Game Club 199x #37 - Zork
Nov 4, 2014 21:18:42 GMT -5
Post by Joseph Joestar on Nov 4, 2014 21:18:42 GMT -5
*Voting ended on Friday November 7, 2014 - voting results Here!
This month we're doing something a little different. For the first time ever, GC9x is tackling text adventures - or, if you want to be pretentious about it, "interactive fiction". Although there were other makers such as Adventure International, Infocom was by and large considered the gold standard of the genre. For this month, we're playing Infocom's best-known game, if not the best known text adventure - Zork!
Zork (PC)
From Wikipedia: Zork is one of the earliest interactive fiction computer games, with roots drawn from the original genre game, Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written in 1977–1979 using the MDL programming language on a DEC PDP-10 computer. The authors—Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling—were members of the MIT Dynamic Modelling Group. When Zork was published commercially, it was split up into three games: Zork: The Great Underground Empire - Part I (later known as Zork I), Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz, and Zork III: The Dungeon Master. Zork distinguished itself in its genre as an especially rich game, in terms of both the quality of the storytelling and the sophistication of its text parser, which was not limited to simple verb-noun commands ("hit troll"), but recognized some prepositions and conjunctions ("hit the troll with the Elvish sword").
Because Zork I - III were originally one game, we will treat them as such - the ultimate goal for this month is to make it through all three parts.
You can get the Zork Anthology (containing Zork I-III, and three other games) on GOG.
PRO TIPPZ:
Previous 3 GC9X Threads:
This month we're doing something a little different. For the first time ever, GC9x is tackling text adventures - or, if you want to be pretentious about it, "interactive fiction". Although there were other makers such as Adventure International, Infocom was by and large considered the gold standard of the genre. For this month, we're playing Infocom's best-known game, if not the best known text adventure - Zork!
Zork (PC)
From Wikipedia: Zork is one of the earliest interactive fiction computer games, with roots drawn from the original genre game, Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written in 1977–1979 using the MDL programming language on a DEC PDP-10 computer. The authors—Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling—were members of the MIT Dynamic Modelling Group. When Zork was published commercially, it was split up into three games: Zork: The Great Underground Empire - Part I (later known as Zork I), Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz, and Zork III: The Dungeon Master. Zork distinguished itself in its genre as an especially rich game, in terms of both the quality of the storytelling and the sophistication of its text parser, which was not limited to simple verb-noun commands ("hit troll"), but recognized some prepositions and conjunctions ("hit the troll with the Elvish sword").
Because Zork I - III were originally one game, we will treat them as such - the ultimate goal for this month is to make it through all three parts.
You can get the Zork Anthology (containing Zork I-III, and three other games) on GOG.
PRO TIPPZ:
- Scans of the original manual and feelies for Zork I, II, and III, link to site courtesy of Zerker
- Hints on getting the game to run on other interpreters, also courtesy of Zerker
Previous 3 GC9X Threads: