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Wikipedia

Zork

January 13, 2023

This article is about the 1977 video game. For other uses, see Zork (disambiguation).

Zork is a text-based adventure game first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. The original developers and others, as the company Infocom, expanded and split the game into three titles—Zork I: The Great Underground Empire, Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz, and Zork III: The Dungeon Master—which were released commercially for a range of personal computers beginning in 1980. In Zork, the player explores the abandoned Great Underground Empire in search of treasure. The player moves between the game's hundreds of locations and interacts with objects by typing commands in natural language that the game interprets. The program acts as a narrator, describing the player's location and the results of the player's commands. It has been described as the most famous piece of interactive fiction.

The original game, developed between 1977 and 1979 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was inspired by Colossal Cave Adventure (1976), the first well-known example of interactive fiction and the first well-known adventure game. The developers wanted to make a similar game that was able to understand more complicated sentences than Adventure's two-word commands. In 1979, they founded Infocom with several other colleagues at the MIT computer center. Blank and Joel Berez created a way to run a smaller portion of Zork on several brands of microcomputer, letting them commercialize the game as Infocom's first products. The first episode was published by Personal Software in 1980, after which Infocom purchased back the rights and self-published all three episodes beginning in late 1981.

Zork was a massive success for Infocom, with sales increasing for years as the market for personal computers expanded. The first episode sold over 38,000 copies in 1982, and around 150,000 copies in 1984. Collectively, the three episodes sold more than 680,000 copies through 1986, making up over a third of Infocom's sales in this period. Infocom was purchased by Activision in 1986, leading to new Zork games beginning in 1987, as well as a series of books. Reviews of the episodes were very positive, several reviewers calling Zork the best adventure game to date. Critics regard it as one of the greatest games of all time. Later historians have noted the game as foundational to the adventure game genre, as well as influencing the MUD and massively multiplayer online role-playing game genres. In 2007, Zork was included in the game canon by the Library of Congress as one of the ten most important video games of all time.

Gameplay

 
Zork being played on a Kaypro CP/M computer

Zork is a text-based adventure game wherein the player explores the ruins of the Great Underground Empire. The player types text commands for their character to traverse locations, solve puzzles, and collect treasure. The game has hundreds of locations, each with a name and description, and the player's commands interact with the objects, obstacles, and creatures within them. Commands can be one or two words (e.g., "get lamp" or "north") or more complex phrases (e.g., "put the lamp and sword in the case"). The command must fit the location's context (e.g., "get lamp" only works if a lamp is present). The program acts as a narrator, describing to the player their location and the results of certain actions. If the game does not understand the player's commands, it asks for the player to retype their actions.[1][2][3] The program's replies are typically in a sarcastic, conversational tone, much as a Dungeon Master would use in leading players in a tabletop role-playing game.[4]

The original 1977 version of the game was a single release, Zork. When it was converted into a commercial software title, it was divided into three episodes, with new and expanded sections added to the latter two episodes.[1] Much of the game world is composed of puzzles that must eventually be solved, such as a set of buttons on a dam or a maze to be traversed. Some puzzles have more than one solution.[5] For instance, since the "Loud Room" is too overwhelmingly loud for the player to perform actions, the player can either empty the nearby dam to stop the sound of water falling, or shout "echo" in the room to change its acoustics.[3][6] In the first episode, or Zork I, a thief character is wandering the underground as well, taking items that have been left behind or even stealing from the player's possessions.[7] The player can fight or evade the thief, and can recover stolen items from the thief's treasure room.[1][6] Some locations contain antagonists that the player must fight or overcome. Beginning in Zork II, the player can learn magic spells to use in puzzles and combat.[5] In dark areas, the player must carry a lantern or other light source to avoid being eaten by a monster called a grue.[2][8] There is a limit to how much "inventory" one can carry, determined by the combined weight of objects, rather than the quantity.[1]

A principal goal of each episode is to collect all of the treasures, many of which are hidden behind puzzles.[5] As treasures are collected or tasks are accomplished, the player's score increases, providing a rough measure of how much of the game has been completed. The player may traverse the game world and solve puzzles in mostly any order, although some passageways require problem-solving to get through, and some puzzles require the player to possess something gained from solving a different puzzle. In Zork III, unlike in prior episodes, there is a timed component that directly affects the outcome. An earthquake will occur after about 130 moves, opening one passageway and closing another. In each episode, the treasures are needed to reach the conclusion of the game.[3][9][10]

Plot

Zork does not follow a linear storyline. Most of the setting is established through the game's written descriptions of items and locations, as well as manuals in later game releases. Long before the time the game is set in, the Quendor empire, having conquered everywhere above ground, built a massive cave complex to expand. Two hundred years later, the ruler Lord Dimwit Flathead renamed the empire to the Great Underground Empire and spent his reign building massive, largely pointless projects such as an underground dam and the royal museum. A century later, the empire's overspending caused it to collapse, and all the residents left. The abandoned empire is the setting of the three episodes of Zork.[11]

Zork I begins with the unnamed player character near a white house in a small, self-contained area; most of the game occurs underground, as do the subsequent episodes. In Zork II, the player learns of the Flatheads, and meets the Wizard of Frobozz, who was once a respected enchanter but was exiled by Lord Dimwit Flathead when his powers began to fade. The wizard appears randomly throughout the game and casts spells that begin with the letter "F" on the player. These have several effects, such as "Fluoresce", which causes the player to glow, and "Freeze", which keeps the player stuck in place for a few turns. In Zork III, the player character gathers the garb of the Dungeon Master to become his successor. Once the player has all the items, they must feed an elderly man, who reveals himself as the Dungeon Master and shows them the doorway leading to the final hallway. After the player solves the final puzzles, the Dungeon Master appears and transforms the player to look like himself, signifying the player's succession to his position.

Development

Inception

 
 
 
Marc Blank in 2018, Bruce Daniels in 2009, and Dave Lebling in 2010

Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling began developing Zork in May 1977. The four were members of the Dynamic Modelling Group, a computer science research division at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Laboratory for Computer Science—Anderson, Blank, and Daniels as students and Lebling as a research staff member.[12] Their work was inspired by Colossal Cave Adventure, a text-based game that is the first well-known example of interactive fiction and the first well-known adventure game. Adventure was immensely popular among the small population of computer users of the time[13] and a big hit at MIT in early 1977. By the end of May, players had managed to completely solve it.[8]

The four programmers began to design a game that would be a "better" text adventure game, with inputs more complex than Adventure's two-word commands and puzzles less obtuse.[8] They believed that their division's MDL programming language would be better suited for processing complex text inputs than the Fortran code used in Adventure.[8][14] The group was familiar with creating video games: Blank and Anderson had worked on a multiplayer trivia game called Trivia (1976), and Lebling was heavily involved with Maze (1973), a multiplayer first-person shooter and the first 3D first-person game ever made. Lebling first created a natural language input system, or parser, that could process typed two-word instructions. Anderson and Blank built a small prototype text game to use it.[8][12] Zork's prototype was built for the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP-10 mainframe computer, the only system that supported their programming language.[8]

While Lebling took a two-week vacation, Anderson, Blank, and Daniels designed an adventure game concept, which Anderson and Blank then developed as an early version of Zork. This prototype contained simple versions of many concepts seen in the final game, including puzzles and locations. According to Anderson, "it took time for people to learn how to write good problems", and Lebling's first, uncomplex parser was only "almost as smart as Adventure's". The game was unnamed, but the group had a habit of naming their programs "zork" until they were completed, a term in the MIT community for an in-development program. The group, referring to themselves as the "implementers", continued working on the game after Lebling returned, adding features and iterating on the parser through June 1977.[8] Grues were added to replace pits that would kill players in the dark; while play-testing, Lebling noticed that his character fell into a pit while in the attic of the house.[12]

Lebling contends that Adventure was one of Zork's only influences, as there were few other games to emulate at the time. Although the game's combat is based on Dungeons & Dragons, Lebling said the other developers had never played it.[15] He also thought of the parser and associated text responses as taking on the role of the Dungeon Master from a Dungeons & Dragons game, trying to lead the player through a story solely by describing it; this had also been the idea behind the parser in Adventure.[4][16]

Creation

The developers did not announce their game while it was in development, but a lack of security on the MIT systems meant that anyone who could access the PDP-10 computer over the ARPANET could see what programs were being run. As a result, a small community of people, many of whom had been involved in playing and contributing to Trivia, would "snoop" on the system for new programs. They found the new "Zork" adventure game and spread word of it under that name.[12][17] This community—dozens or possibly hundreds of players, according to Lebling—interacted with the developers as they created the game, playtesting additions and submitting bug reports.[15][17] The implementers added a command transcript feature to keep track of what commands players tried to use unsuccessfully.[15]

By the end of June, the game was approximately half the size of the final Zork, and had a substantial community of players for the time. The group added locations such as a volcano and coal mine, and soon shifted their efforts to improving the game's engine and adding the ability to save the player's progress in the game. Following user requests, they also added the ability for the game to run on PDP-10 computers running different operating systems—TENEX and TOPS-20—which were much more popular than the Incompatible Timesharing System operating system the MIT computer used. These users then set up a mailing list to distribute updates to the game. The developers returned to creating new content in the fall of 1977, adding the "Alice in Wonderland" section and a system for fighting enemies.[17]

Around this time, community member Ted Hess at DEC decoded the protections the group had made for the source code, and another DEC employee, Bob Supnik, created a port of the game to Fortran. This port, released in March 1978, opened the game to a wider set of players without access to a PDP-10 mainframe.[17][18] At the time, the team had decided to give the game an actual name besides "zork", and chose Dungeon. This name was used for the Fortran version, which was spread through the DEC users group as one of its most popular pieces of software. TSR Hobbies claimed the title violated their trademark for Dungeons & Dragons, and the developers reverted to their original title.[17]

Over the course of 1978, the team added the bank and Royal Zork Puzzle Museum sections, along with some puzzles and ideas suggested by players. The last puzzle was added in February 1979, though the team continued to release bug fix updates until the final update in January 1981. Anderson attributes this to the team running out of ideas and time, and having run out of space in the one megabyte of memory allocated for the game.[17]

Very little of the game was planned ahead of time, nor were aspects of the game specific to one developer; instead, whenever one of the developers had an idea they liked, that developer would add it to the game, developing the concept and writing the text to go with it. According to Lebling, Blank ended up focusing mostly on the parser, Anderson on the game code, Blank and Daniels on new puzzles, and Lebling on descriptions of locations.[15] Anderson says that Blank wrote "40 or 50" iterations of the parser, and describes Daniels as designing puzzles that were then largely implemented by the others. He credits Blank with vehicles and saving, and Lebling with the robot, grues, and the fighting system.[17] To immerse the player in the game, the developers decided not to describe the player character, removing any accidental descriptions or gendered pronouns.[15] The text responses to the player's commands were frequently opinionated and sarcastic, a design choice that mirrored the group's speaking patterns. The team felt it would both make the system feel less like a computer and also train the player to write commands in a way that the parser could understand rather than ways it would misinterpret.[4]

Infocom

In 1979, Anderson, Blank, Lebling, and five other members of the Dynamic Modelling Group incorporated Infocom as a software company for members to join after leaving MIT.[19] No specific projects were initially agreed upon and Infocom had no paid employees, but discussions were focused on developing software for smaller mainframe computers.[19][20] Blank and Joel Berez came up with a plan to make Zork work on personal microcomputers, which were then beginning to become popular and which would greatly expand the audience for the game. Although microcomputers had very limited memory space compared to mainframe computers, they felt the project might be viable using floppy disks and a custom programming language if the game was cut into two pieces.[20]

The pair worked on the project through the summer and fall of 1979 without pay, as the new company only had the funds to pay for the computers. They ported the game to a new Zork Implementation Language (ZIL), which would then be run on a standardized "Z-machine" software-based computer. For each type of microcomputer they wanted to release Zork or other ZIL-based games on, they could write an interpreter program that could run the Z-Machine instead of rewriting each game. Lebling divided Zork in half to create standalone episodes, modifying the game's layout to improve its flow and disconnecting locations now in separate episodes.[20]

By the end of 1979, Berez was elected the company's president. The core game was complete, but only had been run on DECSYSTEM-20 and PDP-11 mainframe computers. Infocom purchased a TRS-80 personal computer early in 1980, which could run the game after Blank and Scott Cutler created an interpreter program. Infocom began preparing to release the first section under the title Zork: The Great Underground Empire - Part I. Mike Dornbrook, who had never played the game, tested it as an audience surrogate. He felt that the game would be wildly successful and develop a cult following, and urged Infocom to produce tie-in products like maps, hints, and shirts. The rest of the company was not convinced enough to start producing any such add-ons, but they did add an object in the game that gave an address for players to mail in for maps and hints in case it proved popular.[20]

The game now complete, the company began looking for a professional publisher with store and distributor connections. They felt this was preferable to self-publishing. Berez approached Microsoft, who declined based on the game competing with Microsoft Adventure (1979), their version of Adventure. Microsoft CEO Bill Gates was a fan of Zork, but by the time he heard of the proposal, Infocom was in negotiations with another publisher, Personal Software, one of the first professional software publishing companies. Personal Software agreed to publish the game in June 1980, sending the company an advance payment. Zork: The Great Underground Empire, also known as Zork I or just Zork, was published for the TRS-80 in December 1980. Since Personal Software declined to publish the 1979 PDP-11 version of the game, Infocom sold some copies earlier in the year after announcing to PDP-11 user groups. Lebling recalled about 20 floppy disk copies sold directly with Anderson's typewritten manual.[4][20]

By the end of 1980, an Apple II version of Zork I was completed and sold through Personal Software. Infocom began receiving requests for hints and maps as predicted, and Berez began handling map and poster orders while Dornbrook wrote customized hints for players; in September 1981 he founded the Zork Users Group as a separate company to handle all mail order sales and hint requests.[20][21] Infocom eventually produced hint booklets with progressive answers to questions written in invisible ink, branded as InvisiClues.[20][22] In the meantime, Lebling worked on converting the second half of Zork into Zork II, but in the process thought up several new puzzles for the game.[20] Although as late as December 1980 he told Byte that it would be a two-part game, it soon became clear that the second half would not fit into the allotted space.[7] As a result, the game was split again into Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz and Zork III: The Dungeon Master.[20] According to Lebling, splitting the game into episodes led to different atmospheres: Zork I was focused on exploration and Adventure-style gameplay, II had more of a focus on plot and added magic spells to the base game, and III was less straightforward, with time-sensitive aspects.[15] Marc Blank constructed Zork III and added gameplay changes such as the modified point system to move the game away from straightforward dungeon exploration.[12]

Zork II was offered to Personal Software in April 1981 and the contract was signed in June, but Infocom grew wary of continuing this relationship. The Infocom team felt that Personal Software was not advertising Zork I very strongly, and did not seem excited about Infocom's plans for Zork III and other planned text adventure games such as Deadline and Starcross. Personal Software soon stopped publishing entertainment software altogether and rebranded as VisiCorp in 1982 to align with its VisiCalc spreadsheet software. Rather than find another publisher, Infocom decided to self-publish its games and began renting office space and contracting with production facilities. It bought out Personal Software's stock of Apple II Zork I copies and began publishing Zork I and II directly by the end of 1981. Zork III followed in the fall of 1982. Infocom developed interpreters for the Commodore 64, the Atari 8-bit family of computers, CP/M systems, and the IBM Personal Computer, and released the episodes of Zork for them as well in 1982.[20]

Reception

Sales

Following its 1980 release, Zork I became a bestseller from 1983 through 1985,[23][24][25][26][27] with 380,000 copies sold by 1986.[28] In its first nine months, Personal Software sold 7,500 copies for the TRS-80 and Apple II.[29] Sales ballooned as Infocom began self-publishing the trilogy and the personal computer market expanded.[20][28] Zork I had sold 38,000 copies by the end of 1982, nearly 100,000 in 1983, and around 150,000 copies in 1984.[28] Its success outpaced Infocom's later games; Inc. reported in 1983 that Zork I, only one of Infocom's 15 released titles, composed 20 percent of their annual sales.[23] Zork I sales declined beginning in 1985. The second and third parts of Zork also sold well, though not as highly as the first: over 170,000 Zork II and 130,000 Zork III copies sold by 1986.[28]

Overall sales of the first three episodes reached over 760,000 copies by early 1989.[28] Combined, they sold more than 250,000 copies by 1984,[19] and more than 680,000 copies through 1986, including the 1986 Zork Trilogy compilation release. Between 1982 and 1986, the Zork trilogy composed more than one-third of Infocom's two million total game sales. Activision purchased Infocom in 1986 and reported that the three Zork games and trilogy compilation sold another 80,000 copies by early 1989.[28]

Reviews

The episodes of Zork were highly praised in contemporaneous reviews. Byte and 80 Micro praised their writing, which the Byte reviewer described as "entertaining, eloquent, witty, and precise".[30][31] Reviewers for Softalk and The Space Gamer enjoyed how the parser let them input more complex sentences than did earlier games, the Softalk review noting that every other game since Adventure had limited the player to two-word phrases, though they also thought that players would largely stick with clearer two-word commands.[32][33] 80 Micro wondered if Zork could ever be completed because of how much the parser let the player do.[31] Byte concluded that "no single advance in the science of Adventure has been as bold and exciting" as Zork, a sentiment echoed by Softalk.[30][32]

In the years after its release, Zork I received more reviews praising the game in relation to Adventure and the genre. Jerry Pournelle recommended the game in his long-running Byte column, stating in 1983 that "if you liked Adventure and wanted more ... I guarantee you'll love Zork".[34] Computer Gaming World in 1982, PC Magazine in 1982, and SoftSide in 1983 all recommended it as a "must-have" for anyone interested in fantasy or adventure games.[35][36][37] Family Computing, in late 1983, proclaimed it a classic of the genre and the game that made the adventure genre more than a novelty.[38]

Reviewers similarly praised Zork's second and third episodes. Softline recommended Zork II for its "well-balanced mix of humor, wit, and wry puns" for both new and experienced players.[39] PC Magazine stated that it would appeal to all players and that the game was challenging, enjoyable, and funny.[40] A reviewer for Softalk said that it broke away from both the first episode and Adventure to be "fresh and interesting".[41] Some of the puzzles in Zork II were later considered "infamously difficult", and in a hint book, Infocom apologized for one puzzle's difficulty and reliance on baseball knowledge.[42][43] Reviews in Softalk and Creative Computing named Zork III as the best in the trilogy.[44][45] PC World said it was "just as exciting and puzzling as Zork I and II", though its puzzles could be frustrating.[46] K-Power concluded that Zork III was "the most intelligent text game for a microcomputer that we've ever seen".[47]

Commodore Magazine, in June 1983, described the combined trilogy as the most popular adventure game, as well as the best.[48] The Addison-Wesley Book of Atari Software 1984 gave all three parts of Zork an overall A+ rating. It called Zork I "the definitive adventure game", adding that Zork II "has the same outstanding command flexibility, wry humor, and word recognition of Zork", and concluded that Zork III was "perhaps the most entertaining of the three" and "a highwater mark for subtlety and logic".[49]

Legacy

Zork has been described as "by far the most famous piece of [interactive fiction]" and "the father figure of the genre".[50] Game historian Matt Barton contended that "to say that Zork is an influential adventure game is like saying the Iliad is an influential poem".[42] Rather than simply influencing games, Barton said it instead showed that the computer could simulate a rich virtual world, and helped lay the foundations of video game concepts around exploring, collecting objects, and overcoming problems.[42][51] Nick Montfort, in his book on interactive fiction Twisty Little Passages (2003), suggested that Zork's legacy and influence lay not in its parser or writing, but in the way it modeled the game world as a complex, dynamic space that the player moved through.[1] Janet Murray, in Hamlet on the Holodeck (1997), considered this a result of the way the game was programmed compared to other games of the time, with each area, item, and actor modeled as their own object that could act and be acted upon.[52] Historians have argued that Zork, along with Colossal Cave Adventure, influenced the creation of the MUD genre, and through it the more recent massively multiplayer online role-playing game genre.[42][53][54]

Zork's natural language parser has been noted as having a strong personality, and one of the first games to have one.[4] It has been cited as starting a strong trend in writing for adventure games having "metafictional humor, and tendency towards self-parody".[55] Decades later Zork is still cited as an inspiration for text interfaces such as chatbots.[56] It has also been used, along with other text adventure games, as a framework for testing natural language processing systems.[57][58][59]

Zork was listed on several lists of the best video games more than a decade after release. In 1992, Computer Gaming World added Zork to its Hall of Fame.[60] It was placed on "best games of all time" lists for Computer Gaming World and Next Generation in 1996, and Next Generation listed the entire series as a whole in 1999.[61][62][63] In 2016, PC Gamer ranked Zork as one of the 50 most important video games ever made for establishing Infocom as a studio and defining an entire generation of adventure games.[64] In 2007, Zork was listed among the ten "game canon" video games selected for preservation by the Library of Congress.[65][66][67]

Zork was the centerpiece of Infocom's game catalog, and Infocom quickly followed it with several more text adventure games using variants of the Zork codebase and the Z-machine, each of which sold tens of thousands of copies.[4][28] By 1984, three years after Infocom began self-publishing Zork I, Infocom had 50 full-time employees, US$6 million in annual sales, and 12 other games released.[19] Infocom internally nicknamed its early games in relation to Zork, such as "Zork: the Mystery" (Deadline, 1982), "Zorks in Space" (Starcross, 1982), and Zork IV (Enchanter, 1983). By 1986 this had increased to 26 total titles. Although Wishbringer: The Magick Stone of Dreams (1985) was ostensibly set in the same world as Zork, the company had not made any more official Zork games, releasing only a Zork Trilogy compilation of all three episodes.[20][12][28]

In 1985, Infocom diversified into professional software by creating a relational database product called Cornerstone. Poor sales led to financial difficulties and the company was sold to Activision in 1986.[42] Infocom then created two more Zork games: Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor (1987), which added a graphical map and more role-playing and combat elements, and Zork Zero: The Revenge of Megaboz (1988), a prequel game that added graphical elements and menus as well as graphical minigames.[68][69] Infocom's tenure under Activision was rocky, and rising costs and falling profits, exacerbated by a lack of new products in 1988, led Activision to close Infocom in 1989.[42][70][71]

Activision returned to the series with several graphic adventure games: Return to Zork (1993), Zork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands (1996), and Zork: Grand Inquisitor (1997).[72][73][74] It also released Zork: The Undiscovered Underground (1997), a free text adventure game partially written by original Infocom implementers Michael Berlyn and Marc Blank to promote Zork: Grand Inquisitor.[75] In 2009, Jolt Online Gaming released Legends of Zork, a freemium browser-based online adventure game.[76]

The original Zork games have been re-released in several compilations since Zork Trilogy. They are included in The Lost Treasures of Infocom (1991), Zork Anthology (1994), Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces of Infocom (1996), and Zork Legacy Collection (1996).[77][78][79][80] A graphical port of Zork I for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn consoles was developed by Arc System Works and published by Shōeisha in Japan in 1996, 19 years after its original release.[81] Unofficial versions of Zork have been created for over forty years for a wide range of systems, such as browsers or smart speakers.[56]

Four gamebooks, written by Infocom developer Steve Meretzky and set in the Zork world, were published in 1983–1984: The Forces of Krill (1983), The Malifestro Quest (1983), The Cavern of Doom (1983), and Conquest at Quendor (1984). These books, known collectively as the "Zork books", are presented as interactive fiction in the style of the Choose Your Own Adventure series, wherein the player makes periodic choices and turns to a page that corresponds to that choice.[82] Two novels were published based on the original game: The Zork Chronicles by George Alec Effinger (1990) and The Lost City of Zork by Robin Wayne Bailey (1991).[83][84] In 1996, Threshold Entertainment acquired the rights to Zork and announced plans to create a Zork movie and live action TV series, though it was never produced.[85][86]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Montfort, pp. 99–109
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  29. ^ I.e., 1,500 copies of Zork I for the TRS-80, and 6,000 copies for the Apple II.[20]
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January 13, 2023
zork, this, article, about, 1977, video, game, other, uses, disambiguation, text, based, adventure, game, first, released, 1977, developers, anderson, marc, blank, bruce, daniels, dave, lebling, mainframe, computer, original, developers, others, company, infoc. This article is about the 1977 video game For other uses see Zork disambiguation Zork is a text based adventure game first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson Marc Blank Bruce Daniels and Dave Lebling for the PDP 10 mainframe computer The original developers and others as the company Infocom expanded and split the game into three titles Zork I The Great Underground Empire Zork II The Wizard of Frobozz and Zork III The Dungeon Master which were released commercially for a range of personal computers beginning in 1980 In Zork the player explores the abandoned Great Underground Empire in search of treasure The player moves between the game s hundreds of locations and interacts with objects by typing commands in natural language that the game interprets The program acts as a narrator describing the player s location and the results of the player s commands It has been described as the most famous piece of interactive fiction ZorkZork I cover artDeveloper s InfocomPublisher s Personal SoftwareInfocomDesigner s Tim AndersonMarc BlankDave LeblingBruce DanielsEngineZILPlatform s PDP 10PDP 11Personal computer various Release1977 Zork 1980 Zork I 1981 Zork II 1982 Zork III Genre s Adventure interactive fictionMode s Single playerThe original game developed between 1977 and 1979 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT was inspired by Colossal Cave Adventure 1976 the first well known example of interactive fiction and the first well known adventure game The developers wanted to make a similar game that was able to understand more complicated sentences than Adventure s two word commands In 1979 they founded Infocom with several other colleagues at the MIT computer center Blank and Joel Berez created a way to run a smaller portion of Zork on several brands of microcomputer letting them commercialize the game as Infocom s first products The first episode was published by Personal Software in 1980 after which Infocom purchased back the rights and self published all three episodes beginning in late 1981 Zork was a massive success for Infocom with sales increasing for years as the market for personal computers expanded The first episode sold over 38 000 copies in 1982 and around 150 000 copies in 1984 Collectively the three episodes sold more than 680 000 copies through 1986 making up over a third of Infocom s sales in this period Infocom was purchased by Activision in 1986 leading to new Zork games beginning in 1987 as well as a series of books Reviews of the episodes were very positive several reviewers calling Zork the best adventure game to date Critics regard it as one of the greatest games of all time Later historians have noted the game as foundational to the adventure game genre as well as influencing the MUD and massively multiplayer online role playing game genres In 2007 Zork was included in the game canon by the Library of Congress as one of the ten most important video games of all time Contents 1 Gameplay 2 Plot 3 Development 3 1 Inception 3 2 Creation 3 3 Infocom 4 Reception 4 1 Sales 4 2 Reviews 5 Legacy 6 References 6 1 Sources 7 External linksGameplay Edit Zork being played on a Kaypro CP M computer Zork is a text based adventure game wherein the player explores the ruins of the Great Underground Empire The player types text commands for their character to traverse locations solve puzzles and collect treasure The game has hundreds of locations each with a name and description and the player s commands interact with the objects obstacles and creatures within them Commands can be one or two words e g get lamp or north or more complex phrases e g put the lamp and sword in the case The command must fit the location s context e g get lamp only works if a lamp is present The program acts as a narrator describing to the player their location and the results of certain actions If the game does not understand the player s commands it asks for the player to retype their actions 1 2 3 The program s replies are typically in a sarcastic conversational tone much as a Dungeon Master would use in leading players in a tabletop role playing game 4 The original 1977 version of the game was a single release Zork When it was converted into a commercial software title it was divided into three episodes with new and expanded sections added to the latter two episodes 1 Much of the game world is composed of puzzles that must eventually be solved such as a set of buttons on a dam or a maze to be traversed Some puzzles have more than one solution 5 For instance since the Loud Room is too overwhelmingly loud for the player to perform actions the player can either empty the nearby dam to stop the sound of water falling or shout echo in the room to change its acoustics 3 6 In the first episode or Zork I a thief character is wandering the underground as well taking items that have been left behind or even stealing from the player s possessions 7 The player can fight or evade the thief and can recover stolen items from the thief s treasure room 1 6 Some locations contain antagonists that the player must fight or overcome Beginning in Zork II the player can learn magic spells to use in puzzles and combat 5 In dark areas the player must carry a lantern or other light source to avoid being eaten by a monster called a grue 2 8 There is a limit to how much inventory one can carry determined by the combined weight of objects rather than the quantity 1 A principal goal of each episode is to collect all of the treasures many of which are hidden behind puzzles 5 As treasures are collected or tasks are accomplished the player s score increases providing a rough measure of how much of the game has been completed The player may traverse the game world and solve puzzles in mostly any order although some passageways require problem solving to get through and some puzzles require the player to possess something gained from solving a different puzzle In Zork III unlike in prior episodes there is a timed component that directly affects the outcome An earthquake will occur after about 130 moves opening one passageway and closing another In each episode the treasures are needed to reach the conclusion of the game 3 9 10 Plot EditZork does not follow a linear storyline Most of the setting is established through the game s written descriptions of items and locations as well as manuals in later game releases Long before the time the game is set in the Quendor empire having conquered everywhere above ground built a massive cave complex to expand Two hundred years later the ruler Lord Dimwit Flathead renamed the empire to the Great Underground Empire and spent his reign building massive largely pointless projects such as an underground dam and the royal museum A century later the empire s overspending caused it to collapse and all the residents left The abandoned empire is the setting of the three episodes of Zork 11 Zork I begins with the unnamed player character near a white house in a small self contained area most of the game occurs underground as do the subsequent episodes In Zork II the player learns of the Flatheads and meets the Wizard of Frobozz who was once a respected enchanter but was exiled by Lord Dimwit Flathead when his powers began to fade The wizard appears randomly throughout the game and casts spells that begin with the letter F on the player These have several effects such as Fluoresce which causes the player to glow and Freeze which keeps the player stuck in place for a few turns In Zork III the player character gathers the garb of the Dungeon Master to become his successor Once the player has all the items they must feed an elderly man who reveals himself as the Dungeon Master and shows them the doorway leading to the final hallway After the player solves the final puzzles the Dungeon Master appears and transforms the player to look like himself signifying the player s succession to his position Development EditInception Edit Marc Blank in 2018 Bruce Daniels in 2009 and Dave Lebling in 2010 Tim Anderson Marc Blank Bruce Daniels and Dave Lebling began developing Zork in May 1977 The four were members of the Dynamic Modelling Group a computer science research division at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT Laboratory for Computer Science Anderson Blank and Daniels as students and Lebling as a research staff member 12 Their work was inspired by Colossal Cave Adventure a text based game that is the first well known example of interactive fiction and the first well known adventure game Adventure was immensely popular among the small population of computer users of the time 13 and a big hit at MIT in early 1977 By the end of May players had managed to completely solve it 8 The four programmers began to design a game that would be a better text adventure game with inputs more complex than Adventure s two word commands and puzzles less obtuse 8 They believed that their division s MDL programming language would be better suited for processing complex text inputs than the Fortran code used in Adventure 8 14 The group was familiar with creating video games Blank and Anderson had worked on a multiplayer trivia game called Trivia 1976 and Lebling was heavily involved with Maze 1973 a multiplayer first person shooter and the first 3D first person game ever made Lebling first created a natural language input system or parser that could process typed two word instructions Anderson and Blank built a small prototype text game to use it 8 12 Zork s prototype was built for the Digital Equipment Corporation DEC PDP 10 mainframe computer the only system that supported their programming language 8 While Lebling took a two week vacation Anderson Blank and Daniels designed an adventure game concept which Anderson and Blank then developed as an early version of Zork This prototype contained simple versions of many concepts seen in the final game including puzzles and locations According to Anderson it took time for people to learn how to write good problems and Lebling s first uncomplex parser was only almost as smart as Adventure s The game was unnamed but the group had a habit of naming their programs zork until they were completed a term in the MIT community for an in development program The group referring to themselves as the implementers continued working on the game after Lebling returned adding features and iterating on the parser through June 1977 8 Grues were added to replace pits that would kill players in the dark while play testing Lebling noticed that his character fell into a pit while in the attic of the house 12 Lebling contends that Adventure was one of Zork s only influences as there were few other games to emulate at the time Although the game s combat is based on Dungeons amp Dragons Lebling said the other developers had never played it 15 He also thought of the parser and associated text responses as taking on the role of the Dungeon Master from a Dungeons amp Dragons game trying to lead the player through a story solely by describing it this had also been the idea behind the parser in Adventure 4 16 Creation Edit The developers did not announce their game while it was in development but a lack of security on the MIT systems meant that anyone who could access the PDP 10 computer over the ARPANET could see what programs were being run As a result a small community of people many of whom had been involved in playing and contributing to Trivia would snoop on the system for new programs They found the new Zork adventure game and spread word of it under that name 12 17 This community dozens or possibly hundreds of players according to Lebling interacted with the developers as they created the game playtesting additions and submitting bug reports 15 17 The implementers added a command transcript feature to keep track of what commands players tried to use unsuccessfully 15 By the end of June the game was approximately half the size of the final Zork and had a substantial community of players for the time The group added locations such as a volcano and coal mine and soon shifted their efforts to improving the game s engine and adding the ability to save the player s progress in the game Following user requests they also added the ability for the game to run on PDP 10 computers running different operating systems TENEX and TOPS 20 which were much more popular than the Incompatible Timesharing System operating system the MIT computer used These users then set up a mailing list to distribute updates to the game The developers returned to creating new content in the fall of 1977 adding the Alice in Wonderland section and a system for fighting enemies 17 Around this time community member Ted Hess at DEC decoded the protections the group had made for the source code and another DEC employee Bob Supnik created a port of the game to Fortran This port released in March 1978 opened the game to a wider set of players without access to a PDP 10 mainframe 17 18 At the time the team had decided to give the game an actual name besides zork and chose Dungeon This name was used for the Fortran version which was spread through the DEC users group as one of its most popular pieces of software TSR Hobbies claimed the title violated their trademark for Dungeons amp Dragons and the developers reverted to their original title 17 Over the course of 1978 the team added the bank and Royal Zork Puzzle Museum sections along with some puzzles and ideas suggested by players The last puzzle was added in February 1979 though the team continued to release bug fix updates until the final update in January 1981 Anderson attributes this to the team running out of ideas and time and having run out of space in the one megabyte of memory allocated for the game 17 Very little of the game was planned ahead of time nor were aspects of the game specific to one developer instead whenever one of the developers had an idea they liked that developer would add it to the game developing the concept and writing the text to go with it According to Lebling Blank ended up focusing mostly on the parser Anderson on the game code Blank and Daniels on new puzzles and Lebling on descriptions of locations 15 Anderson says that Blank wrote 40 or 50 iterations of the parser and describes Daniels as designing puzzles that were then largely implemented by the others He credits Blank with vehicles and saving and Lebling with the robot grues and the fighting system 17 To immerse the player in the game the developers decided not to describe the player character removing any accidental descriptions or gendered pronouns 15 The text responses to the player s commands were frequently opinionated and sarcastic a design choice that mirrored the group s speaking patterns The team felt it would both make the system feel less like a computer and also train the player to write commands in a way that the parser could understand rather than ways it would misinterpret 4 Infocom Edit In 1979 Anderson Blank Lebling and five other members of the Dynamic Modelling Group incorporated Infocom as a software company for members to join after leaving MIT 19 No specific projects were initially agreed upon and Infocom had no paid employees but discussions were focused on developing software for smaller mainframe computers 19 20 Blank and Joel Berez came up with a plan to make Zork work on personal microcomputers which were then beginning to become popular and which would greatly expand the audience for the game Although microcomputers had very limited memory space compared to mainframe computers they felt the project might be viable using floppy disks and a custom programming language if the game was cut into two pieces 20 The pair worked on the project through the summer and fall of 1979 without pay as the new company only had the funds to pay for the computers They ported the game to a new Zork Implementation Language ZIL which would then be run on a standardized Z machine software based computer For each type of microcomputer they wanted to release Zork or other ZIL based games on they could write an interpreter program that could run the Z Machine instead of rewriting each game Lebling divided Zork in half to create standalone episodes modifying the game s layout to improve its flow and disconnecting locations now in separate episodes 20 By the end of 1979 Berez was elected the company s president The core game was complete but only had been run on DECSYSTEM 20 and PDP 11 mainframe computers Infocom purchased a TRS 80 personal computer early in 1980 which could run the game after Blank and Scott Cutler created an interpreter program Infocom began preparing to release the first section under the title Zork The Great Underground Empire Part I Mike Dornbrook who had never played the game tested it as an audience surrogate He felt that the game would be wildly successful and develop a cult following and urged Infocom to produce tie in products like maps hints and shirts The rest of the company was not convinced enough to start producing any such add ons but they did add an object in the game that gave an address for players to mail in for maps and hints in case it proved popular 20 The game now complete the company began looking for a professional publisher with store and distributor connections They felt this was preferable to self publishing Berez approached Microsoft who declined based on the game competing with Microsoft Adventure 1979 their version of Adventure Microsoft CEO Bill Gates was a fan of Zork but by the time he heard of the proposal Infocom was in negotiations with another publisher Personal Software one of the first professional software publishing companies Personal Software agreed to publish the game in June 1980 sending the company an advance payment Zork The Great Underground Empire also known as Zork I or just Zork was published for the TRS 80 in December 1980 Since Personal Software declined to publish the 1979 PDP 11 version of the game Infocom sold some copies earlier in the year after announcing to PDP 11 user groups Lebling recalled about 20 floppy disk copies sold directly with Anderson s typewritten manual 4 20 By the end of 1980 an Apple II version of Zork I was completed and sold through Personal Software Infocom began receiving requests for hints and maps as predicted and Berez began handling map and poster orders while Dornbrook wrote customized hints for players in September 1981 he founded the Zork Users Group as a separate company to handle all mail order sales and hint requests 20 21 Infocom eventually produced hint booklets with progressive answers to questions written in invisible ink branded as InvisiClues 20 22 In the meantime Lebling worked on converting the second half of Zork into Zork II but in the process thought up several new puzzles for the game 20 Although as late as December 1980 he told Byte that it would be a two part game it soon became clear that the second half would not fit into the allotted space 7 As a result the game was split again into Zork II The Wizard of Frobozz and Zork III The Dungeon Master 20 According to Lebling splitting the game into episodes led to different atmospheres Zork I was focused on exploration and Adventure style gameplay II had more of a focus on plot and added magic spells to the base game and III was less straightforward with time sensitive aspects 15 Marc Blank constructed Zork III and added gameplay changes such as the modified point system to move the game away from straightforward dungeon exploration 12 Zork II was offered to Personal Software in April 1981 and the contract was signed in June but Infocom grew wary of continuing this relationship The Infocom team felt that Personal Software was not advertising Zork I very strongly and did not seem excited about Infocom s plans for Zork III and other planned text adventure games such as Deadline and Starcross Personal Software soon stopped publishing entertainment software altogether and rebranded as VisiCorp in 1982 to align with its VisiCalc spreadsheet software Rather than find another publisher Infocom decided to self publish its games and began renting office space and contracting with production facilities It bought out Personal Software s stock of Apple II Zork I copies and began publishing Zork I and II directly by the end of 1981 Zork III followed in the fall of 1982 Infocom developed interpreters for the Commodore 64 the Atari 8 bit family of computers CP M systems and the IBM Personal Computer and released the episodes of Zork for them as well in 1982 20 Reception EditSales Edit Following its 1980 release Zork I became a bestseller from 1983 through 1985 23 24 25 26 27 with 380 000 copies sold by 1986 28 In its first nine months Personal Software sold 7 500 copies for the TRS 80 and Apple II 29 Sales ballooned as Infocom began self publishing the trilogy and the personal computer market expanded 20 28 Zork I had sold 38 000 copies by the end of 1982 nearly 100 000 in 1983 and around 150 000 copies in 1984 28 Its success outpaced Infocom s later games Inc reported in 1983 that Zork I only one of Infocom s 15 released titles composed 20 percent of their annual sales 23 Zork I sales declined beginning in 1985 The second and third parts of Zork also sold well though not as highly as the first over 170 000 Zork II and 130 000 Zork III copies sold by 1986 28 Overall sales of the first three episodes reached over 760 000 copies by early 1989 28 Combined they sold more than 250 000 copies by 1984 19 and more than 680 000 copies through 1986 including the 1986 Zork Trilogy compilation release Between 1982 and 1986 the Zork trilogy composed more than one third of Infocom s two million total game sales Activision purchased Infocom in 1986 and reported that the three Zork games and trilogy compilation sold another 80 000 copies by early 1989 28 Reviews Edit The episodes of Zork were highly praised in contemporaneous reviews Byte and 80 Micro praised their writing which the Byte reviewer described as entertaining eloquent witty and precise 30 31 Reviewers for Softalk and The Space Gamer enjoyed how the parser let them input more complex sentences than did earlier games the Softalk review noting that every other game since Adventure had limited the player to two word phrases though they also thought that players would largely stick with clearer two word commands 32 33 80 Micro wondered if Zork could ever be completed because of how much the parser let the player do 31 Byte concluded that no single advance in the science of Adventure has been as bold and exciting as Zork a sentiment echoed by Softalk 30 32 In the years after its release Zork I received more reviews praising the game in relation to Adventure and the genre Jerry Pournelle recommended the game in his long running Byte column stating in 1983 that if you liked Adventure and wanted more I guarantee you ll love Zork 34 Computer Gaming World in 1982 PC Magazine in 1982 and SoftSide in 1983 all recommended it as a must have for anyone interested in fantasy or adventure games 35 36 37 Family Computing in late 1983 proclaimed it a classic of the genre and the game that made the adventure genre more than a novelty 38 Reviewers similarly praised Zork s second and third episodes Softline recommended Zork II for its well balanced mix of humor wit and wry puns for both new and experienced players 39 PC Magazine stated that it would appeal to all players and that the game was challenging enjoyable and funny 40 A reviewer for Softalk said that it broke away from both the first episode and Adventure to be fresh and interesting 41 Some of the puzzles in Zork II were later considered infamously difficult and in a hint book Infocom apologized for one puzzle s difficulty and reliance on baseball knowledge 42 43 Reviews in Softalk and Creative Computing named Zork III as the best in the trilogy 44 45 PC World said it was just as exciting and puzzling as Zork I and II though its puzzles could be frustrating 46 K Power concluded that Zork III was the most intelligent text game for a microcomputer that we ve ever seen 47 Commodore Magazine in June 1983 described the combined trilogy as the most popular adventure game as well as the best 48 The Addison Wesley Book of Atari Software 1984 gave all three parts of Zork an overall A rating It called Zork I the definitive adventure game adding that Zork II has the same outstanding command flexibility wry humor and word recognition of Zork and concluded that Zork III was perhaps the most entertaining of the three and a highwater mark for subtlety and logic 49 Legacy Edit Zork I at the Computerspielemuseum Berlin Zork has been described as by far the most famous piece of interactive fiction and the father figure of the genre 50 Game historian Matt Barton contended that to say that Zork is an influential adventure game is like saying the Iliad is an influential poem 42 Rather than simply influencing games Barton said it instead showed that the computer could simulate a rich virtual world and helped lay the foundations of video game concepts around exploring collecting objects and overcoming problems 42 51 Nick Montfort in his book on interactive fiction Twisty Little Passages 2003 suggested that Zork s legacy and influence lay not in its parser or writing but in the way it modeled the game world as a complex dynamic space that the player moved through 1 Janet Murray in Hamlet on the Holodeck 1997 considered this a result of the way the game was programmed compared to other games of the time with each area item and actor modeled as their own object that could act and be acted upon 52 Historians have argued that Zork along with Colossal Cave Adventure influenced the creation of the MUD genre and through it the more recent massively multiplayer online role playing game genre 42 53 54 Zork s natural language parser has been noted as having a strong personality and one of the first games to have one 4 It has been cited as starting a strong trend in writing for adventure games having metafictional humor and tendency towards self parody 55 Decades later Zork is still cited as an inspiration for text interfaces such as chatbots 56 It has also been used along with other text adventure games as a framework for testing natural language processing systems 57 58 59 Zork was listed on several lists of the best video games more than a decade after release In 1992 Computer Gaming World added Zork to its Hall of Fame 60 It was placed on best games of all time lists for Computer Gaming World and Next Generation in 1996 and Next Generation listed the entire series as a whole in 1999 61 62 63 In 2016 PC Gamer ranked Zork as one of the 50 most important video games ever made for establishing Infocom as a studio and defining an entire generation of adventure games 64 In 2007 Zork was listed among the ten game canon video games selected for preservation by the Library of Congress 65 66 67 Zork was the centerpiece of Infocom s game catalog and Infocom quickly followed it with several more text adventure games using variants of the Zork codebase and the Z machine each of which sold tens of thousands of copies 4 28 By 1984 three years after Infocom began self publishing Zork I Infocom had 50 full time employees US 6 million in annual sales and 12 other games released 19 Infocom internally nicknamed its early games in relation to Zork such as Zork the Mystery Deadline 1982 Zorks in Space Starcross 1982 and Zork IV Enchanter 1983 By 1986 this had increased to 26 total titles Although Wishbringer The Magick Stone of Dreams 1985 was ostensibly set in the same world as Zork the company had not made any more official Zork games releasing only a Zork Trilogy compilation of all three episodes 20 12 28 In 1985 Infocom diversified into professional software by creating a relational database product called Cornerstone Poor sales led to financial difficulties and the company was sold to Activision in 1986 42 Infocom then created two more Zork games Beyond Zork The Coconut of Quendor 1987 which added a graphical map and more role playing and combat elements and Zork Zero The Revenge of Megaboz 1988 a prequel game that added graphical elements and menus as well as graphical minigames 68 69 Infocom s tenure under Activision was rocky and rising costs and falling profits exacerbated by a lack of new products in 1988 led Activision to close Infocom in 1989 42 70 71 Activision returned to the series with several graphic adventure games Return to Zork 1993 Zork Nemesis The Forbidden Lands 1996 and Zork Grand Inquisitor 1997 72 73 74 It also released Zork The Undiscovered Underground 1997 a free text adventure game partially written by original Infocom implementers Michael Berlyn and Marc Blank to promote Zork Grand Inquisitor 75 In 2009 Jolt Online Gaming released Legends of Zork a freemium browser based online adventure game 76 The original Zork games have been re released in several compilations since Zork Trilogy They are included in The Lost Treasures of Infocom 1991 Zork Anthology 1994 Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces of Infocom 1996 and Zork Legacy Collection 1996 77 78 79 80 A graphical port of Zork I for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn consoles was developed by Arc System Works and published by Shōeisha in Japan in 1996 19 years after its original release 81 Unofficial versions of Zork have been created for over forty years for a wide range of systems such as browsers or smart speakers 56 Four gamebooks written by Infocom developer Steve Meretzky and set in the Zork world were published in 1983 1984 The Forces of Krill 1983 The Malifestro Quest 1983 The Cavern of Doom 1983 and Conquest at Quendor 1984 These books known collectively as the Zork books are presented as interactive fiction in the style of the Choose Your Own Adventure series wherein the player makes periodic choices and turns to a page that corresponds to that choice 82 Two novels were published based on the original game The Zork Chronicles by George Alec Effinger 1990 and The Lost City of Zork by Robin Wayne Bailey 1991 83 84 In 1996 Threshold Entertainment acquired the rights to Zork and announced plans to create a Zork movie and live action TV series though it was never produced 85 86 References Edit a b c d e Montfort pp 99 109 a b Lebling Dave Blank Marc Anderson Tim April 1979 Zork A Computerized Fantasy Simulation Game Computer 12 4 51 59 doi 10 1109 mc 1979 1658697 S2CID 7845131 a b c Blank Lebling Zork I pp 12 20 a b c d e f Rignall Jaz Parish Jeremy December 25 2015 Dave Lebling on the Genesis of the Adventure Game and the Creation of Zork USGamer Archived from the original on July 30 2022 Retrieved August 5 2022 a b c Montfort pp 129 134 a b InvisiClues The Hint Booklet for Zork I Infocom 1982 a b Lebling Dave December 1980 Zork and the Future of Computerized Fantasy Simulations Byte Vol 5 no 12 pp 172 182 ISSN 0360 5280 a b c d e f g Anderson Tim Winter 1985 The History of Zork First in a series The New Zork Times Vol 4 no 1 pp 6 7 11 Blank Lebling Zork II pp 12 20 Blank Lebling Zork III pp 12 20 Blank Lebling Zork I pp 3 10 a b c d e f Lebling Dave March 2014 Classic Game Postmortem Zork conference presentation Retrieved August 17 2022 via Game Developers Conference Smith pp 383 385 Yokal Kathy October 1983 Marc Blank The Programmer Behind Zork Compute s Gazette Vol 1 no 4 pp 64 66 ISSN 0737 3716 a b c d e f The Making of Zork Retro Gamer No 77 May 2010 pp 36 39 ISSN 1742 3155 Dibbel pp 56 57 a b c d e f g Anderson Tim Spring 1985 The History of Zork Second in a series The New Zork Times Vol 4 no 2 pp 3 5 Supnik Bob October 25 2006 Bob Supnik Interview from Get Lamp Video Jason Scott Retrieved August 29 2022 a b c d Dyer Richard May 6 1984 Masters of the Game The Boston Globe Archived from the original on June 7 1997 a b c d e f g h i j k l m Galley Stu Summer 1985 The History of Zork Third in a series The New Zork Times Vol 4 no 3 pp 4 5 Dornbrook Mike 1982 A user s guide to getting into the worlds of Infocom PDF Zork Users Group Archived PDF from the original on August 21 2022 Retrieved August 21 2022 Langdell James November 1983 A Zork Fan Turns Pro PC Magazine Vol 2 no 6 p 75 ISSN 0888 8507 a b Solomon Abby October 1983 Games Businesspeople Play Inc ISSN 0162 8968 Archived from the original on April 7 2022 Retrieved August 8 2022 Mace Scott April 2 1984 Games with windows InfoWorld p 56 ISSN 0199 6649 Ditlea Steve Onosco Tim Kunkel Bill February 1985 Random Access Best Sellers Recreation Video Vol 8 no 11 p 35 ISSN 0147 8907 Onosco Tim Kohl Louise Kunkel Bill Garr Doug March 1985 Random Access Best Sellers Recreation Video Vol 8 no 12 p 43 ISSN 0147 8907 Ciraolo Michael October 1985 Top Software A List of Favorites II Computing Vol 1 no 1 p 51 ISSN 0889 9134 a b c d e f g h Carless Simon September 20 2008 Great Scott Infocom s All Time Sales Numbers Revealed GameSetWatch Archived from the original on September 24 2008 Retrieved September 23 2008 I e 1 500 copies of Zork I for the TRS 80 and 6 000 copies for the Apple II 20 a b Liddil Bob February 1981 Zork The Great Underground Empire Byte Vol 6 no 2 pp 262 264 ISSN 0360 5280 a b Marshall Debra August 1981 Zork 80 Micro No 20 p 32 ISSN 0744 7868 Retrieved February 17 2015 a b Marketalk Reviews Zork Softalk Vol 1 no 10 June 1981 p 53 ISSN 0274 9629 Mishcon Jon June 1981 Capsule Reviews The Space Gamer No 40 p 36 ISSN 0194 9977 Pournelle Jerry June 1983 Zenith Z 100 Epson QX 10 Software Licensing and the Software Piracy Problem Byte Vol 8 no 6 p 411 ISSN 0360 5280 Maloy Deirdre L January February 1982 Micro Reviews PDF Computer Gaming World Vol 1 no 2 p 32 ISSN 0744 6667 Archived from the original on November 11 2020 Retrieved August 8 2022 Cook Richard December 1982 From Fantasy To Video Game Reality Zork I PC Magazine Vol 1 no 8 p 99 ISSN 0888 8507 Renne Mark September 1983 Zork I SoftSide Vol 6 no 11 pp 50 51 ISSN 0274 8630 Grevstad Eric September 1983 Zork I Adventure Family Computing Vol 1 no 1 p 98 ISSN 0899 7373 Repstad Tom May 1982 Zork II Softline Vol 1 no 5 p 17 ISSN 0745 4988 Archived from the original on January 3 2019 Leibson Steve December 1982 Space Wars and Earth Games Zork II PC Magazine p 167 169 171 ISSN 0888 8507 Archived from the original on August 10 2022 Retrieved August 10 2022 Marketalk Reviews Zork II Softalk Vol 2 no 7 March 1982 p 53 ISSN 0274 9629 a b c d e f Barton Matt June 28 2007 The History Of Zork Game Developer Archived from the original on August 9 2022 Retrieved August 8 2022 InvisiClues The Hint Booklet for Zork II Infocom 1982 Marketalk Reviews Zork III Softalk Vol 3 no 1 September 1982 p 53 ISSN 0274 9629 Townsend Carl November 1983 Zork III a classic adventure Creative Computing Vol 9 no 11 p 141 ISSN 0097 8140 Archived from the original on August 5 2022 Retrieved August 8 2022 For Game Gourmets Zork III PC World October 1983 pp 180 181 ISSN 0737 8939 Saberhagen Eric Saberhagen Tom February 1984 Zork III K Power p 58 ISSN 0741 5192 Zork Commodore Magazine Vol 3 no 6 November 1983 pp 8 11 ISSN 0814 5741 Stanton Wells Rochowansky Mellid pp 30 31 Montfort pp 98 99 Barton p 35 Murray pp 76 79 Heron Michael August 3 2016 Hunt The Syntax Part One Game Developer Archived from the original on January 8 2022 Retrieved January 8 2022 Murray p 86 Bonello Krista Giappone Rutter July 2015 Self Reflexivity and Humor in Adventure Games Game Studies 15 1 ISSN 1604 7982 a b Woyke Elizabeth August 22 2017 The Enduring Legacy of Zork MIT Technology Review Archived from the original on August 23 2022 Retrieved August 8 2022 Yao S Narasimhan K Hausknecht M 2021 Reading and Acting while Blindfolded The Need for Semantics in Text Game Agents North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics arXiv 2103 13552 Luketina J Nardelli N Farquhar G Foerster J Andreas J Grefenstette E Whiteson S Rocktaschel T 2019 A Survey of Reinforcement Learning Informed by Natural Language International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence arXiv 1906 03926 Jansen P A 2021 A Systematic Survey of Text Worlds as Embodied Natural Language Environments arXiv 2107 04132 cs CL Computer Gaming World s Hall of Fame Computer Gaming World No 100 November 1992 p 193 ISSN 0744 6667 Archived from the original on July 2 2014 Retrieved July 5 2014 150 Best Games of All Time Computer Gaming World No 148 November 1996 pp 64 80 ISSN 0744 6667 Archived from the original on April 8 2016 Retrieved August 8 2022 Top 100 Games of All Time Next Generation No 21 September 1996 p 56 ISSN 1078 9693 Top 50 Games of All Time Next Generation No 50 February 1999 p 73 ISSN 1078 9693 The most important PC games of all time PC Gamer January 17 2016 Archived from the original on April 30 2019 Retrieved January 19 2016 Chaplin Heather March 12 2007 Is That Just Some Game No It s a Cultural Artifact The New York Times p E7 Archived from the original on December 4 2015 Ransom Wiley James March 12 2007 10 most important video games of all time as judged by 2 designers 2 academics and 1 lowly blogger Joystiq Archived from the original on March 14 2007 Retrieved March 8 2016 Owens Trevor September 26 2012 Yes The Library of Congress Has Video Games An Interview with David Gibson The Signal Archived from the original on March 8 2016 Retrieved March 8 2016 Knight Kyle Beyond Zork AllGame Archived from the original on November 14 2014 Retrieved August 17 2022 Knight Kyle Zork Zero The Revenge of Megaboz AllGame Archived from the original on November 14 2014 Retrieved August 17 2022 Rumored Activision Infocom Rift Unfounded Computer Gaming World No 46 April 1988 p 9 ISSN 0744 6667 Retrieved November 16 2022 Infocom s West Coast Move Stirs Controversy Computer Gaming World No 63 September 1989 p 10 ISSN 0744 6667 Retrieved November 16 2022 Return to Zork AllGame Archived from the original on November 14 2014 Retrieved August 17 2022 Zork Nemesis AllGame Archived from the original on November 14 2014 Retrieved August 17 2022 Deci T J Zork Grand Inquisitor AllGame Archived from the original on November 14 2014 Retrieved August 17 2022 Knight Kyle Zork The Undiscovered Underground AllGame Archived from the original on November 14 2014 Retrieved August 17 2022 Cohen Peter April 1 2009 Legends of Zork launches as Web based casual game Macworld Archived from the original on August 17 2022 Retrieved August 17 2022 The Lost Treasures Of Infocom The Centre for Computing History Archived from the original on May 12 2021 Retrieved August 17 2022 Finals Next Generation No 2 February 1995 p 96 ISSN 1078 9693 Infocom Masterpieces Next Generation No 24 December 1996 p 272 ISSN 1078 9693 Datapad PC Zone No 52 July 1997 p 16 ISSN 0967 8220 ゾーク ワン Zork I Gamer in Japanese Archived from the original on October 24 2020 Retrieved August 17 2022 Langford Dave Clute John 2021 Meretzky Steve The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction 3rd ed Archived from the original on August 18 2022 Retrieved August 18 2022 Effinger George Alec 1990 The Zork Chronicles Avon ISBN 978 0 380 75388 8 Bailey Robin Wayne 1991 The Lost City of Zork Avon ISBN 978 0 380 75389 5 Tidbits Electronic Gaming Monthly No 82 May 1996 p 18 ISSN 1058 918X Celebrity Sightings GamePro No 92 May 1996 p 21 ISSN 1042 8658 Sources Edit Barton Matt 2019 Vintage Games 2 0 An Insider Look at the Most Influential Games of All Time CRC Press ISBN 978 1 00 000092 4 Blank Marc Lebling Dave 1984 Zork I The Great Underground EmpireInstruction Manual Zork Trilogy PDF Infocom Archived PDF from the original on August 11 2003 Blank Marc Lebling Dave 1984 Zork II The Wizard of FrobozzInstruction Manual Zork Trilogy PDF Infocom Archived PDF from the original on May 1 2003 Blank Marc Lebling Dave 1984 Zork III The Dungeon MasterInstruction Manual Zork Trilogy PDF Infocom Archived PDF from the original on August 11 2003 Dibbell Julian 1998 My Tiny Life Crime and Passion in a Virtual World Holt Paperbacks ISBN 978 0 8050 3626 8 LCCN 98 13636 Montfort Nick 2003 Twisty Little Passages An Approach To Interactive Fiction MIT Press ISBN 978 0 262 13436 1 Murray Janet 2017 1997 Hamlet on the Holodeck The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace 2nd ed MIT Press ISBN 978 0 262 53348 5 Smith Alexander 2019 They Create Worlds The Story of the People and Companies That Shaped the Video Game Industry Vol I 1971 1982 CRC Press ISBN 978 0 429 75261 2 Stanton Jeffrey Wells Robert P Rochowansky Sandra Mellid Michael eds 1984 The Addison Wesley Book of Atari Software Addison Wesley ISBN 0 201 16454 X External links EditListen to this article 33 minutes source source This audio file was created from a revision of this article dated 4 January 2023 2023 01 04 and does not reflect subsequent edits Audio help More spoken articles Wikiquote has quotations related to Zork Wikimedia Commons has media related to Zork game franchise Zork Zork I Zork II and Zork III at the Interactive Fiction Database with downloadable versions for many platforms Zork Zork I Zork II and Zork III at the Interactive Fiction Wiki with downloadable versions for many platforms Source code for a 1977 PDP 10 version of Zork Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Zork amp oldid 1133321813, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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