Zork 1: The Great Underground Empire

Zork 1: The Great Underground Empire is the legend game, which entered in golden letters its name in the history of the entire computer entertainment industry and in the number of reissues, porting and continuations, is capable of arguing with many other equally famous and iconic projects.

As is known, the mentioned story has two primary sources: the simplest commercial arcades in the manner of "Pong" or the TV game Ralph Baer - and highly intellectual games of graduate students from university laboratories. Zork is the clearest representative of this second category. The formation of which began in 1976, when the hands of the staff of the Dynamic Modeling Group of the Computer Science Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in the North American town of Cambridge under Boston, got an experimental product of competitors from the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of Stanford University: a slightly modified version of the Colossal Cave Adventure ”programmer and caver William Crowther (with which modern users may be partly familiar with the later“ Microsoft Adventure ”). Despite all the uncomplicated gameplay, the command line interface and the complete lack of graphics, an unusual study of the secrets of the abandoned cave, unusual for that time, was not a joke: the future Infocomists admitted that they had played Adventure for two weeks. However, they also carefully noticed all the shortcomings of the work of their Stanford colleagues: for example, artificial intelligence understood the teams in no more than two simple words (“go north”), while many players would like to give the computer more detailed instructions. And the design of the Cave Adventure was far from ideal: the program often described such locations or objects with which, in fact, it was impossible to interact.

So it is not surprising that young Massachusetts scientists decided to fundamentally alter "Adventure" in their own way, at the same time demonstrating all the advantages of MDL (MIT Design Language), which they create in their free time, a direct descendant of one of the first high-level programming languages ​​LISP. The main work was done by four - medical student Mark Blank, for whom computer exercises were a kind of hobby at the time, political analyst David Libling (who worked at MIT planning systems), PhD student Timothy Anderson and computer programmer Bruce Daniels. In addition to Adventure itself, the authors of the family of board role-playing games Dungeons and Dragons served as a source of inspiration for the authors, so that the game itself was initially called simply Dungeon. However, after someone hinted at possible problems with borrowing someone else's trademark, the name “Zork” stuck with the project: MIT was sometimes called an unfinished program by this nonsensical word from the “hacker” jargon.

Creating the very first version of the game, which came to light in June 1977, took only two weeks, soon after which the program quickly spread to the PDP-10 university mainframe. However, its refinement — by forces of only Blank and Libling — lasted several more years, including after the main authors decided to devote themselves entirely to computer games, having founded their own company in 1979: Infocom. Zork became its first product, officially going on sale in 1980 after adaptation for home PCs - first for one of the first representatives of this new class of TRS-80 devices, and then for the rest of the zoo, including, naturally, the IBM PC. True, porting a consumer-class PDP-10 game that boasted an astronomical 512 KB of RAM turned out to be somewhat technically problematic — indeed, even the most powerful of the personal computers of that time could boast only 64 KB of RAM. And this is not to mention the fact that it was also necessary to somehow contain the program code weighing 1 MB on a 5.25-inch floppy disk, the standard volume of which at that time was 80 KB! As a solution to the first problem, the Z-machine virtual machine was developed, capable of running text adventure with minimal memory usage on any platform. But it was only possible to release the game on floppy disks by dividing the original version into three approximately equal parts - Zork I, Zork II and Zork III, respectively.

I must say that no genre classification of the few games of that time practically did not exist, and the authors of Zork intricately called their creation a “computerized fantasy simulator”. However, if, for example, the same “Pong” with its one-button control and one-line instruction was designed primarily for “drunkards from the bar”, then Infocom products were intended for intellectuals, for reading lovers, for the same as the developers themselves who come from university circles. This explains the relatively high complexity of the riddles, the solution of which required from users not only careful and careful study of game descriptions and messages, but also the ability to compare and draw conclusions. Despite this seemingly not the most numerous target audience, the cause of Infocom in general, and Zork in particular, soon went very well. If the very first edition for the TRS-80 has sold only 1,500 copies, more than 6,000 copies have already been sold for the Apple II, and by 1986 the company managed to sell almost 400,000 boxes with only the first part of the game. The lack of graphics unexpectedly turned into an advantage in terms of marketing: the same product could remain on sale for an arbitrarily long time, practically not outdated in the eyes of users and regularly working on newer generations of home PCs - so, to the surprise of the authors themselves, sales games over the years did not fall, and even grew. So for a long time after the release of “Zork I” it was possible to meet almost everywhere - first in the various collections of “lost treasures” Infocom, and a little later in the officially free browser or mobile version, as the first candidate and a kind of zavlekalochka for acquaintance with the company's products and with all the once famous genre of Interactive Fiction as a whole.

Of course, if a player is used to any visual and auditory delicacies, the complete lack of graphics and sound can inadvertently scare away. All interaction with the program occurs by typing text commands manually, from “open mailbox” to brief directions for further movement: for example, “n” or “e”, displaying the contents of the inventory with the help of “i”, re-inspecting the current location by “L” (“look”), etc. The text is displayed in gray font on a blue or black background - depending on the editions: our site presents three types of “Zork I”, dating from 1983, 1984 and 1987, and slightly different used palette shades - however, you can apply for launch and modern interpreter Windows Frotz, allowing you to customize all the colors and fonts to your taste. The screen is decorated only with the status bar at the top, which displays the name of the current location (left), as well as counters of points and moves made for the correct actions (right). But, unlike its progenitor, the “Adventure” of the mid-1970s sample, the Infocom game allows the player and some liberties to interact with the world. So, it is allowed to make complete sentences in English - not just “go north”, but also something like “Hit the ugly troll with the doublebladed ax”: the interpreter's vocabulary reaches 1000 words. Of course, having the ability to solve some problems in a radical way, with the help of an ax, does not turn the text adventure game into a text action movie: the basis of the gameplay remains a careful exploration of the world, collecting poorly lying objects, often with a view to their subsequent use, and on the plot, which is characterized by fair non-linearity.

In 1980, when the very first version of “Zork I” for the TRS-80 was born, Infocom had not yet had time to learn its trademark trick - to complete the game with a variety of additional materials called “feelies”. But by the time of the release two years later for the IBM PC, in the game box it was already possible to find not only a floppy disk and general technical guidance, but also some bonuses, namely, a brochure with a brief history of the “Great Underground Empire” and an artistic map of the local places (it is curious that the box had a picture of the coin in one zorkmid, but the production problems at that time forced the authors to refuse to include this exhibit in the game package) - it appeared only among the proud owners of one of the first Cove, «Zork Trilogy» in 1986, and still is among the many collectors of envy and speculation). The benefits of this card were rather purely aesthetic — to help solve riddles and avoid the possibility of getting lost in the many intricate Zork I caves, amateur enthusiasts arranged for the release of real schemes of the game world and prompting books (which soon received official status). But familiarity with the artistic manual of the user to understand the essence of what is happening is much more appropriate.

The fact is that the study of dungeons, the search for treasures and the “interaction” with trolls and other similar creatures, unlike the creators of “Adventure,” authors from MIT and Infocom, generously diluted not only with a full storyline, but also with an impressive dose of irony. put it all into the original world invented by them with its own rich history. The action "Zork" takes place on the ruins of an ancient empire, about the actions of the sovereigns of which belonged to the royal dynasty of Flatheads, you can learn including from the aforementioned "historical" brochure. Our unnamed protagonist, traditionally titled simply as an “adventurer,” turns out to be at some white house with a mailbox on the outside without further ado. Going inside and finding a secret passage under the carpet, we get from there to the system of underground caves, overflowing with treasures (which, in the amount of twenty pieces, we will look for one by one) and dangers (the game has 28 ways of the hero’s death - and this not to mention all sorts of dead ends in the passage). If you already touch on the topic of statistics, then the maximum here will be to score 350 points (and if you believe the rumors, then complete the game in just 228 moves).

These points are awarded, firstly, for adding one of those twenty treasures to the inventory, among which are just a bag of gold coins, a crystal trident, and a golden sarcophagus of Ramses II (just don’t ask what he does in the Flat-head domain) , and an emerald with a diamond (the latter, by the way, will have to “bake” from a piece of coal with his own hands - and this is not the most extravagant of local ways to get valuable movable property). Secondly, the score will increase after you bring the treasures and blood obtained in the living room of the house itself, placing them in a special showcase for trophies. Do not think that it will be easy to do: there are strict limitations on the quantity and weight of the portable, which you can only learn about in fact, i.e. the parser simply refuses to move our object into inventory, referring to one of these two reasons, - so it will often be necessary to part with your things for a while, and if there are treasures among those thrown away, then you lose their replenishment after re-taking.

In addition to the invisible load, our “adventurer” has another important role indicator: the level of health. It is spent in clashes with a few monsters, analyzed by the “Diagnose” command, suggesting the presence and condition of wounds, and also - if any - the number of moves after which they can be healed; Of course, to perform such a passive action it is not at all necessary to wander thoughtlessly here and there, risking to meet some more danger: it is enough to climb into a more or less safe place and give the command “Wait” (“z”). Restrictions on the number of moves (the latter, by the way, are any actions, including waiting, using objects, re-examining a location or calling up inventory, etc., and not just the character’s own movement) are not here, but pay attention to the fact that the game has some consumable items, the state of which still depends on the inexorable passage of time. First of all, this is the famous “brass lantern”, which has become a kind of trademark not only for the series of the Great Underground Empire, but even for some other games: we find it one of the first and will be used most often, good part of the action takes place in dark caves. It’s impossible to appear there without fire - in addition to a flashlight, you can use matches, candles or even a valuable torch - in no way: invisible, but very angry grue, eating exclusively lost adventurers, prowl in the dark (yes, this is another local "chip" that has managed to go beyond Zork universe and become famous in many other places). Unfortunately, the flashlight works on batteries, and there is no second set in the game: you will have to either act as quickly as possible, or save energy, not forgetting to turn off the device every time you don’t need it, or skillfully alternate it with candles (or quickly get hold of a magic torch, yeah).

Strangely enough, death in “Zork I” does not mean the end of the game: we can be, for example, in the forest, or, under certain conditions, in Hell (there is such a location here) as a ghost, and with the ability to find way to rise again. But all the property acquired by overworking will have to be searched and picked up again in random places during the reincarnation - so it’s better not to bring such extreme situations and use the built-in capabilities for saving and loading the game. The “Save” and “Restore” commands are used for this; It is worth mentioning the obvious “Restart” and “Quit”, as well as “Score” for displaying the number of points scored: unlike a simple counter on the top panel, it is also accompanied by issuing the title corresponding to our account, from “Beginner” with zero points to the "Master Adventurer" with a maximum of three and a half hundreds. From the special commands, it remains to remember “Again” (“g”) to repeat the previous action, as well as “Brief”, “Verbose” and “Superbrief” to adjust the way the current location is described: in the first case, which is the default setting on the first visit in any place we get a detailed textual description of the landscape and interior, and on subsequent visits we receive only the name of the room and the list of objects or characters present (and available for interaction); in the second, any visit is marked by the initial details, and in the third, even when we first met, we would not get anything other than a simple title.

Our second invariable companion after the lantern is the sword: it is special, “elven”, and has the ability to signal an imminent danger with a more or less intense light, so it is also necessary to closely monitor the reports on the state of our weapon. However, as already noted, there are not so many enemies here (not counting, of course, Grew), but you will have to really fight only with two of them. The fights, of course, are purely text-based and take place in a step-by-step mode: it will be enough to type a command like “Fight Thief with Sword” - and look at the random result of our strike (missed, wounded, stunned, etc.) and similar the opponent’s move (a completely healthy adventurer is able to survive even a serious wound, but already broken in the previous round could die from a slight scratch). It is noteworthy that as we score more points, the skill of owning a sword grows - such is the practical use of a peaceful solution to puzzles: a healthy mind has a healthy body.

In conclusion, it should be noted that in terms of the complexity of the puzzles, “Zork I” is located approximately halfway between the other, followed by Infocom products: this is the “Standard” level, much lighter than “Advanced” or “Expert”, but definitely more difficult than “Introductory” And Junior. Nevertheless, it is quite possible to recommend it as the first experience of acquaintance both with the inimitable Zork universe, and with Interactive Fiction in general, because of not only the historically pioneering status, but also the own merits of this wonderful game. However, in modern conditions, when it is not necessary to mail out separate materials for receiving hints for considerable money, getting help in solving even the most difficult of the local puzzles will not be a problem. Another thing is that knowledge of the English language will be required to read and understand texts, but today you will not surprise anyone with this quality. And therefore - the best recommendations to all fans of old games!