
Exploring Zork (2012) - pmoriarty
https://www.filfre.net/2012/01/exploring-zork-part-1/
======
pmoriarty
Also see:

Exploring Zork, Part 2: [https://www.filfre.net/2012/01/exploring-zork-
part-2/](https://www.filfre.net/2012/01/exploring-zork-part-2/)

Exploring Zork, Part 3: [https://www.filfre.net/2012/01/exploring-zork-
part-3/](https://www.filfre.net/2012/01/exploring-zork-part-3/)

The Roots of Infocom: [https://www.filfre.net/2012/01/the-roots-of-
infocom/](https://www.filfre.net/2012/01/the-roots-of-infocom/)

The Birth of Infocom: [https://www.filfre.net/2012/01/the-birth-of-
infocom/](https://www.filfre.net/2012/01/the-birth-of-infocom/)

ZIL and the Z-Machine: [https://www.filfre.net/2012/01/zil-and-the-z-
machine/](https://www.filfre.net/2012/01/zil-and-the-z-machine/)

Selling Zork: [https://www.filfre.net/2012/01/selling-
zork/](https://www.filfre.net/2012/01/selling-zork/)

------
phodo
Zork* - My gateway drug, my portal to another world... to storytelling,
grammar, language, academics, programming, entrepreneurship, engineering,
business, imagination, creativity, magic. I still feel it’s incredibly
positive impact many decades later.

* includes enchanter, spell breaker, and all the infocom games

~~~
ido
I wonder - did you not play other types of games before?

I tried getting into IF several times and never really managed to get very far
- both the frustration of trying to get the parser to understand me & the
"gameplay" (puzzles I guess) just not being very interesting.

Maybe it's one of those things where "you had to be there at the time".

~~~
crtlaltdel
> "you had to be there at the time".

^yes. this, and access to technology. there was a pretty significant time
where low-end PC tech could support little of the more "advanced" gaming
trends. i played many text-adventure, MUDs and 2d platforming games (PoP,
chopper commando, etc) because that was what would run on the machine i had
access to. my neighbor had a pentium with a cd-rom...which is where i learned
of myst ;)

i have a deep love of text gaming (online and off) because of this...and i can
100% see why it may not resonate so well with others

~~~
2snakes
I still occasionally play a MUD called Shattered Kingdoms. I played that game
for 15 years: really nice ANSI color and you sort of can’t beat it because of
the roleplaying.

------
libria
> Zork was updated about a dozen separate times between 1980 and 1984, to add
> polish and/or to fix bugs.

It's funny how my first passing thought was "pushed-to-clients", but no, they
had to batch bug fixes, QA, regression test (probably manual play?), see if it
all fit back on floppies, create a master image, mail to factory, update
printed literature and box design with version numbers, have retail boxed
product delivered to Babbages (or whatever), possibly with instructions for
removal of old inventory.

Hard to fathom just how much easier it is to iterate in this age.

------
lacker
I learned to type by playing Zork on an Apple IIGS. When you couldn’t look up
the answers to puzzles on internet it really made for a different gaming
experience.

~~~
jiscariot
I had a similar experience playing it on an Apple II when I was 12. Not having
much guidance but just spent hours exploring and trying different commands--it
was about 15 years later that I learned the ultimate goal was collecting
treasures and putting them in the trophy case. I remember being at the gates
of Hades trying so many combinations, thinking this must be the end game--so
close!

------
nineteen999
The Zork series (particular Zork 1) are very fond childhood memories for me. I
still pull it out every year or two, and try to "speedrun" it, by completing
it in the least possible moves. There are some great methods for pulling this
off, but you are sometimes at the mercy of the RNG with respect to the roaming
thief and the troll fight. Save scumming doesn't seem to work in most versions
I've tried since the RNG state appears to be stored in the save game file.

When I started messing with UE4 about 4 years ago, the very first project I
wanted to try was recreating Zork I, as I pictured it in my mind.

I was still learning the ropes in terms of creating good assets for UE4 (and
still am to a lesser degree), and formulating my own art style, but there are
some examples (Living Room and Entrance to Hades) as well as a sample treasure
(Platinum Bar) here:

[https://imgur.com/a/7XnzvY0](https://imgur.com/a/7XnzvY0)

Other than that, I had a large part of the overground/underground map done in
greybox form, and were starting to add interactive components like the rug,
trapdoor, and lamp.

From time to time, I feel like going back and starting over, it's still
something I would like to do one day. The conceptual problems I faced were:

1) whether to limit the game to "on rails" style game play when moving between
locations, or to allow the player to freely roam in normal first-person
fashion; and

2) the original game relies so heavily on the players imagination to flesh out
the environment on their mind. If you take that away from them by providing a
visual interpretation, would the game be as fun or interesting?

I never answered those questions, so I gave up on it and moved onto another
equally as ridiculous concept (and then another, and another...)

------
rasz
Very early Infocom history, maybe even a genesis of the company, can be traced
to Robert Supnik (DEC engineering/research, SIMH
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIMH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIMH))
porting "Dungeon" to fortran/PDP-11 (LSI-11, pretty much a desktop PC with 2
floppies) in ~1978 to lighten the load of big iron PDP-10 time sharing system
: Oral History of Robert Supnik
[https://youtu.be/lk7ygEZxV9Q?t=2h32m28s](https://youtu.be/lk7ygEZxV9Q?t=2h32m28s)

------
aidenn0
(2012)

