Game Review: Zork I (Atari ST, Infocom)

The first text adventure I ever played was Adventureland by Scott Adams on the Vic 20. When I eventually moved on to the C64, the genre continued to be one of my favourites, so it was no surprise that the first game I picked up for the C64 when I added a disk drive to my set up a year or so later was Infocom’s Zork (which they had licensed to Commodore). It was a true leap forward for adventure games, and I became a lifelong fan ever since. So checking out the 16-bit versions was a must, including this port for the Atari ST…

Welcome To The World Of Zork

Written by Marc Blank and Dave Lebling, Zork (or to use its full name Zork I: The Great Underground Empire) is a fantasy adventure where – according to the box at least – you’re on a perilous adventure deep below the earth seeking out the Treasures Of Zork located somewhere in the Great Empire. You’re not really given a great deal of information about where you are, what your overall goal is or anything else for that matter. You’re thrown right in at the deep end and left to figure everything out for yourself.

Playing The Game

This was the first release from Infocom and it revolutionised the text adventure genre. Instead of one or two words, Zork allowed players to enter commands in complex sentences, giving multiple instructions at the same time. Not only does this allow for more complex gameplay, but also allowed for a more fluid experience. Imagine you wanted to pick up a book in any other game and you’d use the commands GET BOOK followed by EXAMINE BOOK. Here you’d just type GET BOOK AND EXAMINE IT. It may not seem like a big deal, but it made play feel so much more natural.

But that is just the tip of the iceberg. It also allows Zork to distinguish between different objects so you can have different coloured objects and describe them as such when interacting with them. The scope really became limitless and instead of fighting with the interpreter you could just focus on playing and enjoying the game.

Getting Started

So once the game has started, you find yourself outside a house and to be honest, I did have some initial doubts about Zork at this point. With no information on where I could go (most will tell you what routes are available) and the description informing me of a building I can’t enter, it was only guesswork that allowed me to go anywhere else. Once I had moved on I found myself in a forest (after being in a field with no mention of any forests in view) and then the next couple of strange things happened…

Did You Hear That…?

At this point I found myself in a wooded area and there were birds chirping so I tried to listen to them only to be told that they had flew away. Nothing wrong with that, I thought. Wanting to check the location description again I used the LOOK command, only to see the birds mentioned once more!

But that wasn’t the only odd thing to happen in Zork at this part of the game. I walked West to get to the Forest, but walking East didn’t take me back to the house. Instead it took me somewhere completely different instead! I don’t mind an adventure that needs a little mapping exercise to help you find your way around, but when it feels as if the locations aren’t connected to each other properly it does lead to confusion.

A Challenging Quest

The most important aspect of any adventures is the puzzles themselves and Zork doesn’t disappoint. Unlike many other games I’ve played (and even some of Infocom’s others like Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy), they’re fairly logical and even if you can’t work them out straight away, with a bit of thought or finding the right item later on you’ll work most of them out before too long.

That made playing the game challenging, but enjoyable so it was never frustrating – or at least not where the puzzles were concerned. The only thing that I did find irritating was the mapping of the game and struggling to find my way around some of the locations but this was something I quickly got over. One example (without giving too much away) is when you encounter a pile of leaves in the forest. There’s something hidden underneath them but you can’t pick them up or move them… but as a kid if you ever saw a pile like that on the ground the temptation was always there to kick them. Problem solved!

What’s In The Box?

This Mastertronic re-release of Zork it surprisingly impressive in terms of the packaging. As well as the game disk there’s a comprehensive manual that not only gives information on how to play the game, but a list of some of the key commands and the more advanced features of the parser.

In addition to that, the box includes a poster of the game’s world map although the locations are labelled in the game’s own language so they’re impossible to read. A nice touch to see included in the package though even if it seems to have no real relevance to the game itself.

Presentation

As a text only game, you don’t expect much so just like all the early Infocom released presentation is fairly basic. The game runs on a light grey screen with black text, with a status bar at the top showing your location, score and the number of moves you’ve taken. Truthfully it doesn’t need anything else though and the descriptions for each location are well written so it’s left to your imagination to fill in the blanks.

It’s also played in complete silence with no music, or sound effects to distract you and with the text being incredibly easy on the eye you can just focus on the gameplay and story and get drawn into the game as the author intended.

Overall

Zork is one of those games that does need a few minutes (and locations) to find its feet, even more so depending on the direction you travel. Once you get past this you’re swiftly drawn into a deep, engaging tale packed with challenging but rewarding puzzles and you’ll lose all track of time while you’re playing. While it’s not the greatest text adventure ever written, it holds up remarkably well and is a solid game worthy of anyone’s time and attention. The only disappointment is the fact that the Atari ST version is missing the hint feature seen on the PC port.

* * *

You know what we think but why not share your thoughts on this game! Let us know what you think of it in the comments below, or add your own score using the slider in the summary box at the top of the review!

Please follow and like us: