I agree, but in the opposite sense of your meaning. Catcher interested me when I was a teen, but decades later I regard it as a nadir of mediocrity with lackluster prose and themes. The Great Gatsby would work much better as an example of the effect for me.
Zork II needs more love in this thread.
Heh. I also prefer it to Zork I now. It’s a strong game and a reasonable favorite.
Compiling all of these comments together – mostly chronological, with some reordering to avoid strings of “duds”, yields… pretty much chronological order. Combinations that might be avoided:
Frankly, Infocom just didn’t have many misses.
Thanks everyone for your input! I also am mindful of Jim Nelson’s advice, although I’m not sure they’re meant to be enjoyed. I’m doing this out of a sense of duty, after all.
A related question: if I wanted to play all the Zork games, is it best to go chronological and play the Enchanter games between Zork III and Beyond Zork, or leave them until the end?
I personally would play Zork III first, but that’s just me. Since they don’t refer to each other (as far as I can remember), in-universe continuity doesn’t seem threatened by shuffling them.
Relatedly, is there an argument for playing the original Zork (or the Inform port of it), vs the three commercial Infocom releases?
I think Zork I-III and Enchanter-Spellbreaker are a contiguous set. Beyond Zork is more of a “Zork Gaiden” kind of thing.
I think the trilogy is better, since Blank and Lebling grew increasingly aware of craft and design. The added parts of Zork II and III, for instance, are among the best in the series (IMO). Mainframe is historically significant, but trilogy if it’s down to one or the other.
I agree completely with your reasoning but differ on conclusion.
The three Zork games are certainly more polished and coherent than Mainframe Zork, but I enjoyed the chaotic mess that mainframe was. It felt like a long game impossible to finish with a wild mix of whatever the authors liked, which I think is neat, while the commercial games were more centered and completable. I think the fact that I use walkthroughs heavily affects my choice here; sprawling goofy games are fun to get a guided tour through but annoying to play.
That said, I love the commercial Zork games. 2 was my favorite for a while but I think I like 3 a little bit more (including the puzzle that named you). I haven’t played any games with “Zork” in their name after Zork III because they seem either super dull (towers of Hanoi) or include a different kind of humor and setting.
I have the questionable honour of having finished (along with a couple of friends) the 2.7A Unix version of the pre-Zork Dungeon without a single hint. I was 17, there was no Internet to speak of, and it took us several months, so I’m particularly fond of it, but it’s a bit of a mainframe mess, agreed. The two words “endgame contraption” have become something of a shibboleth in my social circle.
Relatedly, is there an argument for playing the original Zork (or the Inform port of it), vs the three commercial Infocom releases?
I thought playing it was interesting, after having played the trilogy, just to see what was changed. I used the source code and tool at GitHub - heasm66/mdlzork: Different versions of original mainframe Zork reconstructed and patched to run under Confusion. which may be pretty authentic, but it’s hardly the most convenient way.
However, while I can easily find my way around Zork I from memory (except the mazes), I absolutely need a map to navigate through original Zork. The layout is reminiscent of Zork I, but everything twists and turns a lot more.
This was my experience, too.
My personal order would be
with Zork Zero between either Zork III and Enchanter or after Beyond Zork at your preference. I don’t feel it should be played before Zork I or between Spellbreaker and Beyond Zork.
Wishbringer also probably belongs in there somewhere.
Okay, so is Inform Zork based on Home Zork I or Mainframe Zork? And how much is the trilogy spliting Mainframe Zork up into chapters versus remixing and adding on to the content?
Also, aside from Inform Zork, have any other Infocom or other Golden Age IF been remastered with modern parsers, to remove unbeatable by mistake situations, or implement other quality of life improvements? I feel like I should play more of Infocom’s library, but the ones I have played are chock full of moments where seemingly innocent actions prove to be big, game breaking mistakes, moments where it isn’t obvious what to type to do what you want, and just following a walkthrough tends to take the difficulty from “How did anyone beat these back in the day” to “I might as well read a transcript”. Heck, I’ll settle for versions that are just as esoteric as the originals if an in-game death resets any puzzles you’ve put in an unsolvable state or respawns key items that were destroyed.
Or failing that, are there any stand alone titles in Infocom’s library that at least have some semblance of being forgiving or allowing experimentation?
Nord and Bert rocked! Otherwise, you are spot on in your list 
Not as far as I’m aware. There’s been discussion here about this in the past which you may find interesting.
Annotated versions of parser games. What was I thinking?
Fair! I included it in tier two because a lot of reasonable people enjoy it, even if I don’t
An interesting question I just thought of – for those who rank the Zorks in order, were you familiar with IF before then? Just wondering how far back some people go. I go back to the 4k TRS-80 days…lol!
Probably 1980, on a DEC Micro PDP-11 (I believe). I had advent and dungeon (MIT Zork).
Edit: On checking some sources, it couldn’t have been a Micro PDP since they were not introduced until later. I’m pretty sure it was a QBUS PDP-11 of some sort, though.
I played everything on a C64. I didn’t know any adults who knew what pre-micro Zork or Adventure were. In fact, I didn’t know grown-ups who played computer games until my friends and I became grown-ups.
I think it all started in 1983, after C64 prices dropped. I had those hideous CBM-published versions, which are really funny to look at.
I’m just impressed you could solve Spellbreaker and Zork III. For me, they are like Suspended impossible!