I first discovered Zork on my college mainframe in the fall of 1981. My friends and I spent many hours on it, playing separately while giving each other occasional hints, but we didn’t come close to finishing. Nor did we hear of anyone who did.
Two and a half years later, I bought my first computer. Seeing Zork II on the software shelf, I added it to my purchase. Not long after that, I added Zork I and Zork III to my collection and eventually (with a little help) completed them.
But in the back of my mind I always wanted to complete the original Dungeon. I gave it a shot about 25 years ago, but came up a few treasures short. Now, armed with my Trilogy knowledge and a walkthrough, I’m determined to finish!
I started with Ethan Dicks’ Inform port (Release 13), playing with Gargoyle. It wasn’t long, however, before I ran into inventory problems. Not because I was carrying too much stuff, but due to an apparent bug in the game.
> look
Posts Room
This is an enormous room, in the center of which are four
wooden posts delineating a rectangular area, above which is
what appears to be a wooden roof. In fact, all objects in this
room appear to be abnormally large. To the east is a
passageway. There is a large chasm on the west and the
northwest.
There is an ivory torch here.
A clear glass bottle is here.
There is a pearl necklace here with hundreds of large pearls.
There is a tin of rare spices here.
There is a brass lantern (battery-powered) here.
There is an elvish sword here.
There is a piece of cake with blue icing here.
> i
You are carrying:
A piece of cake with orange icing
> get blue cake
Your load is too heavy. You will have to leave something
behind.
Hmm. Two cakes are hardly “too heavy.” A little further investigation seemed to suggest that one part of the code thought I was carrying certain items and another part (that which displayed my inventory) thought I wasn’t.[/spoiler]
In any case, the game soon became unplayable. I still had Release 12 kicking around on my hard disk from years ago, so I tried that. This time, no inventory problems, but instead, the lamp timer seemed to be malfunctioning.
Wanting to preserve the lamp’s batteries as long as possible, I started the game and immediately went to the Torch Room, turned off the lamp and used the torch for light. So the lamp was on for less than 10 turns.
I then did a bunch of stuff without using the lamp: the maze, the well, the Bank of Zork, the dam and the Frigid River, meanwhile picking up assorted treasures and killing the thief in my travels.
Needing the lamp for the coal mine, I went there next:
> ne
Shaft Room
This is a large room, in the middle of which is a small shaft
descending through the floor into darkness below. To the
west and the north are exits from this room. Constructed overthe top of the shaft is a metal framework to which a heavy
iron chain is attached.
At the end of the chain is a basket.
> turn on lamp
The lamp is now on.
The lamp appears to be getting dimmer.
> score
Your score would be 402 [total of 646 points], in 609 moves.
This score gives you a rank of Hacker.
I’m sure I wasted a bunch of moves stumbling through unfamiliar passages, but with the lamp off, I wasn’t worried about it. But still, “The lamp appears to be getting dimmer?” After being on for less than 10 moves?
Oh well, I got through the coal mine efficiently, turned off the lamp again, and did the Royal Puzzle and the palantirs. Now for the volcano. Off to the Glacier Room
/> throw torch at glacier
The torch hits the glacier and explodes into a great ball of
flame, devouring the glacier. The water from the melting
glacier rushes downstream, carrying the torch with it. In the
place of the glacier, there is a passageway leading west. The
melting glacier seems to have carried the torch away, leaving
you in the dark.
/
It is now pitch dark in here!
/
/> turn on lamp
The lamp is now on.
The lamp appears to be getting dimmer.
And then a few moves later:
/> light newspaper with match
The newspaper burns inside the receptacle.
The cloth bag inflates as it fills with hot air.
/> z
Time passes.
The match has gone out.
/
/> z
Time passes.
The lamp is dying.
/
/> score
Your score would be 571 [total of 646 points], in 872 moves.
This score gives you a rank of Winner.
There I was, 872 moves in, well less than 100 with the lamp on, and I didn’t have enough light to complete the game.
Could this possibly be a Gargoyle (version 2019.1.1) bug? It just runs Frotz, right? The version of Frotz in this folder is 2.50. So maybe that’s where the bug is. (Please forgive my ignorance of which app is doing what.)
In the folder with Release 12, I found some old save files from 1999(!). They wouldn’t load in Gargoyle, but Frotz (version 2.32) loaded them just fine. The most recent file was still a little short of the 646 total points, but I gathered up the missing ones I knew about and headed to the Tomb. Alas, at 644 points, I couldn’t enter the crypt without surviving, and I had just a few turns left on my candles. For the record, I had made 1106 moves, but how many I made with the lamp on (25+ years ago), I couldn’t tell you. But before replaying the entire game in Frotz, I thought I’d check here and see if this was a known bug. Or maybe someone can suggest a game/interpreter version pair that they know works. I’d like to play the full 646 point version.
Of course, there’s also the problem of the missing 2 points.
In the trophy case, I have:
a pearl necklace
a white crystal sphere
a tin of spices
a painting
a chalice
a portrait of J. Pierpont Flathead
a stack of zorkmid bills
a platinum bar
a fancy violin
a trunk of jewels
a crystal trident
a clockwork canary
a beautiful brass bauble
a grail
a jewel-encrusted egg
a jade figurine
a sapphire bracelet
a huge diamond
a bag of coins
a pot of gold
a statue
a large emerald
a gold card
a coffin
a ruby
a priceless zorkmid
a burned out ivory torch
a crown
a stamp
a red crystal sphere
a blue crystal sphere
a Don Woods stamp
Am I missing something?
Any light anyone can shed on this would be enormously appreciated. (Sorry, the pun seemed necessary for my mental health at this point.)