“You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door” is probably the most famous opening line to a video game ever. Zork I: The Great Underground Empire was one the first interactive fictions and has been the inspiration for other classics since 1980.
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After being inspired by Colossal Cave Adventure, the initial version of Zork was written in 1977 by four members of the Dynamic Modelling Group from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Three of the team went on to found Infocom in 1979 and the following year they adapted the PDP-10 original into a trilogy of games for most popular small computers of the time.
Before LucasArts and Sierra cornered the genre’s market with graphics, adventures used text-parsing to engross players in fantasy storylines. This may seem a bit primitive to today’s gamers but at the time, games like Zork I: The Great Underground Empire made players feel like they were experiencing the future of the novel. The title has since gone on to inspire many more modern classics such as Myst (reviews coming soon) and references can be found in the unlikeliest of places – just check out the Call of Duty: Black Ops easter egg.
As I’ve mentioned in articles previously, I’m a massive fan of graphic adventures and particularly those from LucasArts; and while I do love reading a good book, I have to admit that I’m not a massive fan of text games. I’ve tried playing Zork I several times in the past but I’ve never been able to get into it enough to complete as it just doesn’t hold the same charm as something like, say, The Secret of Monkey Island. But for the sake of this review, I’m going to try and put away any reservations and stick with it.
Players take on the role of an adventurer and, as explained during the opening dialogue, the story begins near a white house. After entering the building you find a rug that conceals a trap door, which seems to lead down into a dark cellar; but upon further investigation it’s revealed to be an entrance to a vast subterranean land – the Great Underground Empire.
The ultimate goal of Zork I is to find the Twenty Treasures and return them to a trophy case, receiving 350 points and the rank of ‘Master Adventurer’ for doing so successfully. Despite encountering dangerous creatures along the way and a variety of puzzles that need to be solved, the lack of a driving storyline can be somewhat off-putting. I mean, I understand that the point of the game is to collect the treasures but… well, what’s the point?
Zork I makes use of a text parser whereby players manually input commands such as ‘take axe’ or ‘go north’. Again, while this may not seem particularly advanced to modern gamers it was actually quite sophisticated at the time of release; it isn’t limited to simple verb-noun instructions but recognises some prepositions and conjunctions, such as ‘hit the troll with the sword’. Be prepared with a pen and paper however: passages twist and you may leave a room from the east and enter the next from the south, so you’ll either need to draw a map or have an astounding memory.
Players will be challenged by a number of puzzles in addition to these mazes, from opening a delicate jewelled egg without breaking it to completing some intricate manipulations at Flood Control Dam #3. Inventory is limited and unfortunately there’s the prospect of losing or misusing a critical item: you might get halfway through the game before realising that you need the garlic you ate five minutes ago, or have it stolen by a thief who appears sporadically. This is where saving often is beneficial but it can be extremely frustrating to have to keep re-loading.
Every action taken counts towards the overall move count. At first this seems a little unnecessary as there’s an unlimited number of moves a player can make, but it becomes important as you learn to manage your most important resource: light. Unfortunately your lantern isn’t as unlimited as your moves and wandering around in the dark will quickly lead to a deadly encounter with a dangerous grue.
Battles are played out in the same text-command fashion but sadly the outcomes seem a little random; and health has to be analysed on request through the ‘diagnose’ instruction as it isn’t displayed on-screen. Other ways of dying include jumping off of cliffs and even throwing an ordinary pile of leaves at yourself, but if you do come to an untimely demise you’ll get brought back to life with your items taken away and a point deduction from your score. It’s therefore usually better to restore from a saved game and try again.
While there are a number of different foes, characters that you can really interact with are missing from the Zork I world. Sure, the giant Cyclops and axe-wielding troll might make appearances but they add very little to the game; after a few hours I found myself missing conversations and the usual dialogue trees found in adventures. I guess exploring a subterranean kingdom is bound to be a lonely business, but it would have been nice to have some (friendly) company along the way.
The title might not look like much to a modern audience: the visuals consist of only a black screen with white text, and there isn’t even any ASCII art. There’s no sound or music either so atmosphere is dependent entirely on the extent (or lack) of your imagination. While I appreciated the fact that location descriptions weren’t extremely long-winded, sometimes a little more detail would have helped me to fully appreciate the underground world surrounding my protagonist.
Counting the number of moves made may provide some players with an incentive to repeat the game a second time, but personally I just couldn’t face it. I found it far more interesting to test Zork I’s text parser abilities – childish I know but, after spending so much time on my own in a subterranean land being chased by grues, I needed a bit of a giggle. For those who want more, Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz and Zork III: The Dungeon Master are available, as the developers split the programme so it was small enough to not require a computer the size of a house in 1980.
Zork I: The Great Underground Empire is a challenging title that deserves the praise heaped on it by critics, but for some it may be a little outdated and it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. The absence of a driving story and visuals may mean that fans of graphical adventures like myself find it difficult to get into. It’s still worth giving it a go however, even just so you can say you’ve played the first true interactive fiction video game; and who knows, you might just find that all you need is a flashing cursor and an open mind.
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