Hello friends. Dan Ryan here, you… there. Thank you so much for checking in and if you like what you see please comment and share. A little while ago Kris and I decided to take a concept from his movie podcast here, combine it with a thing we had been doing for a bit, the summer series, and create a new recurring segment for the SAG Pod, the Alphabet Souper Series. In said series we take turns picking a retro game to play over the course of a month in alphabetical order. (get it… souper series, like alphabet soup and a super version of the summer series… we’re quite clever) And while it has been quite fun, I felt like it would be a good idea to mix in some writing to go along with it, hence this post. Eagle eyed readers will note that I did not do one last month for the letter Y because well, Yo, Noid! is pretty bad and I try to avoid writing about things that suck because let’s face it, there’s more than enough negativity in the world. Submitted for your approval this is the Souper Series Retro Review for Zork. As with all reviews here on the blog I will be using the wholly original, not copied at all from any defunct gaming magazine, SAG Pod ranking system, which is explained below.

Before this episode I had never played through Zork. My only real experience with it, apart from knowing its significance in gaming history, was watching my cousin Jimmy pick out a copy of Zork II as a birthday present from our Aunt Sandi. We were at a now defunct computer store in northern New Jersey and Jimmy said the only thing he wanted to play on his new computer was the next Zork. As far as I was concerned if Jimmy liked something then it was most definitely the coolest thing ever. (he was right a lot of the time by the way, except for Faces of Death, that’s hot garbage and not worth watching) A short time later I asked Jimmy to show the game to me when I was at his house and he happily agreed. What I was met with was not exactly what I was expecting. I was coming in with the expectation of something like the Coleco games I was obsessed with. What I got was text. And Jimmy was so excited to share it that I pretended to be super into it. This all happened around 1985 or so. I was 4 and while I could read already, I definitely couldn’t read well enough to understand whatever the hell was happening on the screen. So, feeling insulated by the game (through no fault of its own) I promptly forgot about it and went back to my Coleco and Venture. As time went on I learned more about Zork and always meant to get around to it. Something always got in the way however and it wasn’t until this segment that I decided to buckle down and give it a go.

Released originally in 1977, Zork was developed by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. The game was inspired by 1976’s Colossal Cave Adventure, widely regarded as the first adventure game. A text based adventure game, Colossal Cave Adventure saw the player navigate a series of caves filled with treasure by typing commands into an on screen prompt. The game would then narrate the story as the commands, like look or take, dictated. The problem, as the developers saw it, was that Colossal Cave Adventure only recognized two sentence commands. They wanted something more robust and created their game to recognize more complex sentences using Natural Language Processing (NLP). In short, NLP is the processing of language by a computer program given a defined set of rules. (though since the early 90’s NLP is far more complex and recognizes more and more based on machine learning algorithms) So, in 1977 they began work on a better version of Colossal Cave Adventure codenamed Zork. Zork was a common term for in-development projects at MIT where the four were going to school. And while they intended to give the game a different name eventually, word of the project spread by users of ARPANET, a sort of proto-internet where users could see what programs were being run at any time. Which, while frustrating on the surface level, actually allowed the team to playtest and elicit suggestions from users. Zork, for all intents and purposes, is one of the earliest crowd-sourced games in addition to being one of the earliest text based adventures. Eventually the four decided to name their company Infocom and release an updated, expanded (read finished) version of the game in 1980. And it was big! By 1984 the company had sold over 250,000 copies of the Zork trilogy. Their success was such that Activision purchased the company in 1986 and continued to develop Zork both as games and books. Unfortunately for Infocom their time with Activision was about as bad as could be and the company closed in 1989. The legacy of Zork is undeniable however. It is THE text adventure game and is largely influential on many early adventure games in the home console era. It has earned its Hall of Fame reputation. And if you happen to be looking for a super satisfying way to play through Zork, nothing beats a clicky keyboard. Like that one down below.

Retro Mechanical Keyboard for Windows & Android NES Edition - 8BitDo

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Retro Mechanical Keyboard for Windows & Android N Edition About this Product: Inspired by the classics. Compatible with Windows 10(1903) or above, and Android 9.0...… read more

Graphics: 4.0 So look, this is a bit of a cheat since you know… there aren’t any graphics in Zork. What there is though is a ton of, in my opinion, really well written narration that describes the world in lovely detail. "The door reluctantly opens to reveal a rickety staircase descending into darkness". Simple, effective, and vividly descriptive. And the best part is, what I see may be totally different from what you see and that’s okay.

Sound: NA There is no sound in Zork. For the purposes of my playthrough for the show I went and found a “spooky” soundtrack on YouTube Music that provided the perfect background ambience for me. You might want something totally different though and that’s fine. Because of the lack of sound it’s impossible to give this a score though.

Control: 3.5 Here’s where the debate really begins with Zork. I find the language input to be fine for the most part. Simple commands like look or take work well for most of what you need to do. But, there are instances where I found myself knowing what to do but struggling to find out how the game wanted me to say it. Overall, that’s more a me thing since I have the way I think is best and obviously Infocom thought differently.

Fun Factor: 4.0 All that being said, I had a blast with Zork. I found the story compelling, the narration more than effective, and the puzzles clever and fun to solve. This game is a classic for a reason and in my opinion it holds up really well. Zork has the benefit of aging like a book. There are no weird polygonal graphics to contend with. No strange pop-in or questionable designs. You provide the graphics so if they suck well… I’m very much looking forward to playing this with my kids, 16 at the time of this writing, who have never experienced anything like this.

But I want to know what you think. Join the Stone Age Gamer discord, or you can find me on Bluesky to let me know your thoughts. In the immortal words of Billy Joel, “Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes; I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again.” See you soon.