Category: Zork

In this second guided play session of Zork, I realized that there was no way for me to finish the game in the time I had allotted without using a step-by-step guide. So I made it as far as I could, and realized a few things along the way…

1. The gameworld is massive, especially considering you can’t actually see any of it (I MEAN LOOK AT THIS MAP?!)…

2. There is no way I could have intuitively solved the majority of the puzzles without a guide (opening the coffin in the rainbow area makes the rainbow real? So you can walk across it and get gold? WHAT?!) Maybe I’m just dumb at this game or I was missing something that other players understood, but few of the puzzle solution made much sense to me.

3. I really don’t like Zork…

…and not because of the text-based navigation through the gameworld. Rather, because I felt that in a world such as the one the Zork creaters built there has to be some intuition in the gameplay. And in the basics, there were. I figured out commands fairly easily (well most of them…I never would have figured praying in one location would zap me to the forest), and the AI was rather amusing in its’ descriptions and interactions with the player.

It was the lack of intuitive puzzle-solving that bothered me the most. And perhaps that the goal of the game is really just to collect treasure through the solving of these puzzles. These goals are relatively simplistic, and the world is clearly rich with lore – yet I still found it lacking. The few characters I did interact with in the gameworld weren’t very compelling, I never figured out why I was collecting all of these treasures, and (while the descriptions of the locations were interesting) there simply wasn’t anything the pulled me into the game and compelled me to complete it.

I suppose I prefer games with purpose; that is, explained purpose. Did Zork create a “narratively-compelling space” as detailed by Jenkins (Jenkins 176). Yes, but for me it failed to deliver on the promised intrigue the compelling space presented the player with. Zork created a “staging ground in which narrative events are enacted” without actually enacting any of them, and that’s where it lost me (Jenkins 178). I thought the experience of Zork would be more akin to reading a book with some sort of narrative tie-in for the player. Unfortunately for me it wasn’t, and I leave the experience with disappointment akin to that of what I felt playing Civilization with the knowledge that there are games of that genre out there that I do enjoy playing.

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:

1. The trophy case is for collecting treasures
2. The painting is one of these treasures
3. “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.

My third run through of Zork had me making very little progress from the previous two. I began the game much the same as before (as all of the needed objects and weapons are in the same place), then made my way back past the troll. This time, I headed for the Chasm again, where thankfully there was no thief. I found the dam and control panel, then was promptly confused again with very little idea of how to use it.

After a lot of aimless wandering around and input of ineffective commands, my confusion led me to try to use the hang command for lack of any idea of how to progress further. While the AI response was amusing, my frustration eventually led me to end the game with my sword—what else was I going to do? Perhaps it’s time to bring in some guides and start drawing maps…

This play through really made me consider Jenkins’ discussion of world building at the expense of characterization. Jenkins explains how “in many cases, the characters…are stripped down to bare bones…in world-making and spatial storytelling” (Jenkins 177). I thought of this aspect of Jenkins’ writing because while Zork does have an intricate world (even if it isn’t physically visible), this does seem to be at the expense of the characters in the story.

Of course, I really haven’t made it far in my play through; I can’t say this is true of the entire narrative. But if I have spent three hours wandering around a world with such rich lore and backstory without a single idea of what I’m doing there or without meeting any characters whose descriptions match the depth of the lore…well, I find myself losing interest. Who is my character? What are they doing there? Who is the thief? Where does he come from? Why is everyone else in the story trying to kill me? – I find myself less and less interested in embarking on a journey to discover theses answers on my own; all I really want to do is pull up a guide to get me through the game and discover the ending, if I’m being honest.

I suppose this comes from a lack of attachment to either the world or the characters in it – including whomever I’m controlling (if it’s supposed to be someone else, but everything I see leads me to believe that the person moving through the gameworld is supposed to be me). Jenkins even mentions Zork in his discussion of narratively-compelling spaces (Jenkins 176). I don’t think he’s wrong to consider the Zork gameworld narratively compelling, either; I think the gameplay just gets in the way of that. Perhaps using a guide will help to mitigate my opinion – stay tuned!

My second time playing Zork was no less baffling than the first. Initially, I stumbled through the forest after clearing the objects from the house looking for something to do. I ended up finding a location not previously known to me—the “Canyon View”. The description claimed it was possible to climb into the canyon, but I couldn‘t figure out the proper commands to do so (the AI claimed not to know the words “climb” or “canyon”, and anything else I tried failed as well).

I made my way back to the gallery—which thankfully wasn’t the hangout for the thief this round—and then backtracked to the troll and managed to stun him. Finally, I could go somewhere new! So, I entered the maze which was probably one of the less intelligent decisions I’ve made so far. I got hopelessly lost and wandered aimlessly until I found the thief (somewhere…somehow). I threw a water bottle at him as suggested in class; what I wasn’t informed of was that the thief takes both the object you threw as well as the rest your stuff before leaving peacefully.

So, I was left to wander the maze without any of my items or weapons. After many, many minutes of wandering I made it back to the troll room, where I was promptly killed as I had no weapons. I came back to life in the forest, got a knife, got past the troll, was killed in the Chasm attempting to fight the thief, and promptly gave up.

I think part of my problem (or perhaps most of my problem) with Zork is that I find the text-based format frustrating. I’m a very visual person, and I enjoy having something to look at while I play. Perhaps that feeling is short sighted, but I did acknowledge my frustration with the lack of visuals when I played Civilization, as well. Going from that to no visuals at all has been a bit of an odd experience, and made me question my own relationship with visual media, especially in the context of Jenkins and “environmental storytelling” (Jenkins 177).

Can a story/game with no visuals have environmental storytelling? At first glance I would say no, especially since Jenkins sites Disney and creating theme parks (extremely visual experiences) in his explanation of it. But then I began to consider the details giving in Zork; the specificity in the description does lend itself to environmental storytelling, even if most of the visuals are left up to the imagination of the player. After all, why mention specifically that there are low hanging branches on a tree unless it is meant to be climbed? Or that there are nails in a door, or axe scratches on a wall, if you don’t want the player to infer something about the environment and its’ history?

I appreciate Zork‘s environmental storytelling, a difficult task for a text-based game. But I wonder if the limitations of the text-only gameplay interfere with playability. After all, text can only reveal so much. Perhaps in trying to be subtle the writers didn’t consider that some players may want some chance for extra clues to be revealed in the text, especially for more complex puzzles unfamiliar to those who have never played text-based narratives before. I would have appreciated some sort of “hint” or “clue” command at least, just so I could get past some areas without having to consult a guide (or at all, since I decided not to consult one in this session).

For my first few attempts at playing Zork, I decided to just jump in and see how far I could get on my own; I refused to even draw a map in these first couple sessions, and didn’t use any reference materials or look anything up that wasn’t present in the manual.

My first hour playing the game was spend mostly stumbling around in the dark, so to speak. I started out getting lost in the forest for a bit, because I couldn’t figure out how to get to the open window leading into the house. Even through this confusion, I was able to figure out the most basic controls rather quickly; for instance, if a tree in the forest had low hanging branches, I knew immediately that I must be able to climb it. Eventually I made my way into the house, and again the controls here were pretty intuitive. I got a bunch of items, figured out that I needed to move the rug, open the trap door, etc. Then things got a bit trickier.

I kept running into enemies—the troll and thief primarily—and backtracking because I wasn’t sure how to fight them. I found that if I did use the command “fight”, I always ended up losing.  I kept trying to find different ways to go or different things to do, but obviously there is no way past the troll without fighting him, the forest seemed to lead to nowhere, and in my first round of play the thief was in the artist’s studio, so I couldn’t explore that area either. Eventually I fought the troll to the bitter end just to see what would happen; the game did something weird and I ended up not being able to continue, so I ended my session there.

This play through was indeed frustrating, and I often found myself feeling like I was stumbling around blindly in the dark. I hope that I will find Zork more fun as I continue to play and learn from my mistakes, but I’m concerned that as the narrative continues to become more complex I will find the game more frustrating than rewarding. I suppose we’ll see; I’ve never tried to make it through a text-based narrative experience before, so I really have no idea what the puzzles will be like or if I’ll be able to solve them without some sort of help. I hope to not consult a manual, but I might need to further down the road.

Zork again reminds me (much in the same way Civilization did) as to why “play” and “fun” are so difficult to define as discussed by Huizinga, Caillois, etc. Yes, I’m playing a game – but am I really enjoying myself? Probably not, if I’m finding myself so frustrated and unable to feel like I’m making any progress. While “play” doesn’t necessarily have to be “fun”, I do think some sense of accomplishment tends to come from it – without that, what’s the point?

For this first blog, I chose to read the gameplay manual in order to get a sense of the creators of the game as well as the lore of the game universe. I found the first few pages – dictating a brief history of “The Great Underground Empire” – rather amusing and also progressively sillier as I continued reading.

I found the humor continued into the instructional part of the manual. albeit to a lessor degree. I also found it interesting that the creators chose to give direct advice in the opening statement of the manual. In the second paragraph, they say “you’d better equip yourself with a source of light…and weapons…” because “some of the inhabitants are unfriendly – especially the thief, a skilled pickpocket and ruthless opponent” (11). Essentially the manual tells the player who to look out for before they’re even seeking that specific information. It does make me wonder if the manual is attempting to mislead the player in any way in these opening paragraphs, although the nature of the information provided makes this seem unlikely.

Continuing through the manual, I especially liked the “Tips for Novices” section. While I approached Civilization with the thought that I would – at least for the first few play throughs – try to figure out the game solely by playing it on my own, a manual such as this one would have been much appreciated. Also, since the inherent nature of interactive fiction makes it visually more akin to reading a book (in that you must imagine events for yourself as you read the text on the screen), some direction in regards to playing is appreciated. I found the advice regarding directions especially useful, since a novice might assume that to backtrack they only have to type the opposite of direction they used to get to their present location (this is not always the case, apparently – a fact I was not aware of).

I’m really not entirely sure how I feel about playing a game lacking in visuals. It seems if I enjoy reading (which I do) I should also enjoy this experience, but I don’t know if that will necessarily be the case or not. I tend to be a very visual person, so not being able to see the world around me will probably confound me for a bit until I get used to it. But, if the narrative is interesting I think I’ll still enjoy the experience…nothing can be quite so bad as I found Civilization, anyway – especially with the manual close at hand!