In the beginning, there was Zork.
Actually, a couple of games preceded Zork in the formless void, but they only existed at MIT. That, not surprisingly, is where the entire universe of interactive gaming got started. In the early seventies, while the rest of the planet was still writing longhand and adding numbers in their head, a few guys in MIT’s Dynamic Modeling Group designed a game called Maze. In Maze, players wandered around a dungeon shooting each other. Sound familiar?
By 1977, the boys at MIT had heard about, played and eventually hacked an early strategy game called Adventure. This, Zork’s mother, prompted them to create an interactive text game of their own. Two years later they incorporated as Infocom and released Zork to an unsuspecting public. Digital cosmic wheels begin to spin.
A brief intermission here, for anyone computer-game-illiterate or born after 1975. Zork is the forerunner of classic computer games like the Ultima and Wizardry series, King’s Quest and, most recently, Myst and Riven. A completely text-based game, it offers no graphics, forcing the player to exercise some higher cerebral functions and actually imagine his or her surroundings. The commands for playing are limited to simple phrases: “tie rope to dock”, “attack ogre with sword.” Here is a brief sample transcript:
>LOOK
INSIDE THE BOX
The small cardboard box is closed.
>OPEN
IT
Opening the small cardboard box reveals a bunch of two-inch nails.
>EXAMINE
THE LUMBER
It consists of two rectangular pieces of wood, about ten feet long, and perhaps
a dozen shorter dowel-shaped pieces.
>WALK
NORTHEAST
Foreman's Office
This is the office of the lumberyard foreman. The only exit is to the southwest.
While in 1998 terms this may strike the average player as slightly less fun than Ishtar, in 1979 it was the bee’s knees. Infocom went on to produce many sequels and variations on this theme. Personal favorites include Enchanter, about an apprentice sorcerer; Deadline, a daylong detective mystery; Starcross, a wacky science-fiction tale and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a hilarious if highly derivative game where the player portrays the neurotic Arthur Dent. Leather Goddess of Phobos is also worthy of mention for its absurdly bawdy content. The latter was unique in that it offered three separate levels of vulgarity.
My first exposure to this snowballing phenomenon was in 1985, when I was eleven. My elder, more computer-literate cousin sent me several floppy disks (when they were still floppy) of new games. Elated, my curiosity piqued by the exotic name, I slid Zork III into our pre-hard drive IBM. I was admittedly disappointed by the interface, (Words! I have to type? And what do I shoot?) but I was a patient kid and gave it a whirl. Soon graphical games like Dig-Dug and Lode Runner were laid aside while I toured the Great Underground Empire in search of the Dungeon Master. Though fascinated, I was still in elementary school and didn’t get very far.
By the time I was old enough to appreciate and complete Zork, I’d moved on to games with pictures. Then, games with moving pictures. I regret that. Now that I have rediscovered the original three games (http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom), I will return to these sparse, elegant journeys as I return to the works of C.S. Lewis...with nostalgia and wonder.