a9e53ccc49
MRPGI (fa7fa10) grew a title screen / world picker: point --game at a folder of game folders and you get the shelf. cases/collection.json names it POLICE SQUAD QUEST, and a bare ./play.sh now opens it instead of the shell menu — arrow keys, Enter to play, Esc backs out of a case to the shelf. ./play.sh <number> still jumps straight in. Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
116 lines
6.2 KiB
Markdown
116 lines
6.2 KiB
Markdown
# Police Squad Quest
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A Sierra-style adventure game set in the *Police Squad!* / *Naked Gun* universe,
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built on the [MRPGI](https://github.com/) engine (`~/Documents/MRPGI`) — which is
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itself a reimplementation of AGI, the engine Sierra shipped *Police Quest* on.
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> The game grades you on correct police procedure with a completely straight
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> face. The reward for perfect procedure is catastrophe anyway.
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- **[RESEARCH.md](RESEARCH.md)** — the source material: all six *Police Squad!*
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episodes, all four films, the recurring cast, and the ZAZ comedy grammar.
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- **[DESIGN.md](DESIGN.md)** — the game bible: the joke engine, the two Drebins,
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the eleven-case campaign, and how it all maps onto MRPGI data.
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**Fifteen cases, all playable, all verified end-to-end at 100/100** (Case One is
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95 + 5 optional). `python3 tools/lint.py` checks all thirteen clean.
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## Play
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```bash
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./play.sh
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```
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That opens the engine's **title screen** — the whole campaign on one shelf,
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arrow keys to choose, Enter to play, Esc backs out of a case to the shelf.
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`./play.sh 07` still jumps straight to one case. The shelf's big title comes
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from [cases/collection.json](cases/collection.json).
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Or directly:
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```bash
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cargo run -p mrpgi --manifest-path ~/Documents/MRPGI/Cargo.toml -- --game cases/case-01-substantial-gift
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```
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`Tab` switches between play and the room editor. Type `help` in play.
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## What's here
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| `cases/case-00-1958/` | **Act Zero — playable, 100 points.** Frank Drebin **Sr**, 1958, hard noir mono. Five rooms. Played completely straight; the score is the cover-up. |
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| `cases/case-00b-the-quartet/` | **Act Zero crossover — playable, 100 points.** Drebin **Sr** vs. five Ealing-comedy incompetents. Five rooms. |
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| `cases/case-00c-the-liaison/` | **Act Zero crossover — playable, 100 points.** 1965: the spy-spoof era arrives hunting a pattern that is Drebin **Sr**. Five rooms. |
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| `cases/case-01-substantial-gift/` | **Case One — playable, 100 points.** Drebin (Nielsen), 1982, monochrome. Five rooms. |
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| `cases/case-03-big-gulch/` | **Case Three — playable, 100 points.** Four rooms, the locksmith front. |
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| `cases/case-04-revenge-remorse/` | **Case Four — playable, 100 points.** Four rooms, the wrong manual. |
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| `cases/case-05-butler-did-it/` | **Case Five — playable, 100 points.** Four rooms, chain of custody on a cake. |
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| `cases/case-06-testimony-of-evil/` | **Case Six — playable, 100 points.** Drebin (Nielsen), 1982, monochrome. Five rooms, the whiskey exploit, four deaths. |
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| `cases/case-07-from-the-files/` | **Case Seven — playable, 100 points.** Drebin (Nielsen), 1988, full colour. Six rooms, the Anaheim Stadium finale. |
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| `cases/case-02-ring-of-fear/` | **Case Two — playable, 100 points.** Drebin (Nielsen), 1982, monochrome. Five rooms, undercover, three deaths. |
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| `cases/case-08b-the-heron/` | **Case 8½ — playable, 100 points.** Interpol team-up: Drebin and a Sûreté legend chase a gentleman jewel thief to London. Five rooms. |
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| `cases/case-09-final-insult/` | **Case Nine — playable, 100 points.** Four rooms, prison undercover and the envelope. |
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| `cases/case-10-plot-device/` | **Case Ten — playable, 100 points.** Drebin Jr (Neeson), 2025, cold palette. Six rooms, the arena finale and the owl. |
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| `cases/case-08-smell-of-fear/` | **Case Eight — playable, 100 points.** Drebin (Nielsen), 1991, full colour. Five rooms, the memory test. |
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| `cases/case-11-what-he-wrote/` | **Case Eleven — playable, 100 points.** Drebin **Jr** reads his grandfather's files. Five rooms; the palette drifts from 2025 back to 1958. |
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| `tools/sprites.py` | Generates every sprite on the MODELBEAST farm (free, local). |
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| `tools/lint.py` | Checks every case for the authoring traps that have bitten us. Run it before playtesting. |
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| `RESEARCH.md` / `DESIGN.md` | Source research and the campaign bible. |
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## Case One — A Substantial Gift
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*Police Squad!* episode 1. A credit union manager is dead, the wrong man is in a
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cell, and the teller has new braces.
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Sign out your badge and sidearm (the door will not let you leave without them),
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get briefed, tip Johnny, dust the counter, match the print, find the bill, and
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Mirandize the suspect **in the correct order**. Get the order wrong and the
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statement is suppressed, which is a Sierra death card, which is the joke.
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## Case Seven — From the Files
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*The Naked Gun* (1988). Nordberg is shot on Ludwig's freighter, you tackle a head
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of state at a state reception, and you get fired — which is the only way forward,
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because a private citizen can't walk onto a baseball field but **an umpire can
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walk anywhere**.
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The climax: you are the home plate umpire at Anaheim Stadium with no power to
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search anyone, so every frisk needs an umpire-legitimate pretext — brush the
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plate, inspect the mitt, check the bat for pine tar — until you reach Number 44.
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Announce yourself as police instead and sixty thousand people come over the
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railings.
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## Case Ten — The P.L.O.T. Device
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*The Naked Gun* (2025). Liam Neeson's Frank Drebin Jr. — played **sincere** where
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his father was oblivious. He means everything he says, all the time, and that is
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both the joke and, eventually, the thing that saves the city.
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Bank cold open (you are the distraction and don't know it) → a suicide that
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isn't → Richard Cane → a New Year's ball drop, a pair of lost trousers, and a
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barn owl in a 1950s hat who is lit by a different decade than everything around
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him.
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## Regenerating art
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Sprites are generated locally on MODELBEAST (`flux_local` → `bg_remove_local` →
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downscale). Prompts live in each case's `sprites.json`.
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```bash
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python3 tools/sprites.py cases/case-01-substantial-gift # fill gaps
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python3 tools/sprites.py cases/case-01-substantial-gift --force # redo all
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MB_POOL=1 python3 tools/sprites.py cases/... # if the farm 401s
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```
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Seeds derive from the sprite name, so reruns reproduce the same art.
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## Engine changes
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Two small, general-purpose additions were made upstream in MRPGI for this
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project — both benefit any game:
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- `sprites/ego.png` in a game folder replaces the default party robot as the
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player avatar (`ego1.png` optional second walk cel).
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- `death_text` in `game.json` overrides the death banner, which was previously
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hardcoded to another game's flavour text.
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