Location: Bedroom
Device: Laptop
Time: 1 hour
I was able to explore more of the underground area. I checked out a maintenance room and a couple private rooms from the dam lobby. In one of the private rooms, there were four buttons with different colors. I pressed all of them, which was a bad idea. Two of them did nothing but after pressing the yellow one, I flooded both rooms. Later on, I recovered one of the items I lost after dying (a jewel-encrusted egg) and was abducted by a vampire bat.
It’s interesting how I have to constantly sift through a body of information as I play through Zork. In order to prevent myself from getting lost in a world that I can only experience textually and through my own imagination, I have to draw a map. If I could play the game without this visual guide, my interaction with Zork would be different. The action of drawing a guide separates me from the game and simultaneously increases my immersion in the game. My imagination and the way that I draw the map makes my game-play unique.
Within the structure of this game, I have to pay attention to each detail in the text that appears about the rooms / spaces I enter. When I encountered the bat, the body of text mentioned that there was a jade figurine in the room and that the bat had lifted me with its teeth. I was left in a different location, without much sensory perception. I entered the bat room for a second time and realized that I couldn’t reach the object without the bat’s interference. I also didn’t have the option of killing it after I entered the command to enter the room. Why is the figurine included in the description if I can’t access it?
The great Matikiri