Zork I: The Great Underground Empire
Zork is a text adventure game created by Marc Blank, Dave Lebling, Tim Anderson, and Bruce Daniels while they were at MIT. It was originally released for PDP-10 mainframe computers in 1977. The developers later founded Infocom and split the game into three parts for release on personal computers, starting with Zork I: The Great Underground Empire in 1980.
Zork takes a lot of inspiration from Colossal Cave, with a heavy emphasis on exploring underground and collecting treasures, while solving puzzles and dealing with monsters. It adds a lot of its own unique personality, and perhaps most significantly, a far more advanced text parser. Earlier games typically only understood one or two word commands like “north” or “take knife.” Zork can understand complex commands like “drop all except the bottle” or “open sack, drop it, burn it with the torch.”
Zork was the first adventure game I ever played, around 1986, though I didn’t finish it until some twenty years later due to its difficulty. This is a replay of the same Mac version I grew up with.
- The Zork Anthology on GOG
Windows only, but works with DOSBox, Frotz, and other Z-machine interpreters on other platforms. - Z-Machine Interpreters on Inform
These can run Zork and other interactive fiction on almost any computer. - Zork I packaging and feelies
Includes photos of the box and contents, as well as scans of the manual and map. - Zork on Wikipedia
- Zork on MobyGames
Part 1
Happy MARCHintosh! I had different plans for today’s stream but then fifteen minutes ago I was like, man, what if I just played Zork? Let’s play Zork (for Macintosh).
Part 3
My number one goal tonight is to figure out what Frobozz magic gunk is for.
Part 4
I’m only missing three treasures in Zork. This will either take an hour or like three more weeks. Let’s find out!