~3 minute readMARKETALK: Reviews
Zork III
Zork III. By Marc Blank and Dave Liebling. A Softalk reviewer recently reported the ringing of the death knell for the text adventure. This review is out to prove that he was hearing things, and Zork III is the ideal example for making the point. Zork III, along with its Zorkian predecessors and the recent mystery hit Deadline, is very much alive and totally text.
When there are no more computerists who pleasure in intelligence and erudition, when there are no gamers with imagination, when there are no users who enjoy good prose, then those who are left may hear such a bell toll. For now, we can revel in Zork III.
The Infocom team improves with every outing â and they started at the top. Zork III is filled with well-written descriptions of imaginatively delightful and curious places. The grandeur of the ancient high-arched aqueduct system, shining in stolen sunlight; the damp, swirling mists of the Land of Shadow; the brilliance of the pit of fire, two hundred feet in diameter, its depths and heights lost in turbulent smoke and sunlike flame â all these are far more graphic than any depiction yet achieved by an adventure with graphics.
Realize that the Zorks are essentially a trilogy chronicling the history of a great lost empire that once flourished underground. It was a realm that reached some level of achievement before its demise, having created entire aqueduct systems and hollowed-out mountains. It had great banks and businesses and a royal government, complete with crown jewels. It also had a Royal Puzzle.
Most of these achievements exist only in ruins now, and much has been lost completely. Grues menace the remains â gruesome predecessors of gruds and far more discreet in that they never show themselves. For many years the empire has been little more than a testing ground for adventurers and a home for a few seldom-glimpsed eremites.
And, of course, a prime mover. No? Yes, indeed. Someone had to give Blank and Liebling their inspiration, fill them in on the story. If you are clever enough, and good enough, and sensitive enough, you may meet this being in Zork III.
When you begin Zork III, you do not know your goal. That's one of the problems you must solve. Careful observation and constant relating of information will determine how well you'll solve this one. What you will know is that the total score you are after is seven. That's all.
Two things are most unusual about the scoring system in Zork III. Each point is given for having behaved properly in a situation or toward a puzzle; it is not given for solving the puzzle or for knowing what you've done. You can earn all the points and not know how you did it. The true lover of logic and adventure will not be satisfied until those points are understood; all the evidence is there.
And, indeed, when you've gained all the points, you aren't through. You still have to prove yourself with one of the hardest, yet most clearly logical, puzzles in adventuredom.
Zork III, like all Infocom adventures, is not a word game. The vocabulary is extensive for an adventure, and if you use a word Zork doesn't know, it tells you which word is the problem. Niggling over words is not the point; logical problem solving is. And you need not be afraid to use erudite words; if the word fits the situation, Zork probably knows it.
Although plot is not its forte, Zork III has a theme, morals, and meaning. It's a masterpiece of logic that demands that you think. No adventurer â or game-enjoying thinker â should be without it.
Zork III, by Marc Blank and Dave Liebling, Infocom (55 Wheeler Street, Cambridge, MA 02138; 617-492-1031). $39.95.
This article appeared in
Softalk
Sep 1982
These historical, out-of-print articles and literary works have been GNUSTOed onto InvisiClues.org for academic and research purposes.
