Your greatest challenge lies ahead- and downwards: Let's Play Zork!

Way back in 1976 some graduate students at MIT played Advent. They were inspired to created a game like it, not just an expansion of it as other gaming enthusiasts had done. They resolved to make a better and larger game. They set out to make a masterpiece of interactive fiction. After two years of development the game was so large that it required all of MIT’s computer network to run. They named their game “Zork” after a nonsense word popular in the MIT computer labs. It was a sprawling and messy jumble of every idea the students had.

When the students graduated they formed a computer software company. They felt that the future of computing was in business software. In order to create the spreadsheet program they had in mind they needed something to provide starting revenue. They took Zork, cleaned it up, cut it in half, and through some clever programming created a version that could run on home computers. Zork was a huge success and all thoughts of spreadsheets were forgotten. Over the course of the next five years Infocom text adventures were the pinnacle of home gaming. And they were all just text- white words on a black screen.

“We stick our graphics where the sun don’t shine. You’ll never see Infocom’s graphics on any computer screen. Because there’s never been a computer built by man that could handle the images we produce. We draw our graphics from the limitless imagery of your imagination – a technology so powerful, it makes any picture that’s ever come out of a screen look like graffiti by comparison. And nobody knows how to unleash your imagination like Infocom. Through our prose, your imagination makes you part of our stories… “

Infocom’s games ran from light fantasy to hard science fiction. From Lovecraftian horror to poignant political commentary. From surrealism to pulp romance. They cemented a tradition of interactive fiction that continues to this day. In this Let’s Play we’ll go back to where it began. Our adventure lies ahead, and downwards, into Zork.

This Let’s Play will exist in two separate spaces. In character narration will be normal text while my comments on the game and its history will be in this stately blue. Inspired by Brickroads’s Rhem LP I’ll travel around the areas locating puzzles and do the general exploring but it will be up to you guys to do the hard work. If you’ve played Zork before please don’t ruin puzzles by shouting out the solutions before people have had a chance to solve them. And please don’t do yourself a disservice by looking up a FAQ. Zork can be hard and it isn’t always fair but there is great satisfaction to be had at solving the puzzles yourself. At the end of each post I’ll put a list of puzzles left unsolved and what items I’m currently lugging around. Like the Shadowgate LP there will also be a death toll and an update on our current score. I say “our” because I want this is a let’s play. We’re going through this together. The more you participate the better this LP will be. With that said let’s get started.

I am standing in a clearing west of a white house. I’m lost and don’t know where I am. I came here looking to get rich, this being the usual reason anyone wanders from the safety of their home out into the wider world. But why here, this forest, this continent?

Two hundred and eighty two years ago king Duncanthrax the Bellicose discovered the great natural caverns that exist here in the Eastlands. Realizing that by expanding these caves he could increase the size of his kingdom tenfold he started a massive cavern-building project. By the time his great-great-grandson King Dimwit Flathead the Excessive took the throne The Great Underground Empire was as large below ground as it was above. Lord Dimwit lived up to his title and started a number of immense projects that required millions of zorkmids to come to fruition. He filled the underground with treasure and gold and I’m here to get a piece of it.

Unfortunately, at the end of his reign Dimwit angered a powerful wizard who put a curse on him and all of his descendents. This curse came to fruition sixty-five years ago when the last of Dimwit’s line (Wurb Flathead) died and castle Flatheadia disappeared. Most of the entrances to the now abandoned underground were forgotten. All those riches are just ripe for the taking.

I arrived at Port Foozle this morning, picked up some provisions, and asked if anyone knew where castle Flatheadia used to be. An old fisherman pointed me in the direction of this forest where I’ve been wandering around for hours. I finally stumbled upon this house. Maybe whoever lives here can help me out.

Really though, I think I’m over my head here. I’m not too smart and I’ve got a feeling that getting rich is going to require some real wit. I’m hoping you guys will be able to help me out. I’ll describe everything I see and keep a map of the area. If you need to me to go someplace specific just tell me to and I’ll navigate there on my own. Also, I have to warn you that I’m a bit of kleptomaniac. I tend to pick up everything that isn’t nailed down. It’s not stealing if no one sees you do it, right?

I picked up a couple of items in Port Foozle that should be of big help. First, I got a box of pastels made by the Frobozz Magic Pastel Company. I’ll draw pictures of each location I see and any important items I find. Documenting this adventure seems a wise course of action. Secondly, I got a Frobozz Magic Personal Crystal Company personal crystal (or PC for short). This device allows me to talk to you guys and show you my pictures. I spent the last of my zorkmids to get the advanced version will allows me to SAVE the state of things and then RESTORE myself to that state if I need to. This should come in handy as the Underground Empire is sure to be dangerous. You guys don’t need to tell me when to SAVE. I can handle that on my own.

Alright! Let me look around and tell you guys exactly where I am.

Excellent. I hope to participate in this one if I can.

Oh... maybe no one lives here after all… let’s see…

I don’t understand a word this leaflet says. I’ll just put it back in the mailbox for now. If I circle around the house I can get a better look at it.



No better luck here. All the windows are boarded up. Moving on.



Aha! Looks like who ever condemned this place forgot a window. Opening it gives us access into the house and scores us ten points! (Not that I know what those are…)



I’m going to go ahead and take the lunch here. I’m hoping that it hasn’t been sitting around since the house was first boarded up.

I’ll take “nothing special” over “overgrown with mold” any day of the weak. Let’s move into the living room.



Wow! A sword and a lantern. I’ve got a feeling both of these will come in handy. I tried to take the rug but it was too heavy to lift. I didn’t want it anyway because its ugly and dumb and I hate it.

Maybe the strange gothic lettering will provide a clue on how to open it.

What is this? A joke? I think I’m done in here. This room’s pretty cozy. Maybe I can use it as a base of operations. If I ever have to store items I’ll come back here to do so. Back in the kitchen I have two options. Up the stairs or down the chimney. Since I want to get underground "down" seems the obvious choice.

Silly me. It was dumb of me even to try. I know I’m not Santa and I should have known that climbing down chimneys was reserved for him. Let me wipe this egg off my face and head upstairs.

I’m not afraid of no grue. What’s the worst they can do?

Oh. I’ll just restore to before the grue ate me. In the original MIT build of Zork the danger for moving around in dark places was the chance that one might fall into a bottomless pit. This was a hold over from Advent where you were exploring a cave system and bottomless pits made sense. Falling into one in an attic really doesn’t work so Dave Lebling, one of the authors of Zork, came up with the concept of a light fearing monster called a Grue (from the Dying Earth series) which quickly became a big in-joke for text adventures and was featured in many of Infocom’s games.

Good thing I found that lantern in the living room.

A rope and knife. Now I’m well prepared for adventure! If only I could find a way underground. Maybe I should explore some more into the forest. Now that I’ve found my way into the house I can use it as a central point to work out from. Leaving the house I circle around to the north of it.

Not much here except a path into the woods. Let’s take it.



Dang. That is one tall tree. But forests are full of trees. Let’s see if we can’t find anything a little more exciting.



Now that’s interesting. When presented with a pie of leaves there’s only one thing to do.

I feel better knowing this. This bit of flavor text became another Infocom in-joke and many of their later games feature 69,105 of something somewhere. I also chose to take some leaves because, hey, gotta take something.

Oh-ho! What is this? A grate in the floor of the forest. Could this be the mythical entrance to the Great Underground Empire?

What we need now is a key. Maybe it’s somewhere else in the woods. Wandering around for a while brings me to:



Beautiful. I’m not much of a climber but maybe that cave the water’s pouring from leads underground.



I really don’t like being up here, guys. I hope it’s worth it. It doesn’t look like I’ll be able to reach that passage from here. Climbing again… please lord let me live.



I guess the only choice is to head upstream.



Yeah… I’m not going to be able to climb up from here. Another dead end. Although, on the other side of the ravine I think I can see a small cave leading into the canyon wall. If only I could get across…

Exploring the forest doesn’t turn up anything else so I decided to head back to the house. Dang. I’m really stuck here. There seems to be some possible entrances to the caves but either I can’t reach them, unlock them, or am not Santa Claus. What to do? Help me out, guys?

Puzzles:
A locked grate.
A cave on the far side of a canyon.

Inventory:
A rope
A knife
A pile of leaves
A brass lantern
A sword
A glass bottle
The glass bottle contains:
A quantity of water
A brown sack
The brown sack contains:
A lunch
A clove of garlic

Score: Your score is 10 (total of 350 points). This gives you the rank of Beginner.

Deaths: 1 by walking into grue fang.

oh shit. this. this is win.

It's exactly how it looked in my brain.

You should try climbing random trees in the forest to get a better look around, or failing that to possibly hijack a passing hot air balloon.

I like how it doesn't tell you what the Lunch is. It's just a Lunch. (Probably worth 7GP.)

I'm sorry to to everyone else who was trying, but Loki, you're now my favorite person ever.

REAL Adventurers muss up and wreck everything they can find. Take your frustrations out on that ugly-ass rug!

Quaff the potion to identify it!

I mean, uh, can you cross the rainbow? Maybe it's made of skittles and is magically delicious!

That rainbow is surely a rainbow bridge. I think you should CROSS RAINBOW.

I love the crayon look to the artwork - for some reason, it just fits the writing so well. Anyway, make like a Dragon Warrior and cross the rainbow bridge!

Ah, the memories... Also, I commend your idea on how to provide "screenshots" for a text adventure. 'Tis brilliant. And possibly brillig too,though I don't see any slithy toves gyring and gimbling in the wabe.

Oh, wow. Color me impressed!

Color? Like, with the crayons? Eh?

How the hell am I supposed to compete with this? I don't even have any crayons! Damn it.

The free version of ArtRage, I recall, includes a crayon preset.

This Let's Play delivers.

(It also does pick-up.)

Awesome, audience participation allows us to make this game completely unwinnable in a myriad of ways.

As does playing it by yourself!

Stab yourself with the knife.

I only think that Zork is winnable at all because they had to stop making it at some point.

Which is terrible logic.

Yeah, this rug can go jump in a lake for all its worth! Ready yourself, rug.

I guess it is rather silly.

But this suggestion isn't. If I'm dead I'll get buried and then I'll be underground. Brilliant!

After several years no one's been by to burry me and I've decomposed into a pile of bones. RESTORING.

I hear this is a handy way of identifying liquids...

...though it does have it's downside. Now I have no water and one empty bottle. I'll store it in the sack for now.

I guess anything's possible. I make the long, arduous climb back down to the waterfall.

Of course I can! Who ca... Oh. Right. Sometimes a spade is just a spade and a rainbow is just an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. Just to be sure I scan the end of the rainbow for any pots of gold. There are none.

Well, the only tree really suitable for climbing is that tall one just north of the house. I make the climb up again, cursing Brickroad with every breath, and return to the tree. While walking back I hear something...

Just thought you guys would like to know. This tall tree has some low branches with with I'm able to hoist myself off the ground (not very easy to do when you're carrying a pile of leaves).



Ooo! An egg! I'll eggnap it but first Brickroad wanted me to take a look around. Directly to the south I can see the roof of the white house. There are some shingles missing. Farther south is more forrest until the horizon where I can make out a thin strip of blue. That must be the Great Sea and somewhere in that direction is Port Foozle. To the north and east are the gray peaks of the Flathead mountains. If the mountains weren't in the way I could probably see the marshlands of Fenshire. To the west is endless forest. Now, to that egg.



And our score goes up 5 points!

Finally, some treasure. And it has a little hinge on it too. I bet something's inside. It would be foolish to open it up here so I return to the living room.

Expertise? I know how to undo a clasp. What more expertise do I need?



Whoops! This seems... bad. I'll just RESTORE before I smashed the egg... Maybe more finesse is required. I bet if I'm real careful I can jimmy it open.

Bugger it all! RESTORING again. I guess I'll just have to wait until I level up some before I can open this egg without destroying the canary.

I'm carrying a lot of junk now so I'm going to start storing it in this room. If I need something specific I'll come back here to get it.

Puzzles:
A locked grate.
A normal rainbow.
A jeweled egg that contains a golden clockwork canary. If I try to open the egg I end up breaking the canary.

Inventory:
A rope
A broken jewel-encrusted egg
A nasty knife
A pile of leaves
A brass lantern
A sword
A brown sack
The brown sack contains:
A glass bottle
A lunch
A clove of garlic

Score: Your score is 15 (total of 350 points). This gives you the rank of Beginner.

Deaths: 2 (Grue fang, poofed myself with knife)

That locked grate, is the key hole in it mechanical canary shaped?

Use the Egg on the Grate!

Maybe! I'll just make the walk back to the clearing...

Apparently not. RESTORING.

Well you didn't do the balloon thing so either you're bad at following directions or you're in some crazy-ass part of the kingdom where there isn't much balloon traffic.

I have a couple more ideas:

1) What kind of dashing adventurer are you if you have no source of fire? I know your lamp is battery-powered (do they ever run out, by the way?) but is there a torch or a book of matches or a flint anywhere? If there's one thing I've learned from my years of dashing adventuring, it's that keys are often hidden under rugs and that it's impossible to move rugs but a lot of fun to burn holes in them.

2) Failing that, can you jimmy the grate open with your nasty knife or your (supposedly not nasty) sword?

3) Seems like a shame to have wasted your water. Can you get close enough to the river to re-fill your bottle? You might get thirsty again if you ever make it underground.

I remember a cautionary song from a bard named Front The Lot in my youth:

"You are likely to be eaten by a grue
If this predicament seems particularly cruel
Just think whose fault it could be
Not a torch or a match in your inventory"

Therefore, I second the "look for torch or match or flint" suggestion.

you are likely to be eaten by a grue

I think OctoPrime was on to something with taking your frustrations out on the rug. Can you cut it? Rend it in two? What about rolling it up and shoving it in the fireplace? How about sitting on it and commanding it to rise? Ooh, or folding it into an origami crane?

Brick and Hedge already took my two suggestions (try to jimmy grate lock with knife, try to roll up rug), but I'm posting anyway to say that this thread is totally awesome.