Together Retro: Zork

[KDub]

The Japanese Saturn version of Zork looks really interesting. It has a bunch of kanji I'm not familiar with, so I'm pretty sure I won't be able to play it anytime in the foreseeable future... but it still looks SUPER-NEAT.

I love the how the intro makes it seem so super serious

[Nemoide]

Started Zork II, got confused by the Carousel Room, which sends you in random directions, got to a topiary where the Wizard incapacitated me with a float spell and the plants came alive and killed me. TOTAL SCORE: ZERO. But at least I have a decent little map started...

I am so appreciative of the LucasArts style of adventure games in which you can't die and you can't permanently miss things you need later...

[ExedExes]

I played a whole bunch more last night. It took me about 30 restores to kill the thief, however. Visited Hades, the dam, and many other fun locales. 9 treasures collected.

[noiseredux]

man, I had kind of lost all motivation to play this after learning what you need to do to beat the game. But after talking to DSH about it via PM, he kind of made a pretty good point. If I ignore the urge to beat the game altogether, then I'll probably end up getting a lot more out of the game. So from here on out, I'll just be aiming to do a lot of exploring and messing around with stuff in-game. I think that will make the experience a lot more enjoyable.

[ExedExes]

If I ignore the urge to beat the game altogether, then I'll probably end up getting a lot more out of the game. So from here on out, I'll just be aiming to do a lot of exploring and messing around with stuff in-game. I think that will make the experience a lot more enjoyable.

That's exactly how I feel. I'm not going at a terribly fast pace, even though I'm nearly halfway through it, I like reading the descriptions, fooling around with the commands, finding ways to use items that even the game can't understand, etc. (who'd build a dam underground, heck who would construct a passage that takes you straight to hell?) This type of game is not one where you should do everything correctly right away and just blaze through. It takes a lot of the experience away. I remember playing Shadowgate (NES) and doing the same thing. Seeing what the game said when trying different commands. Beating that game alone was a significant accomplishment.

[Stark]

this should be helpful, y'all.

Move commands

Command Shortcut Action

north n Move north
south s Move south
east e Move east
west w Move west
northeast ne Move northeast
northwest nw Move northwest
southeast se Move southeast
southwest sw Move southwest
up u Move up
down d Move down
look l Looks around at current location
save Save state to a file
restore Restores a saved state
restart Restarts the game
verbose Gives full description after each command
score Displays score and ranking
diagnostic Give description of health
brief Give a description upon first entering an area
superbrief Never describe an area

Item commands

Command (Argument) Action

take (item) Removes item from current room; places it in your inventory
take all takes all takeable objects in room
throw (item) at (location) Throws the item at something
open (container) Opens the container, whether it is in the room or your inventory
open (exit) Opens the exit for travel
read (item) Reads what is written on readable item
drop (item) Removes item from inventory; places it in current room
put (item) in (container) Removes item from inventory; places it in container
turn (control) with (item) Attempts to operate the control with the item
turn on (item) Turns on the item
turn off (item) Turns the item off
move (object) Moves a large object that cannot be picked up
attack (creature) with (item) Attacks creature with the item
examine (object) Examines, or looks, at an object or item or location
inventory Shows contents of Inventory
eat Eats item (specifically food)
shout Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!
close [Door] Closes door
tie (item) to (object)
rape (item) Dismisses command as an "ehem, strange idea"
kill self with (weapon) Humorously commits suicide
break (item) with (item) Breaks item
kill (creature) with (item) Attacks creature with the item
pray when you are in temples...
drink drinks an item

the most annoying thing to me is that USE is not a command.

Post of the year. Wow is it hard to not type USE even after reading this.

[Stark]

Seems fun, I think it is hilarious reading how you beat the game and realizing I owned/played this game around when it came out and had no idea.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Seems fun, I think it is hilarious reading how you beat the game and realizing I owned/played this game around when it came out and had no idea.

Yeah Zork is actually just a remake of Adventure!, but with a bit more color and Adventure! was just a version of Colossal Cave. You may have played any of the three and would feel the similarities.

[Nemoide]

The MINDLESS WANDERING AND EXPERIMENTING is where most of the fun is in text adventures, trying to COMPLETE them, not so much.
It's also worth noting that there are different versions of the game. So the "rape" command will not give you anything in early versions! Also some support 80-column text and the delete key while early versions DID NOT. If you wanted to correct an error you had to hit the left arrow.


...but anyway, I got sick of wandering aimlessly in Zork II and decided to just FINISH IT OFF WITH A WALKTHROUGH. The game, like its predecessor has a lot of really annoying and stupid puzzle solutions. But it also felt a lot more coherent, like the developers were actually giving some small amount of thought to the setting. I'm curious where Zork III goes, but not curious enough to be playing it anytime soon.
Maybe I'll give Beyond Zork a go, but I've got a lot on my gaming-plate at the moment.

[BogusMeatFactory]

The MINDLESS WANDERING AND EXPERIMENTING is where most of the fun is in text adventures, trying to COMPLETE them, not so much.
It's also worth noting that there are different versions of the game. So the "rape" command will not give you anything in early versions! Also some support 80-column text and the delete key while early versions DID NOT. If you wanted to correct an error you had to hit the left arrow.


...but anyway, I got sick of wandering aimlessly in Zork II and decided to just FINISH IT OFF WITH A WALKTHROUGH. The game, like its predecessor has a lot of really annoying and stupid puzzle solutions. But it also felt a lot more coherent, like the developers were actually giving some small amount of thought to the setting. I'm curious where Zork III goes, but not curious enough to be playing it anytime soon.
Maybe I'll give Beyond Zork a go, but I've got a lot on my gaming-plate at the moment.

I would say play the later text zorks like Zork Zero. Those have a lot more cohesive storytelling and better thought out puzzles.