Zork
Zork is an early computer game. It was originally developed by the student Marc Blank and Dave Lebling the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) programmed in MDL 1977, and presented an indirect successor to the game Adventure represents a commercial market for computer games did not exist; so the game was initially distributed between students. With " Zork " was thought colloquially under the MIT computer scientists into an empty free word like " thingy ". A ported by Fortran version of the game was titled Dungeon.
Zork was a fantasy text adventure ( only the second significant text adventure ever), which means that all spaces and events of the game world via a command interpreter in words are described, and the game via commands such as Open the mailbox ( Open the mailbox) or Attack the Troll with the Sword ( Attack the troll with the sword ) can be controlled by the player. The Zork fantasy world has many satirical trains, which, inter alia, make fun of the bureaucracy and financial policies of today. In the game, inter alia, the so-called " Grue " came before, one living in dwellings dark creature that you had borrowed from Jack Vance.
History
After most of the programmers of Zork had completed their studies in 1979, they established on 22 June 1979 the company Infocom, ported the game to the home computer and sold it commercially to a larger audience. It was initially released only part of the original Zork because of the lower disk and memory sizes, the home computer, under the name Zork 1 In the years that followed Zork 2 and Zork 3, who continued the story and went out content in part by the non-commercial Zork. Later still appeared Beyond Zork Zork Zero and. Infocom developed over the years, other text adventures ( the Enchanter trilogy is also set in the Zork world).
In contrast to most other Infocom games Zork I to III are solvable even without the additional printed materials of the original packaging. According to the former practice however, they were also more difficult. By means of so-called interpreter they are like all Infocom games playable not only on PCs, but on a large number of systems, from simple PDAs about Macs, Amigas, and Unix - based systems to super computers.
Newer development
After the demise of Infocom released in 1993 Return to Zork, which should continue as a graphic adventure the Zork series. The company Activision had taken Infocom and published in 1996 the highly regarded Zork Nemesis and a year later the not so successful Zork - The Grand Inquisitor ( Zork Grand Inquisitor In English ). In Internet Hotel New Zork temporarily appeared on the websites of Activision - a graphic game for the Click, which should inspire the players to buy Zork Nemesis.
As part of an advertising campaign for Zork Grand Inquisitor, the Infocom veterans programmed Marc Blank (founder ) and Michael Berlyn ( programmer ) nor the small game Zork - The Undiscovered Underground, which the player again in the classic text mode in the vaults of the "Great Underground Empire " kidnapped.
In summary, 1996, all Zork parts (except for the Grand Inquisitor ) in a Zork Special Edition, which is still available today.
2010 Zork was a mini game in Call of Duty: Black Ops integrated.
More Zork Article
In America, some books that have played in the Zork world appeared. So Robin W. Bradley wrote (incidentally, one of the co-authors of the Infocom game Enchanter, which plays in the Zork universe ) The Lost City of Zork. George Alec Effinger wrote The Zork Chronicles, which should be a kind of Zork without a computer. Steve E. Meretzky, the later for the adventure company Legend Entertainment worked and was instrumental in some Infocom Adventures, wrote four game books, which can be summarized as Zork gamebooks. The reader has a text in front of him and can at the bottom of each page to decide which side he wants more. Even as a comic Zork Quest was to have a title.