Treasures of Zork

It has (unbelievably) been three and a half decades since Zork I was released. It practically crowd-surfed its way to the top of the charts, outselling everything within a couple of years. The game allowed Infocom to ride the gravy train with biscuit wheels pretty much all through the 80s.

What's interesting about Zork is how it truly touched an entire generation of computer users in a way that hasn't really been matched since. The reason for this is because back in the 80s, there just wasn't as much of a selection as there is now. Nor was there the amount of computer users that we have today. This means that, essentially, almost every computer user played or at least heard of and discussed Zork.

The game also didn't have much competition in the first few years it came out. Games such as Wizardry, The Prisoner, and Ultima were being enjoyed in 1980, so when Zork came out, despite the lack of graphics, it destroyed the competition with its intelligent parser, large map, clever puzzles, and excellent prose.

For the game's 35th anniversary, I wanted to share a few interesting things I found on the net while googling all things Zork. First is a fan-made trailer of a fictional movie of Zork. https://vimeo.com/110531141 This trailer was found on Vimeo, uploaded by James Wells. He states that the trailer is a project for his Digital Cinema class. An accompanying article was also found: http://www.cgw.com/Publications/CGW/2015/Volume-38-Issue-1-Jan-Feb-2015-/Imagining-Zork.aspx

For those who enjoy a thorough history of things, I found an old (2007) article on Gamasutra on the history of Zork. Written by Matt Barton, the article isn't written with superb journalistic integrity (like I'm one to talk, I know) but it's 6 pages and should keep one distracted at work for a few minutes rather than see to your duties. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1499/the_history_of_zork.php

A fun site is TV Tropes and, while not a tv show, Zork is featured in its tropes-breakdown; wherein many (if not all) of Zork's tropes are explained. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Zork

A HUGE article (co-written by Dave Lebling himself) on the titular game can be found here: http://www.usgamer.net/articles/dave-lebling-interview. It includes some great maps and pictures.

And finally, for those who (for some reason or other) do not have a copy of Zork to play, there are plenty of sites out there to help out. At archive.org, you can play any of the three Zork titles. Here's the address to Zork I: https://archive.org/details/a2_Zork_I_The_Great_Underground_Empire_1980_Infocom

You can also grab it at the IFDB: http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=0dbnusxunq7fw5ro