The Zork Anthology

So, let me get this straight. A game, where you type in what to do... Sounds odd. Really. I remember playing Infocom games, until I fell asleep in my chair!! WHILE I WAS TYPING!! Some I can kind of remember, and some I can't. I was one of those people who didn't draw maps when I played. Forgot to save, and just kept dying! Hey, but what great fun. And it kind of helps you to know where the keys are on your Keyboard. Ha!! So blind I couldn't SEE THE RATING STARS, RIGHT NEXT TO THE TITLE BOX! {You may edit this out without my sadness.}

It's kinda cool to go on about how in the old times there was no graphics and everything was up to imagination with just text, but I don't think that Zork games are good representatives of Interactive Fiction genre. Sure they were the first big ones, having more advanced parcer than competition at the time too, but they are still icky. Dead ends, puzzles without much clues. Barely much of description or plot compared to any book, it's often barren, "there is nothing interesting about this " style. I tried to fairly beat the first three games with mapping and without guide, but as usual, upon seeing a puzzle with solution out of left field my trust in gameplay fell immediately and I resorted to just blowing thorugh with guide. Had more fun reading feelies. Zork 1 is a kitchen sink in everything in design, even including combat for some reason, without having much to do in combat or for preparing to it. Just treasure hunt. Zork 2 had a bit more personality, having a better reason to do treasure hunt as well, but still eh. Zork 3 suddenly got a certain mood, with certain worldbuilding. It's smaller but puzzles have more quality with them. Beyond Zork is semi-randomized CRPG/IF mix. I didn't bother as it's even worse this way when combined with dead ends. Zork Zero is the biggest, quantity over quality, even simply using classic puzzles that you've seen before, didn't bother either. There is Planetfall as a bonus. It's actually worth checking out. There is still a puzzle without clues. Puzzles are simple but it's filled to 75% with red herrings. Combine that with empty world that is livened up by a single sidekick and it just feels like an unique experience. I would say that you are better of playing indie takes on this genre. Check IFComp for some games for example. Don't let historical importance blind you from effort of modern indies that deserve recognition. Well, I am also happy that I managed to find "filfre" blog of history by searching on Zork info.

I still remember the feeling when my sword glowed because I was close to a goblin and my first time being eaten by a grue. It was fun stuff and well written, but it was easy to get lost. Use the maps, trust me. Would love to see the complete "Treasures of Infocom" especially Hitchhiker's Guide, but I'm not sure they even exist anymore.

If you want to get your kids into reading and they enjoy things like Harry Potter or Dragons and Sorcery then get them this and any of the Infocom games you can get your hands on. They are some of the most intelligent, witty and fun games your kids will ever experience. It will help them to learn typing too.

So glad this gem is still around. My year 6 teacher let us play this game if we had been good in class, it was a devil to play back then, and some things weren't obvious to a kid (some of the puzzles do require a bit of life experience to solve) but it (Zork 1) was excellent fun, and happy to say it still is.