gog.com/en/gamecard/the_zork_anthology
Okay, so I couldn’t resist the opportunity to pay for Zork again. At $6 for six games, GOG certainly aren’t gouging on the price, and I wanted this version mainly to toss into the vast and yawning pit of my Infocom archives.
The games install with DOSBox rather than running on a modern interpreter, so, for better or worse (I found it charming), the customer gets to play the games pretty much exactly as they once were. They installed cleanly and play nicely on my rig (Win7, 64bit) but that’s because DOSBox is groovy and I already knew that.
My only real complaint is with the doc files provided (and not provided). Complete manuals are included for only two of the games, which I find baffling … and the “maps” package mixes feelie-type maps and cheaty-spoily-type maps with little distinction offered. And despite providing the cheaty-spoily maps and labeling them “invisiclues” maps (complete with the invisiclues booklet covers included in the PDF), the actual invisiclues are nowhere to be found (and the term never explained), so no hints at all except where (in Zork Zero) the game itself includes them.
And the installed shortcut for Zork Zero calls it Zero Zork, which is harmless but made me grin.
Anyway, the point is I was offered an opportunity to pay for Zork again and I took it. If I were a modern gamer curious about Ye Olden Dayes, though, the spotty documentation might be an issue … so, shame on Activision for not assembling a better pack of docs, and shame on GOG for either not noticing or not caring.
But woo, Zork on sale and stuff.