Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling spent a lot of time trying to solve Colossal Cave Adventure written by MIT grad Will Crowther. The four of them had bonded because of their interest in computer games and they had collectively earned seven MIT degrees themselves. “The four of us spent a lot of time trying to solve Adventure,” says Lebling. “And when we finally did, we said, ‘That was pretty good, but we could do a better job.’”
In June of 1977 they had created Zork’s sophisticated word parser which allowed the game to understand far more words than previous games. The parser was able to understand adjectives, compound verbs, conjunctions, and prepositions. This meant that the game could include more intricate descriptions and puzzles. The writing was top notch and set it apart from other games. Zork sported no graphics but it didn’t need any. The game was developed and first played on the MIT mainframe operating system.
In February of 1979, three of them, plus seven other Dynamic Modeling Group members founded the software company called Infocom. It’s first product was a modified version of Zork that was split into three parts and released over three years so that it could fit a PCs’ limited memory size and processing power.
In the 1980s, at the height of it’s popularity, commercial versions of Zork released for home computers sold more than 800,000 copies.
I was extremely excited that Zork I was on my 1980 list of games to play and I could not wait to revisit it. I remember playing it with my friends in high school as we sat hunched over a Commodore 64. It was disruptive technology at the time and the world of Zork seemed large, exciting, and mysterious.
Zork I was the flagship game that launched a company which would become a titan in the 80’s gaming industry. It was a precursor or ambassador for several top notch Infocom games that would follow.
You begin the game standing before a mailbox just outside of a boarded up house. The sophistication of the parser is readily apparent as you begin to explore the surrounding locations.
The game understands most anything that you type, above and beyond anything I have experienced so far in my time traveling gaming experience. In the example above you are in a clearing which contains a pile of leaves. I type in ‘jump in the pile of leaves’ and the response is ‘Do you expect me to applaud?’ I then try counting the leaves in the pile and the game’s response is that there are 69,105 leaves in the pile. This is the kind of wit, writing, and sophistication found all throughout the world of Zork.
My experience with Zork I reminds me of the scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy leaves the cabin and encounters the land of Oz for the very first time. The black & white scene is suddenly filled with vibrant color. The Infocom parser is so good that it creates that same experience of divergence and color whereas other text adventures remain in black & white.
Zork I was a game that I had beat when I was a teenager in high school. I mistakenly thought, therefore, that my reacquaintance with Zork would be a “breeze” or a “walk in the park”. Wrong. Zork I is hard. There are three or four different puzzles that are diabolical in nature.
Zork I definitely pays homage to Colossal Cave Adventure as it is a traditional treasure hunt which also includes a very tricky maze. However it is so witty and charming, so mysterious and so well done, that we can forgive Zork for these classic text adventure tropes. The dungeon complex beneath the house as well as the surrounding locations are so well written that one cannot help but feel fully immersed in a strange fantasy world. You receive points for not only finding the treasures but then you are allotted additional points for placing the items in the trophy case. The following is the list of treasures which need to be found and placed into the trophy case:
- Jeweled Egg
- Bag of coins
- Painting
- Platinum Bar
- Trunk of jewels
- Crystal trident
- Ivory torch
- Gold coffin
- Sceptre
- Crystal Skull
- Emerald
- Scarab
- Pot of gold
- Jade figurine
- Sapphire bracelet
- Diamond
- Silver chalice
- Clockwork canary
- Brass bauble
You also receive additional points for the following actions:
- Entering the house
- Entering the cellar
- Getting past the troll
- Entering the Drafty Room
- Entering the Treasure Room
This game took me almost 10 hours to complete which greatly exceeds any of the previous text adventures I’ve played with the exception of Empire of the Overmind. There are some puzzles that are just plain evil within the game; so much so that they almost caused me to give up. There is more to the Jeweled Egg than meets the eye but good luck figuring out just what that is. You may need some help. Getting through the gates of hell to obtain the Crystal Skull is going to take some trial and error on your part. One of the hardest or trickiest puzzles of the game involves getting your hands on the Diamond. The Brass bauble, Gold coffin, and Trunk of Jewels are by no means easy to acquire either.
I want to rely on past practice here and avoid providing a complete walkthrough. My goal here is to bring attention to the game and my personal experience with it It is my hope that this may entice you to revisit this game or play it yourself. If anyone has any specific questions you can certainly reach out and I will be glad to nudge you in the right direction.
In my opinion Zork I and other Infocom titles that will follow are the crown jewels of the genre and represent probably the best parser that you’re ever going to find in a text adventure. I had an absolute amazing experience with this game and in my opinion it by no means shows it’s age. The puzzles are difficult so be prepared to save often. Brew the coffee or put your favorite soda in the fridge and get ready to be frustrated. I spent a lot of time in thought and drumming my fingers on the desk with this one.
Great write-up … it brought back lots of pleasant memories playing this game, like you, in the 1980s!
One question for you: what did you think this time round of the randomised fights with the troll and the thief? The fighting aspect is more akin to a CRPG than a text adventure and was something that Infocom chose not to replicate in any of their later games. (The next time that they’d dabble with CRPG aspects would be seven years later, in Brian Moriarty’s “Beyond Zork”.)
I rather enjoyed the randomized fights with the troll and thief. This type of play seemed a popular experiment in 1979 and 1980. We had seen it used in Eamon, Doom Cavern, and Morton’s Fork but more so in computer role playing games that were, admittedly, feeling their way around in the dark in this new era of home computer gaming. They were greatly in search of an identity. I felt that it added to the Zork I game rather than detracted from it. I had pointed out that you get points for slaying the troll and for finding the Treasure Room. I felt that the character had grown quite a bit from first slaying the troll up to the encounter with the thief. This seemed to me to be their point as any confrontation with the thief without a lot of experience was going to end in disaster. So there was some strategy involved as well. I knew I must find the majority of treasures first before making my way into the room which then made it possible for me to slay the scoundrel. I think you don’t see it in an Infocom title for quite some time because the company didn’t have an identity crisis. I believe they realized their strength and niche was interactive fiction. The focus was on telling quality stories through interactive fiction for years. The randomized combat mechanism seemed more of an experimentation for budding CRPG’s of that period. Was there some “feeling around in the dark” here with the first Zork? It’s possible but the fact that there were only two combats; one extremely easy (though still deadly) and then one more which is extremely difficult seemed more purposeful and strategic to me. One marking the beginning of something and the latter marking the end. One had to also deal with the thief in the end in order to solve one of the game’s many difficult puzzles. A long winded answer but a great question. I would love to hear one of the authors answer that very question. It is also interesting to note that I only am now even feeling qualified to give a such a response because of my quest to play these games in order. You can see the experimentation, growth, and patterns as you move through each of the games in order of publication date. I am very much enjoying the experience and I am blessed that you are on the journey with me.
Interesting answer, thanks!
The dual sources of inspiration for Zork were mentioned in the opening credits of the mainframe version of Zork, called Dungeon, that preceded the personal computer versions by a couple of years:
“It [Dungeon] was inspired by the Adventure game of Crowther and Woods, and the Dungeons and Dragons game of Gygax and Arneson.”
Dungeon was latterly ported to a number of personal computer platforms. The PC version can be played online at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/DungeonV2.5a1990DECUSAdventureInteractiveFiction
And anyone wanting to conduct a really deep analysis into Dungeon can find the 1977 MIT sourcecode for it on GitHub: https://github.com/MITDDC/zork