Drakmyth Reviews: Zork I

Playing IF Reviews and Essays
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My Review: 4 / 5

The forefather of modern adventure games, Zork brought the genre to the masses. I have begun this game many times, wandered the dark and dusty halls of the Great Underground Empire, only to get completely stuck and put it back on the shelf. Finally, after my wife helped me finish playing through Trinity, we tackled this adventure again and completed it!

There are certainly puzzles here that haven’t aged well (e.g. figuring out you need to give the egg to the thief or defeating the cyclops) but for the most part after a little experimentation and discovering the types of interactions the game expects you to take, most of it is well structured.

There is effectively no story to speak of, and the few other living creatures you encounter are hostile obstacles to bypass, but the immersion here is top notch. The descriptions are not necessarily grandiose and examining the vast majority of objects only states that they are nothing special, but the writing is just detailed enough to let your mind fill in the blanks mostly without even noticing. You feel like you’re delving deeper and deeper into damp, rocky caves and where evidence of civilization lies, it’s rough, dusty, and abandoned. Unlike the sequel, there is not a huge variety of locations, but each room is exactly distinct enough that you’ll start to remember where it is on your map very quickly (you are drawing a map, right?!).

Zork isn’t a very cruel game, but it will seem like it is until you wrap your head around how the world works (the occasional poorly designed puzzle excepted). It definitely doesn’t hold your hand. While I’m usually a fan of starting at the beginning, Zork is difficult enough and the learning curve steep enough that I’m not sure I would recommend it as an entry point into the genre for beginners unless they are already excited and eager to take on the challenge. That said, not having played very many interactive fiction games, I don’t yet have an opinion of a better one. Certainly, if you can look beyond the lack of guidance and get immersed in the world the prose reveals, there are many mysteries and adventures Zork I offers.

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(Spoiler here; I’m dropping the tag so that the whole discussion doesn’t turn into a grey wall.)

What do you think aged about this one? It is hard (I needed a hint, back in the day) but it’s not based in any convention that has disappeared from modern IF. Rather the opposite. It’s thinking about the game-world as a real place (i.e., the thief is a dextrous and inquisitive character) rather than a system of verbs and nouns.

The Cyclops ODYSSEUS solution is kind of worn out, in that it requires (a) knowing a particular bit of literature and (b) thinking that it will function as a magic word. (The book doesn’t actually make this any better.)

However, the alternate solution – the lunch – is pretty well clued as a thing to try. Even if the outcome is surprising.

Zork isn’t a very cruel game

In IF discussion, “cruel” is often used in a specific jargon sense. Zork is 100% “cruel” in that technical sense: there are many ways to get into a walking-dead state without knowing it. (See this thread.)

In the colloquial sense… you’re probably right, although it’s hard to compare the wild patchwork inconsistency of Zork (and Colossal Cave) with the more coherent story worlds that Infocom was producing just a couple of years later.

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What do you think aged about this one? It is hard (I needed a hint, back in the day) but it’s not based in any convention that has disappeared from modern IF.

I can’t speak to modern IF specifically - I haven’t played any modern IF outside of your own Spider and Pig - but when I think of whether things have aged well or not, I’m referring to how well a game considers an otherwise inexperienced player. In essence, given little to no information beyond that which is provided by the game itself, how likely is a player to be able to figure out the solution?

Regarding the thief: as far as I can tell, the only hint is if you attempt to open the egg (without using a tool and breaking it) you are told:

You have neither the tools nor the expertise.

Which logically suggests I would expect to find tools somewhere, which is not the solution. Nothing necessarily tells me the thief has any amount of mechanical skill with delicate objects (it’s not a logical stretch to understand why he would, but nothing in the game suggests he does). I’m certainly not inclined to give an antagonistic character a valuable treasure, especially when he often steals them from me, and I’m more likely to restore when I find out he’s stolen my egg as there is no telling whether I’ll ever be able to get it back.

Thus, the most likely scenario where a player solves this is by having the egg on them, not realizing the thief stole it from them, and then discovering it open when they defeat the thief later. That’s more of an accidental solve than an intentional solution though and may not happen at all if the player leaves the egg in the trophy case early on.

I correlate this to poor aging as in the early days of gaming there wasn’t often a focus on the abilities or knowledge of the player. Things like assuming a player was familiar with certain literature or concepts, or that they would intuitively have the same thought process as the developers, were common. This wasn’t necessarily developers trying to be esoteric or unfair, it just wasn’t something they considered.

Puzzles based on such knowledge aren’t inherently poor puzzles. They can still be fair and logical, provided something else the player is going to encounter gives them the opportunity to put those pieces together. If, for example, there were a hint somewhere suggesting the thief can open the lock, it would be fine.

As you pointed out, the lunch solution for the cyclops is absolutely fair because most interactions with the cyclops mentions he’s hungry. (I was referring to the other solution in my review, forgetting the lunch solution existed :upside_down_face:.) The ODYSSEUS solution could be fair, if there were some kind of hint somewhere suggesting to read the first letters. In fact, the book has a misleading hint as it suggests:

Surely, thy eye shall be put out with a sharp stick!

Which has nothing to do with the Cyclops. So even knowing the book has a hint in it isn’t sufficient. ODYSSEUS still struggles with it being a bespoke magic word, which is something the player likely hasn’t encountered and as they are likely feeling familiar with the parser interface at this point in the game wouldn’t think of as an option.

Ultimately, I guess, I’m primarily commenting on a game’s “fairness” independent from its difficulty, where older games tend to be “less fair” not because the developer intended them to be unfair, but because the standard of what is considered fair has changed over the years. If it’s unfair because of the passage of time, it has “aged poorly”. If it’s unfair because it was designed to be unfair… well… then it’s just unfair. :smiley:

In IF discussion, “cruel” is often used in a specific jargon sense.

I am 100% using “cruel” in the colloquial sense, because the average person who is not familiar with IF will not be familiar with the technical definition but may have often heard the term used to describe it, not understanding the intended meaning.

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I’m probably an outlier, but this one jumped out at me right away. Around the time I was playing Zork I I was playing a lot of AD&D, usually as a thief, which might be why. I already knew the thief took the things he stole back to his lair, so it seemed logical to give it to him.

I love Zork, but looking at it from a modern perspective, my main gripes are: time limited exploration (aka the lamp), the mazes (ugh), and missing subtle clues leading to game over or no-win situations.

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Yep; this came to me naturally as well. Funnily enough, this was probably due to lack rather than presence of experience, because I hadn’t yet been contaminated by any tropes, conventions, or customary mechanics for these games. The assumption that the thief might be of help came naturally and before other ideas. Then again I’m definitely an outlier, there’s nothing conjectural about this point in my particular case.

The land of spirits, the dam, and especially the river section I found far more taxing, and required cooperation with a fellow player friend to untwine. I’m singling out Zork I puzzles as this is the topic here, but I disclaim that I played one of the mainframe version of Dungeon first, so was exposed to the whole enchilada at the same time. And also played D&D. Maybe there is a pattern here.

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I think that a bit of forty-four-year-old media that feels like forty-four-year-old media has aged well enough. If it has somehow retained enough interest to generate threads and reviews in 2025, it may have even aged well.

Obviously, Zork can be inconsiderate. A lot of people did come to realize the truth about the thief, sure, but it was hard when the realization came too late. I thought that puzzle was fair, even if the stakes might feel off when measured against the games of today. But they weren’t off then. In fact, the whole thing was quite innovative. Transformational, even. It takes a conscious effort to meet these games where they are or were. Sometimes, depending on one’s transcript, the effort might be significant!

Similarly, I have to fight my way through Chaucer’s English. That’s just how it is with old things sometimes.

EDIT: with all that said, I appreciate the review’s mention of abandoned civilization, since I think that’s an important aspect of the Zork experience.

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even if the stakes might feel off when measured against the games of today. But they weren’t off then. In fact, the whole thing was quite innovative.

Oh absolutely! That’s the essence of what I was trying to get at. It’s a great game and an amazing experience, and its ability to endure despite how unfair it can feel in the modern day is a testament to how great of a story and world it really is!

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I was digging through Zork marginalia last night and was reminded that there’s a third way into the Treasure Room (bypassing the cyclops entirely). It’s even more obscure. I don’t think it would be known at all if it weren’t listed in the Invisiclues.

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It’s not mentioned in 3rd-party hints archived at MoCAGH… It definitely seems that it was a secret. I always wondered what the intent was there, perhaps a convenience for testers? Not sure. Or perhaps part of some larger “granite wall” joke, since there are fakes in-game, too.

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I agree with Shaun on the egg-thief puzzle—it makes logical sense, but it’s a puzzle that’s easier to solve accidentally than intentionally, and I don’t like that from a design standpoint. Players who solve a puzzle accidentally won’t feel clever or satisfied, or marvel at the emergent behavior of the game world, they’ll generally go “oh…” and move on.

I would like it a lot better if, say, giving the thief a treasure made him leave the room and end the combat encounter, and he would never steal the egg, so you had to connect those dots yourself to solve the puzzle.

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My question is whether we evaluate these games like contemporary competition entries, or try to see them in context? I think people did marvel at the emergent behavior in 1980. Or some did? I did, in 1983. I think otherwise there is just a lot “wrong” with Zork, limited light sources, unwinnable states, and so forth and what not. I don’t think it would have made top ten in last year’s IF Comp.

It’s hard reviewing these old games. I don’t recommend Zork to new players, just to people interested in history/retro/theory. The fact that craft, technology, and criticism have come a long way over the decades is a good thing! It would be a little embarassing if it hadn’t. But I don’t think progress reflects poorly on old games.

Now, there are some things that come off badly (cf the recent thread about problematic commands) that I think are fair game today… but I don’t see design elements the same way. Perhaps that’s some sort of oversight on my part.

E: or not all design elements anyway. But I’ve taken up too much space already

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I wouldn’t take that for granite. Sorry, couldn’t resist.

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I agree. As much as I like Zork and think it was amazing for its time, it suffers not just from outdated design ideas but from the fact that it grew so organically over time. In many ways it makes a much better tech demo of the time than an actual game. It has no story to speak of, being very roguelike in its own way. Many of Infocom’s games that would follow shortly were far more coherent while still enjoying the terseness driven by technical limits of the day. Zork is good for history or nostalgia, but there are far better games by Infocom from practically the same time period.

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I actually use this method in my script for testing Zork I in my latest terp.

I have no recollection of when I first learned about it, but Invisiclues is most likely. I didn’t have them when I first solved the game, but I’m sure I read them at some later date. I do remember suspecting there was something up with the granite walls after discovering the way the mirrors work.

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There’s something haunting about the abandoned civilization, even though the fantasy elements in the setting are mostly incongruous and silly. Somehow the aesthetic affect is way more profound than it should be. I haven’t played Zork nearly as much as most of you, but I have appreciated this vibe for years. I still can’t completely understand why it works the way it does. It’s just Zork.

I got to say, I think the anachronistic characterization of Zork as “roguelike” is getting at the reason why it feels deeper in some dimension than it should feel. The mechanics play a huge part of it. I think part of this effect is common to parser IF in general. Silly games with interesting mechanics and good design and textual interactions definitely have a subjective trick card. And Zork has something pretty rare and unique, imo.

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This seems to be a good thread to ask a question I have been wondering about for decades.

It’s weird that the thief takes the canary out of the egg without breaking it, right? That’s magic, not just someone with a lot of dexterity. Having dropped many chicken eggs on my kitchen floor on accident, I never thought that it was my own lack of skill in not having the shell break.

Or have you guys been imagining that the jewel encrusted egg isn’t one continuous thing like a real egg? With tabs and panels or something?

(Or does Zork make it clear somewhere? If it did, I’ve totally missed it.)

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It’s definitely openable!

“In the bird’s nest is a large egg encrusted with precious jewels, apparently scavenged by a childless songbird. The egg is covered with fine gold inlay, and ornamented in lapis lazuli and mother-of-pearl. Unlike most eggs, this one is hinged and closed with a delicate looking
clasp. The egg appears extremely fragile.”

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I always imagined it as something like:

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Thank you both! I totally missed that over the years :slight_smile:

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Which logically suggests I would expect to find tools somewhere, which is not the solution.

Respectfully, I disagree. The statement suggests that tools and expertise are required to open the egg – tools might be acquired in a game, but expertise is much less likely. The key is realizing that, if I don’t have what’s required, someone else might. It’s a matter of it being difficult to detect metalinguistic emphasis, such as sarcasm, in plaintext.

If the phrase had been written “You have neither the tools nor the expertise” would you have considered it a friendlier clue?

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