Zork I is dead! Long live Zork II.

hamster

First off... don't look at the scrshots if you don't want to know the ending of Zork I.


Finally Completed Zork I. Time to party. After decades of promising to get around to finishing it and then only half finishing it 5 years ago - today I slayed the beast Zork I - today is a special day to mark on the calendar. I think I will declare a public holiday.

I was the mood for it today - felt like it would be another 1-2 hours to finish it. I had it all mapped (85% of it anyway) and had to solve the remaining puzzles - beating that thief was a great thrill!


Here is a screenshot from winfrotz - note the amount of time in the bottom right corner I wasted today!



Onwards to Zork II. What are Boarders favorite Zork I, II or III? I heard 3 was bordering on unfair?

What did you think of the game back then? Or what did you think of the ending or satisifaction of completing this Infocom game compared to other text adventures? I'd be curious!

hamster

Anyone thinking about trying Zork yet again? In winvice I decided to change the font to a way more retro comfortable Tohoma Bold font size 11. On a black screen with a light grey forecolor. Absolute perfect! Onwards to Zork II.

I tell you a story. Please bear me a moment - it will be short!

I played this back in 1986 briefly. I thought it was cool after all I liked adventures - especially in the woods and Fighting Fantasy and so on. All the rage then. But... I got easily got lost - got bored - gave up - back came - gave up...
Sometimes I tried mapping - but the map never felt right - and more frustrating sometimes was that the map was wrong - the thief steal my things and so on.

So bring forward 2002 - I tried winfrotz - no delay and in windows - I had access to the notepad and GUEMAP - what a lifesaver. I still have to map - I didn't want to automap after-all!

Then 2 things happened - I made progress and mapped a large amount of Zork I. But - darn it! - I didn't finished it and I left it for 4 years until last October 2006 - and again until this weekend Aug 2007 finally completing it. Now going into Zork II - I am ready and I really think I can give a great tip for enjoying these games:

1. Start playing the game by slowly reading each location. Enjoy that first!
2. Map each area - but don't worry about each exit just yet.
3. Note each item. Examine them - don't bother with the moves count.
4. Don't worry about destroying items or losing them to a "thief". *
5. come back and check for each exit in each area once you have explored the game. Map it! Beat it!
6. get a list inventory.
7. make a puzzle list.
8. have fun!
9. And yes - I did eventually look at the hints for 30% of the game.

* this is what made the game difficult for me initally. I had the expectation that I was going to complete the game in one save file/game. Better to feel going into a game to simply explore the world first - that's it! Simply that! Then make maps - then note the puzzles and objects. I know its sounds basic and repeating - but I really enjoyed coming back to the game later and breaking down the map mystery and **actually** I have learned to enjoy breaking down mazes! Yup! Believe it or not! Look at my sig - from 2002!!
I realised that each time I started the game from scratch I could use what I gathered so far to make it easy to fly into the game. Hence I don't get upset if the torch ran out... I mean - you will start Zork dozens of times since it runs out after 385 turns or so. And you will want to slowly examine everything first to enjoy etc. etc. ie, I now take the game less serious and expect to die and fail.

I'd love to hear from more of you on what made these games tick for you! Sometimes they did tick me off - but you always come back to them.

monkeyfudge

That's a nice little write up.

I'll have to give the Zork games a go this week now. I played a lot of text adventures when I was a kid, but I don't think I ever actually got around to the Zork ones.

Duggy747

I got Zork 1 & 2 on my PC years ago but I never got around to completing the 1st one. Won't be doing it yet as I've gotten back to playing Quake 4 and I'm currently busy on Eric The Unready, excellent game!

hamster

Thought I might add this here...

GUEMAP (Useful IF Mapper) is now freeware! Wahey! Actually it's a release candidate version but the author hasn't made any changes since 2005 but has changed the status from shareware.

GUEmap 2.0 rc 1 -- September 14, 2007

(ie see the white map above - That is GUEMap).

Enjoy!

Crowman

I have an original copy of Trinity from Infocom (missing the paper sundial though!) never got around to playing it mind, but that GUEMAP app looks really useful I might have to give it a go now....
Have you played Trinity hamster?

hamster

Crowman wrote:

I have an original copy of Trinity from Infocom (missing the paper sundial though!) never got around to playing it mind, but that GUEMAP app looks really useful I might have to give it a go now....
Have you played Trinity hamster?

Crowman, Yup! Albeit very briefly last year - here trying the trinity.z5 file out on the Amiga version of Winfrotz. Looks like a class game - so many of these to sink teeth into.


I want to get into this asap but I promised myself to slay Zork II first. Currently in a maze with a club and dimly flickering windows hmm.

What was your favourite out of the lot - Trinity? The background to it is exciting.

GUEMap is very handy for mapping the most annoying of maps - but one niggling thing I have about it is that labels can only appear in the room boxes and the room shape is fixed - sometimes that makes for arkward room connections.

Did you try any of the more modern ones? You might like Anchorhead if you haven't heard of it. The background story oozes with atmosphere.

Crowman

Well you know the story... too many games not enough time but I am determined to make an attempt on Trinity just as soon as I finish Panzer Dragoon Saga on the saturn!
I also like the idea behind 'A mind forever voyaging' another infocom classic but I'll start with Trinity for sure...
Not tried Anchorhead i'll google for it in a mo.
Great thing about text games I can pretend to be working while playing ha ha ha...

hamster

Crowman wrote:

Great thing about text games I can pretend to be working while playing ha ha ha...

Ha ha! A small grey font and a suitably black screen and Hell, you could be vi-ing a shell code install script for all management would know.

hamster

Well, it's finally happened with help of one or two spoilers along the way - but Zork II was completed tonight. Another Ghost laid to rest. I have to say I enjoyed Zork II better than Zork I - it feels more uniform and fresh. The setting is more coherent than its predecessor. Really enjoyed it this time.

Look away now to avoid spoilers

The ending really had that Matrix 2 kind of ending where it pushes you more strongly in Zork 3 then Zork 1 did into 2. A red lit hall beckons!


Some really class lines in this game:

>enter circle
You try to enter the pentagram, but are forced back by an invisible power.
Suddenly the Wizard materializes in the room. He is astonished by what he sees: his servant in deep conversation with a common adventurer! He draws forth his wand, waves it frantically, and incants "Frobizz! Frobozzle! Frobnoid!" The demon laughs heartily. "You no longer control the Black Crystal, hedge-wizard! Your wand is powerless! Your doom is sealed!" The demon turns to you, expectantly.

>demon, kill wizard
"My fee is not paid! I perform no tasks for free! We demons have a strong union these days."

Here is a copy of the map I did in GUEMAP and some notes I made as I went along the way. It really helps to make notes.

I'm tempted to start Zork III now and try to finish the trilogy - although I heard Zork III is fiendishly difficult compared to the first two?

grimm2005

i cant comment on the original zork trilogy. could never get into the text adventures. but seeing as i'm here let me just add that zork grand inquisitor was excellent

hamster

grimm2005 wrote: »

i cant comment on the original zork trilogy. could never get into the text adventures. but seeing as i'm here let me just add that zork grand inquisitor was excellent

Always heard about it but never played it - must try it sometime.

But tonight I'll try to get my head around Zork III. Hopefully it doesn't depend on any baseball homerun American clues.



Final thoughts on Zork II. I definitely now think its better than Zork I for reason I gave before - coherent, consistent background, an annoying Wizard (he gets his desserts), an evil demon, kicking dragons and some magic. And... there is no maze (sort of a maze but not really!). The demon and comment dialog is really funny! Comes highly recommended. Actually to replay - it is quicker and more enjoyable than Zork I. Although Zork I's opening is classic. I did replay Zork II to minimize the no. of turns -

400 pts in 306 moves.

broken roughly down into 6, if what I can call quests.
- the bank quest
- the dragon quest
- the princess back to the gazebo quest
- the well and tea room quest
- the wizard show down quest
- the cerberus quest

hamster

The zork maps are interesting when you spend time put the descriptions to paper (pixel) The image below it is the standard GUEMap watching the room connections.



Zork III is definitely different from the first two games so far. Feels darker and more sombre somehow... now near an underground beach with an ancient crumbling stone wall to the south... and who is that man in the shadows? Interesting stuff.

grimm2005

hamster wrote: »

Always heard about it but never played it - must try it sometime.

highly recommended and very funny. in fact talking about it is giving me a tinge of nostalgia and tempting me to fire it up again!

hamster

Hey! I came across a nice GUEMap substitute while messing around with ubuntu. That diagram draw tool is excellent for making maps. Beats GUEMaps for making those awkard rooms that you would like to make circular or rectangular. Supports movable text, lines, rooms with easy copy'n paste. Comes highly recommended!