Drakmyth Reviews: Zork I

That’s an interesting idea. I think if the “You” was visibly emphasized that would be a better clue. With no emphasis, it’s no different than any other second-person description.

I feel like I would still take issue with needing to correlate that to giving the egg to the thief though because there’s still nothing to suggest that he is the right person, or, again, that there would be any way to get the egg back later. Maybe that’s just down to lack of familiarity with D&D thieves which based on others’ comments he seems to be based on. But as there isn’t any other character you come across who is a more likely candidate given that clue, so maybe that’s enough to catalyst the thought and get the player experimenting with him. I’m not sure…

In Zork I, there aren’t many other characters that the egg can potentially be given to. The bat doesn’t take items, and the troll… I don’t believe it does.

I think the intention was for the player to read “I don’t have the tools or expertise” and ask themselves “well, who does?”

The Odysseus / Ulysses puzzle I will grant is counterintuitive. Possibly it was more obvious in the days when we expected fewer commands to be accepted. But even if you pick up the clue and have enough knowledge of Greek mythology to understand it, there’s nothing to make the player think they ought to type the name. But that’s life. Zork was filled with puzzles, and not all of them were ideal.

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The troll eats things given to it…a good way to get into an unwinnable state.

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Yeah, in the old days they weren’t averse to the idea of forcing the player to start over from scratch, possibly after months of invested time.

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This is true…however if you’ve been playing a lot, the entire game can be finished in much less than an hour.

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I’m sure you can do a speed run if you know how to solve all the puzzles in advance. I can’t imagine anyone actually completing Zork I in an hour without knowing anything about the game beforehand.

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Certainly. My point was that recovering from a loss of progress is not very time consuming.

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Visited this weekend:

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The present-day Fabergé company (no connection to the original Russian jewellers) could probably make a killing selling Zork-themed eggs.

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