Zork I - The Great Underground Empire
Platform: Commodore 64
Gametype: Undefined
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Zork: The Great Underground Empire is a classic text adventure game. The player begins as an "adventurer" standing near a white house in a nice forest, but soon descends into the Great Underground Empire, where most of the game takes place. The player's quest is to collect the Nineteen Treasures of Zork. 

As was typical for adventure games of its era, Zork does not use graphics. Instead, it communicates with the player via text, and the player interacts with the game by typing commands, such as "examine mailbox" or "take torch". For movement, the player types in geographical directions (such as "north" or "east" - or just "n" and "e"), and can check what items are being carried with the "inventory" command (or just "i"). 

The game was ported over from mainframes in the late 1970s, and is one of the first examples of its genre.

Trivia

Game Informer Magazine (Issue #138, Oct. 2004) named it one of the "Top 25 Most Influential Games of All Time".

The currency in Zork, the zorkmid, is also used in NetHack.

Zork was named #13 overall among the “150 Best Games of All Time” by Computer Gaming World Magazine (15th Anniversary Issue--November 1996).

The demand for Zork maps, tips and, eventually, memorabilia for game enthusiasts and veterans, led Mike Dornbrook (Infocom's first product tester, hired to debug Zork -- later better known for leading Harmonix) to establish a service that provided (in the beginning, personalised, type-written) hints and maps to would-be adventurers of the Great Underground Empire.

In September 1981, the organization was formalised as the Zork User's Group (run out of his parents' Milwaukee basement), and their product line expanded to include buttons, bumper stickers, posters, t-shirts and a Zorkian newsletter... as well as their most permanent contribution to the Infocom legacy, InvisiClues hintbooks. In July 1983 -- by which time their mailing list had grown from 700 to over 14,000 -- it was folded back into Infocom, Dornbrook hired on again by Infocom, this time as Product Manager in the Department of Consumer Marketing.

This paragon of text adventuring has been thoroughly parodied in the anonymous 1988 game Pork 1: The Great Underground Sewer System.

Infocom started to translate this game into German, but found it rather difficult to re-program the parser. Therefore, only a German beta version exists.

The Zork series inspired a fantasy novel that bore the Infocom logo. It was called The Zork Chronicles, and was written by Georg Alec Effinger, a past winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. The book was published by Avon books in July, 1990.

From the back cover:

ZORK LIVES

From the dawn of the age of computer games, one of the greatest challenges has always been Zork. This is the classic, the standard against which all adventure games are measured. Through five best-selling games, the world of Zork has been the source of fantastic quests by intrepid computer heroes.

Now at last, readers can enter the world of Zork without a computer, but with a hero at their side. Mirakles is a hero who can face the challenge of Zork with nothing more than his sword and his faithful companion Glorian.

With Glorian prodding him ever onward, Mirakles descends into the Great Underground Empire, where he encounters Spike the Protector, the Dragon's lair, the Wizard's Workroom, the winged vampire were-unicorn, and of course, the Warm Boot of Frobozz.

A major new adventure—THE ZORK CHRONICLES

 "...you people are cheating yourselves if you don't
 forgo food and rent to pick up Effinger's work." 
 —Harlan Ellison

"Wry and black and savage...
 there's a knife behind every smile."
 —George R.R. Martin

 Infocom Inc., is the foremost publisher of interactive fiction software. Since its first release, the best-selling multiple volume ZORK games have sold over a million copies.

One bedroom programmer actually ported the game to the Game Boy of all things, using the basic code of the Sinclair Spectrum version, as both systems were powered the Z80 processor. Inputting words involved cycling the cursor through one letter at a time, similarly to inputting initial for high scores on a joystick. Surely the ultimate case of "right game, wrong format".

The first commercial release of Zork I (for the TRS-80, distributed by Personal Software) was simply called Zork. The game disk was packaged in a plastic bag with a large manual showing an adventurer outfitted in barbarian guard attacking the troll, with the white house in the background. Such early versions are quite difficult to come by and are highly prized by collectors.

In the December 2001 Issue of PC Gamer, Zork I, II, and II were shipped on the CD included with the 
magazine.

Zork was voted #70 in the Top 100 Games of All Time poll published by Game Informer Magazine (Issue 100, August 2001).

The trivia is missing a detail: The actual number of leaves in the pile is 69,105. It's an hex/octal inside joke for programmers. 

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Description from the packaging:

"If it's 2 in the morning, this must be Zork. Not even Ted Koppel can keep the nation up so late." - Washington Post.
Here's the story that started it all! Written by Marc Blank and Dave Lebling, Zork is widely recognized as the classic work of interactive fiction. Nearly one million copies have been sold, making it the most popular entertainment software product ever!
Now this interactive fiction classic has joined Infocom's specially priced Solid Gold Line. Solid Gold classics are the "paperback" versions of our best selling titles, offering the complete game disk and an instruction manual containing everything you need to play. Plus, all Solid Gold titles feature on-screen hints!

Zork I beckons you into a world fraught with danger and discovery. Using all the cunning you can muster, you'll plunge far below the surface of the earth in search of the incomparable Treasures of Zork. But this is no mere treasure hunt. During your amazing journey you'll come face to face with creatures so outlandish they defy description. And you'll wander through an underground domain so vast, with so many twists and turns, it can offer you new surprises no matter how many times you explore it.
Enter the world of Master Storytellers.

Interactive fiction software from Infocom is unlike anything you've ever experienced. It's a whole new dimension in storytelling.
Think of your favorite story. Now think of the main character in that story. And imagine that you have become that character. You are standing in his shoes, in his world. You have people to meet, places to visit, and challenges to face. It's all just as vivid as anything you've ever experienced in real life. The decisions are yours... and so are the consequences.

In interactive fiction, you communicate with the story through conversational English sentences typed into your computer. The plot unfolds as you decide what to do next, drawing you into a world so involving that it taps your adrenaline as much as your intellect. With hundreds of alternatives at each step, your adventure can last for weeks and even months.

Journey to a place limited only by your imagination- the world of Infocom's interactive fiction.


http://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/zork-the-great-underground-empire
