Causes of Zombification in Zork I and possibly other Infocom games

[eriktorbjorn (Torbjörn Andersson)]

@zarf

I think they just needed a place to stash the sword-glow level. Using the sword’s TVALUE property for this doesn’t cause any problems. (As you say, it doesn’t glow in the Living Room.)

I just realized… You can exploit this for points, but it’s rather awkward. The sword demon only runs while you are holding the sword, but dropping it does not reset its value. Nor does putting it in a container. The size of the sword is 30, which is too large for most containers but not too large for the gold coffin.

So if you take the coffin and the sword to the cellar, wait for the thief to appear, put the sword in the coffin and retreat to the Living Room (assuming the thief didn’t rob you first), the sword will still be glowing. And since you can put it in the trophy case directly from the coffin, without picking it up first, you will now get two points for the sword:

>SCORE
Your score is 50 (total of 350 points), in 187 moves.
This gives you the rank of Amateur Adventurer.

>PUT SWORD IN TROPHY CASE
Done.

>SCORE
Your score is 52 (total of 350 points), in 188 moves.
This gives you the rank of Novice Adventurer.

Maybe there’s an easier way, but this is the only one I’ve confirmed works. (I have not yet tried for a successful 352 point run of the whole game, though.)