After my last unsuccessful Zork session, I decided it was about time to bring in some guides – if not to complete the game, than for the sake of my own society.
A couple of things I established right off were:
- The trophy case is for collecting treasures
- The painting is one of these treasures
- “Kill the troll” is indeed the most effective command for killing the troll.
Yay guides! With this initial information, I began making my way through the game. I revisited old haunts and when I ran into a roadblock, I simply looked up what I needed to know to get past it (doing my best to avoid spoiling the whole thing). For instance, I tried to focus on the objects I would need to solve one puzzle or another and then attempt to find the object myself so I would not be following the steps in the guide for the entirety of my gameplay. After about an hour and the collection of a few objects (the painting, a sceptre, a pot of gold, and a gold coffin) I ended the session, but did not close the screen in order to maintain my place.
So how did I feel at the end of this session? Significantly less frustrated, for one. But also a bit disappointed – more in the game than in myself. I didn’t find a lot of the puzzles I managed to get through solvable on my own, so I couldn’t really be upset with my own inability to figure them out. Still, I thought it disheartening that I had to consult the guide before feeling like I made any significant progress in the game. Perhaps I’m just not used to this genre of gameplay, but I feel the narrative could have been more compelling – if only for the purpose of pushing the player through the puzzles in an organic way.
While I fought the thief, the troll, and witness a few other characters I didn’t ever feel like I was “perform[ing] or witness[ing] narrative events (Jenkins 179). There is something compelling about the world within Zork for sure, but with narrative drive the whole thing seems like a lackluster experience rather than a grand adventure. Hopefully as I progress this feeling will lessen, but as of right now I don’t even really feel compelled to return to the game; the amount of effort I’m expending on it certainly doesn’t seem worth the so-called reward at the moment.