optional. It allows for the splash and play background images to be changed. It is used to compresses image files to save memory. It can be built using the cygwin C compiler very easily. Having a copy of fhpack.exe and cygwin1.dll at the top of the source tree will meet the requirement.
Documentation for the game and editors is included in the DIAFLOW.DOCS text file included in the disk image. There is a READ.DOCS system file that can be used to view the file. Alternatively, the source to the docs file is available here.
Normally, one would download the .2mg file and use it with an emulator or burn a 3.5" disk with the image. Thanks to the great work by Chris Torrence and Michael Morrison on the Apple2TS browser hosted Apple II emulator, one can play the game via a web browser.
The game is also hosted on itch.io which provides a simpler download option and forum to discuss more gameplay related issues.
Please feel free to post issues and other questions at DIAFLW Issues. This is the best place to post questions and code.
DIAFLW is licensed under the MIT license.