Zork I

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Zork I
Developer(s)	Infocom
Publisher(s)	Personal Software / Infocom
Designer(s)	Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Dave Lebling and Bruce Daniels
Engine	ZIL
Release date(s)	Release 2: December, 1980 Release 5: December 1980 Release 15: 1981 Release 20: 1981 Release 23: April 28, 1982 Release 25: May 15, 1982 Release 26: August 3, 1982 Release 28: October 13, 1982 Release 30: March 30, 1983 Release 75: September 29, 1983 Release 76: May 9, 1984 Release 88: July 26, 1984 Solid Gold: November 25, 1987
Genre(s)	Text adventure
Mode(s)	Single player
Platform(s)	Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Apple Macintosh, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Commodore 128, Commodore Plus/4, CP/M, DOS, TRS-80
Media	3½" or 5¼" disk
System requirements	No special requirements
Input	Keyboard

Zork I: The Great Underground Empire is an interactive fiction computer game written by Marc Blank, Dave Lebling, Bruce Daniels and Tim Anderson and published by Infocom in 1980. It was the first game in the popular Zork trilogy and was released for a wide range of computer systems, followed by Zork II and Zork III. It is Infocom's first game.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Feelies 3 Notes 4 Releases 5 Quotes 6 Taglines 7 External links

[edit] Plot

The game takes place in the Zork calendar year 948 GUE (although the passage of time is not notable in gameplay). The player steps into the deliberately vague role of an "adventurer". The game begins near a White House in a small, self-contained area. Although the player is given little instruction, the house provides an obvious point of interest.

When the player enters the house, it yields a number of intriguing objects: an ancient brass lantern, an empty trophy case, an intricately engraved sword, etc. Beneath the rug a trap door leads down into a dark dungeon. But what initially appears to be a dungeon is actually one of several entrances to a vast subterranean land--the Great Underground Empire. The player soon encounters dangerous creatures, including deadly grues, an axe-wielding troll, a giant cyclops and a nimble-fingered thief.

The ultimate goal of Zork I is to collect the Nineteen Treasures of Zork and install them in the trophy case. The Nineteen Treasures are:

1. bag of coins
2. Beautiful painting
3. Brass bauble
4. Clockwork canary
5. Crystal skull
6. Crystal trident
7. Egyptian sceptre
8. Gold coffin
9. Huge diamond
10. Ivory torch
11. Jade figurine
12. Jeweled scarab
13. Jewel-encrusted egg
14. Large emerald
15. Platinum bar
16. Pot of gold
17. Sapphire bracelet
18. Silver chalice
19. Trunk of jewels

Finding the treasures requires solving a variety of puzzles such as the navigation of two brutal mazes and some intricate manipulations at Flood Control Dam #3.

Placing the Nineteen Treasures into the trophy case scores the player 350 points and grants the rank of "Master Adventurer." The placement of the Nineteen Treasures causes an ancient map with further instructions to magically appear in the trophy case. These instructions provide access to a stone barrow. The entrance to the barrow is the end of Zork I and the beginning of Zork II.

The current speed record for scoring 350 points now stands at 231 moves.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Feelies

Infocom did not begin their tradition of including feelies, or extra items related to a game, until the 1982 release Deadline. Later re-releases of the game, however, were packaged with:

• The booklet The Great Underground Empire: A History, by "Froboz Mumbar"
• A map roughly corresponding to a portion of the game's area

[edit] Notes

The opening text of Zork I is among the most famous descriptions in computer games:

West of House

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.

There is a small mailbox here.

This is quite simplistic when compared to Infocom's later games, many of which started with screenfuls of introductory text.

Several of the game's situations and descriptions have become iconic within the field of interactive fiction, such as the brass lantern and the "Elvish sword of great antiquity".

Zork I also introduced the famous grue, a "sinister, lurking presence" who kills adventurers who go exploring in the dark. Grues appeared (or, at least, were mentioned) in many subsequent Infocom adventures, right up to the 1997 graphic adventure Zork Grand Inquisitor, published by Activision.

The name of Aragain Falls was created by spelling the word Niagara backwards.

"Fweep" is the sound that the vampire bat makes. In Sorcerer, "Fweep" is also the name of a spell, which, coincidentally, changes the caster into a bat. According to the Sorcerer InvisiClues hint book, the bat is repeating the last word he ever heard as a human - if the bat was previously a human, of course.

[edit] Releases

The original version of Zork I was published by Personal Software and simply called Zork. It was distributed in clear plastic bags containing only the game disk and a 36-page booklet. Infocom's first "self-published" version of Zork I was in the so-called "Folio" format which included a single piece of paper describing how to run the game. The feelies noted above were only introduced when Zork I was re-released in the "Grey box" format.

Although the back of the Zork I "Grey box" depicted a zorkmid coin included with the other feelies, production difficulties led to the coins' omission from the packages. Zorkmid coins were not included as feelies until the release of the Zork Trilogy boxed set.

Zork I was one of five Infocom games that was released in Solid Gold format with in-game hints.

There is also an abridged version, called Mini-Zork I, dated November 24, 1987. Mini-Zork was released free of charge as a promotion.

A German version was developed, but never released. An unfinished version of this story file, dated January 13, 1988, has made its way into public circulation. It contains so many spelling and grammar errors that it is very likely no native speaker worked on it.

A Japanese version was released for the Sega Saturn and PlayStation in 1996. This Japanese version includes graphics, sound effects, music, and auto-mapping. Of course, it was only released in Japan.

[edit] Quotes

[upon entering a dark place, initially the attic or basement] "It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue."

[edit] Taglines

Your greatest challenge lies ahead...and downwards.

Treasure, monsters, danger and discovery!

[edit] External links

• Zork I: The Great Underground Empire at iFiction lets visitors play using a web browser.
• Zork: The Great Underground Empire at MobyGames
• Zork I Technical Info and Screenshot
• Zork I information and overview
• Scans of the Zork I package, documentation and feelies
• Infocom-if.org's entry for Zork I
• All three Zork games downloadable for PC and Mac
• The Infocom Bugs List entry for Zork I
• Zork 1 Walkthroughs