I, Thief development diary: a pre/se-quel

[kamineko (Drew Cook)]

AUTHORS SAY THE DARNEDEST THINGS

I’d like to do something closer to the Infocom games. A fan fiction, maybe. A sequel to Zork Zero!

If you would prefer a game with minimalist sensibilities… You might enjoy my next game, Zork Zero II.

If you’d like to experience my take on inventory management, please look forward to my next game, Zork Zero II.

If you prefer games with impressively high point values, you might enjoy my next game, Zork Zero II.

The player’s freedom is reflected in the scoring system, not the plot. If this freedom is not sufficient, then I hope that you will find greater pleasure in my next game, Zork Zero II.

I think it would be fun to do a fanfiction. A Zork game, perhaps. I wouldn’t want to retcon the ending of Spellbreaker, so Zork VII seems out of the question. A Wishbringer prequel, perhaps, or Zork Zero II.

Originally, I wanted there to be an orange-eyed cat that seemed to follow wherever D went, but it felt too busy and cluttered. I also intended to include some stray cats at the trailer park that D could feed and pet. Sadly, there wasn’t time to realize every facet of my original vision for Repeat the Ending.

Perhaps there will be more cats in the 50th anniversary edition, or in my next game, Zork Zero II.

Do you know how I feel about Zork Zero? I’ve publicly said a lot about it over the past two years. I hate it. I think the puzzles are bad, the constant, forced jokes are bad. I don’t like anything about it!

You might wonder if, since I hate it, Zork Zero II will be a parody.

No, not at all. Delightfully mysterious, isn’t it?

(Drew “Drew Cook” Cook, Repeat the Ending)

While the working title has, thanks to Mike Russo, changed to Beyond Zork Zero, the general idea remains the same. BZZ is a game about the Zork trilogy’s most interesting character, the thief. What is his origin story, and what is he doing down there in that maze?

Did the royal palace really transform into a white house for a bit of fan service?

How is this a follow up to Repeat the Ending?

All these questions, and many likely to remain unasked, will be answered! In fact, let’s answer some right now.

What is I, Thief?

• I, Thief (working title Beyond Zork Zero or “bzz”) is in many senses a traditional adventure game with a large, sprawling map and puzzles. It tells the as-yet untold story of the legendary thief.

Are you back on your meta bullshit? I didn’t like that in Repeat the Ending.

• Yes, I am, but…

• It will be different. There won’t be footnotes or a reader’s guide this time.

• There will, however, be an external PDF with introduction material, summaries of Zork and RTE.

• There will also be some fun fan fiction stories featuring Marbles the cat and her friend D.

• The idea behind this text is to recreate the experience of an old-school Infocom feelie.

Other than the thief, will other characters from Zork appear?

• I think fans will be happy to see many old faces, yes.

This doesn’t sound like it has much to do with Repeat the Ending. Kind of a bummer if you ask me.

• Hopefully, all will make sense by the end! I’ve given this a lot of thought.

Do I need to play both Zork and Repeat the Ending to enjoy this?

• Most testers have only played one or the other. One had played neither. They mostly felt like they had complete experiences.

• They also wanted to learn more about these works. I was particularly happy to generate interest in Zork!

Opening crawl:

PROLOGUE

Z–k I: The Gre-t Un—g-ou-d Empire
Copyright (c) 1981, 1982, 1983 In-o-m, Inc. All rights reserved.
Z–k is a registered trademark of In-o-m, Inc.
Revision 74 / Serial number 740517

Treasure Room
It was large room, whose east wall was solid granite. A number of discarded bags, which crumbled at his touch, were scattered about on the floor. There was an exit down a staircase.

I was a suspicious-looking individual. I held a large bag, leaning against one wall. I was armed with a deadly stiletto.

There was a silver chalice, intricately engraved, there.

He dodged as I came in low.

His nasty knife pinked me on the wrist, but it wasn’t serious.

I parried a lightning thrust, and saluted him with a grim nod.

His blow landed, making shallow gash in my arm!

I stabbed nonchalantly with my stiletto and missed.

I took a fatal blow and slumped to the floor dead.

Almost as soon as I breathed my last breath, a cloud of sinister black fog enveloped me, and when the fog lifted, my carcass had disappeared.

[ ⯖ ]

When will this be released? I’m not sure, honestly. When it’s done. But I’ve started at the ending and I’ve made it to the middle part. Hopefully I can update this soon!

[DeusIrae (Mike Russo)]

Excited to see this project moving along – as you know, I’m pretty enthusiastic about it

@kamineko

thanks to Mike Russo, changed to Beyond Zork Zero

Wait, really? I have, er, zero memory of this.

[kamineko (Drew Cook)]

@DeusIrae

Wait, really? I have, er, zero memory of this.

You felt—quite correctly—that Zork Zero II would just be Zork I, so I abandoned the original title. All for the good!

Thanks for supporting this and my other projects

[rovarsson]

@kamineko

Treasure Room
It was large room,… → a large room ?

---

Very intriguing concept. So looking forward to playing this!

[severedhand]

@kamineko

You felt—quite correctly—that Zork Zero II would just be Zork I, so I abandoned the original title. All for the good!

I dunno. Zork Zero II is a pretty awesome title. But it does leave you forever open to the joke, ‘That would be Zork I.’

Some film producers say ‘Never include the joke that can be used to criticise your film in the title of your film.’ Of course nobody can live by that if the title it would force them to avoid is perfect, but it’s still a defensive manoeuvre to keep in mind. If you can pull it off at zero (ha!) cost, it’s always worth considering.

You have to watch out for puns, too. Xanadu became the review quip ‘Xana-don’t.’

-Wade

[SomeOne2 (Max Fog)]

I canta wait for this game. I loved RTE, and this one is not unlikely to live up to those standards!

Also Beyond Zork Zero is equally as good a title as Zork Zero II, if not better IMO.

[kamineko (Drew Cook)]

current project status

Presented without comment:

>spells


[ENTITY: OEW]

carry out spellbooking: 
     say "YOU HAVE COLLECTED THE FOLLOWING INEFFECTUAL PRIMEOID MAGICS:

     APHOSIS     |   DESCRIPTION     |   GRAMMAR     |   GLYPH  |   COUNT
     --------------------------------------------------------------------
     NIHTSEAH    |   detect aphosis  |   SEE         |   A      |   5
     FLEGECORS   |   insect curse    |   PLAGUE      |   P      |   5
     HYLFEOLL    |   mountainfall    |   ROCKFALL    |   R      |   6


[/ENTITY: OEW]


>

current map (inform index)

A snippet. I’ve decided to use AW Freyr’s “Hybrid Choices” extension for conversation. I’m having fun imagining the voices of familiar characters from the Zork universe. You can also see signs that I have implemented an automatically updating task list; a notification is printed here.

>talk to dungeon master
The DUNGEON MASTER looks at you expectantly. “Welcome, ANTAGONIST, welcome. You have returned once more to the wealth and splendor of the Great Underground Empire.” His voice is wet with irony. “It seems we have not yet played our game for the last time. You must have many questions! You always do.”

1. About me
2. About this place
3. Why am I here?
4. I am ready to proceed. (point of no return)

[DEMIURGE]

after updating the task list:
say “YOUR TASK LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED. REVIEW IT WITH THE ‘TASKS’ COMMAND.”;

[/DEMIURGE]

>

Authorial notes: it has been hard to write something that exists in an established continuity. I, Thief, is a kind of fan fiction, I suppose, and faith to the source material requires a lot of research, fact-checking, and commitment. I can’t always write things the way that I would write them. A recurring theme of I, Thief is that the past cannot be changed. I am living this out as an author. So much cannot be changed.

And yet, there remains a lot of room for play. We see so little of the Thief’s story, so I will make it mine to tell.

I would like to release I, Thief in the middle of 2026. How is that going to work out? Would I really release such a big game outside of a major event? It is too early to say, but my earnest answer is “I hope so.”

[rovarsson]

@kamineko

I would like to release I, Thief in the middle of 2026. How is that going to work out? Would I really release such a big game outside of a major event?

I’ll be right here, on the edge of my seat, fingers poised above the keyboard.

In fact, please do release it outside of a Comp. I want all my attention focused on the thief.

[kamineko (Drew Cook)]

current project status

Which one is the turn count?

---

---

presented without comment:

>p
 
 
[ENTITY: OEW]
 
Your performance is marginally less disappointing than usual.
 
Epilogue:
 
 - A minor pest problem                    (discovered)
 - Rock and Roll Suicide                   (locked)
 - Making a mole hill out of a mountain    (undiscovered)
 - Corpse versus statue                    (discovered)
 - Lasers are the future                   (undiscovered)
 - Contents under pressure                 (undiscovered)
 
Total Score: 2 x 5 = 10
 
[/ENTITY: OEW]

Things are moving along! I had hoped to debut this game for the Review-a-Thon, but I don’t think I’ll make it. I estimate that the content is 70% complete, but my first-pass writing is always very rough. Everything will require a fair bit of revision.

I hope to have something feature complete for testing in a few months. Please consider testing it; I’m sure your feedback will be welcome.

the description of WOH is "You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.

The moon is new, and the sky is an intoxication of stars. You can travel [northeast] and [southeast] around the house, and a forest closes around a path leading [north].

There is a small mailbox here."

[kamineko (Drew Cook)]

I’m still at it!

The word count hasn’t advanced very far, as I’ve been bug-hunting and copyediting quite a bit. I started this project soon after Spring Thing 2023, and it really surprises me how clunky some of that old code is. The bright side, of course, is that I’m a better programmer now than I was back then.

water, water, everywhere

I made the catastrophic mistake of adding liquids to this game world, which has been both educational and humbling. I have spent far more time accounting for commands like POUR WATER ON SAILOR than I have the puzzle itself. I hope players will enjoy this, my last and only implementation of liquids.

>pour water in lake

[p] Which do you mean, the PURE WATER (in the tempered glass jar) or LAKE WATER (from the lake)? [/p]

>pure
(the LAKE)
You pour the PURE WATER into the LAKE. Such is the freedom promised by a parser game.

interface musings

I have been thinking about an (optional) hyperlink interface. There are some interesting problems regarding the relevancy of actions to nouns (and whether printing links can give away solutions) that I may not have time to solve. I need to release this thing eventually! Still, such things are fun to daydream about (for eccentrics of my description).

Interface or no, there absolutely will be some links for examining nouns, taking exits, using the map, and, assuming I can sort it out, which do you mean questions. Those will work in both web and local interpreters.

a (hopefully) better-received banking experience

I’ve added a set-piece puzzle to the Bank of Zork, since testers found the location barren and pointless (they were right on both counts). This is one reason I like testing often, as I can make these kind of adjustments while development is in full swing. It’s an ASCII-type puzzle. I have some ideas about an alternative for screenreader users, so that’s being developed in tandem. For now, I present this—what is this?—smudge. I hope it plays better than it looks!

feelies!

I’ve been working on feelies, too. From the beginning, I have intended to release I, Thief with external documents rather than in-game texts, since that’s the Infocom tradition it emerges from. Hopefully I can cook up something appealing, as Infocom set a very high bar in that regard.

looking forward

I’m halfway through revising and editing the first two-thirds, but the code-heavy parts are behind me. I should be back to writing and designing in a couple of days. I haven’t completely decided what parts will be “in” and “out,” as this final map is large and varied, though I promise that every familiar character will make an appearance. More news soon!

[baezil]

Ooh, neat post! Is the opposite of a post-mortem a wellness check? It’s fun to get a glimpse of the process. Love the idea of doing feelies. It feels very zine-adjacent.

[kamineko (Drew Cook)]

@baezil

Is the opposite of a post-mortem a wellness check?

Ha! That’s a surprisingly good fit in my case.

I love feelies in games, be they old or new. In the last part of the 20th century (), most computer titles included some sort of text or goodie that granted games existences beyond their screens. I always get excited spotting feelies for new releases!

[baezil]

Do you know if anyone has every done something physical as part of a hobbyist release? It seems fun to do some inexpensive zine-style extras (hints, game info, puzzle component) and mail them to any players who felt comfortable giving an address in advance of a comp.

[kamineko (Drew Cook)]

I know that has happened with paid content, but I’m not sure about free. Surely somebody has done it over the years.

Since I get into this kind of thing, I’d definitely consider it (as either author or player) if the opportunity arose.

[lpsmith (Lucian Smith)]

The image bar at Feelies - IFWiki lists a few! Savoir Faire and Losing Your Grip are two significant examples.

There was even an effort on r*if at one point to try to facilitate the creation/distribution of feelies for IF games, though I don’t really remember enough about it to say much. I do remember Emily was significantly involved in the project, though.

I don’t think any of them were free, since they all were definitely not free for the author to procure in the first place. IIRC, authors usually charged just enough to recover their outlay, and even so I think probably usually lost at least some money in the process.

[Piergiorgio_d_errico]

On the feelies in general, I have already posted in the specific debate; but on how to deliver, I think that the most logical, if not natural, way of distributing is bundling with the game in a .zip/.tar.gz file..

On the specific feelie, as incidentally noted in the specific debate, the preview (more specifically, the title) seems exactly the very same idea I have for Isekai’s feelie.

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.