Review Legends of Zork Developer: Jolt Games Publisher: Activision Genre: RPG/Adventure Release Date: April 1, 2009 Platform: Any Web Browser (See Recommended System Requirements) Review by Robert Washburne (with an able assist from his sidekick, RandyJA) September 30, 2009		Buy this game at Trade for this game at:

You are standing in an open field, west of a white house.

<nostalgia>

The first computer game I ever bought was Zork for CP/M. CP/M was the first standard operating system for personal computers. It predated Apple, Commodore, Atari and IBM, but it ran on most of the hardware which was available back then.

There were no standards back then and Zork had no way of knowing just what hardware you were using. So Infocom required the user to finish writing the program themselves. They included the source code (in assembler) for the cursor control program. The user had to fill in the blanks with whatever ASCII characters their machine used to move the cursor up, down, left, right, erase, highlight, etc. The user could then assemble, link and finally run the game.

Talk about having to walk ten miles to school, through the snow, uphill, both ways!

It is hard to overestimate the impact Zork had on computer gaming. It single handedly launched, defined and for several years ruled the computer gaming industry. How could a boring text adventure do this?

Up through the '70's, computers were large, room filling beasts costing millions of dollars which only ran in batch mode – the programmer submitted requests via a deck of cards and later (hours, days,...) they would be given a printout of the result. So-called “mini-computers” were just coming out. Costing about $100K and only taking up the space of a filing cabinet, each department could afford their own.

Minicomputers used ASCII terminals, still no graphics, and were actually interactive – you could type in a command and the computer would respond immediately. It wasn't long before programmers were writing little games of tic-tac-toe and Hunt-the-Wumpus to play over lunchtime. And then a new game appeared.

Adventure (aka Colossal Cave Adventure) started to appear in user group libraries, free for the taking. It was a new kind of game which took place in a huge underground world. You just told the computer what you wanted to do and the computer would tell you what happened.

You are in the forest.
> go west
You are in the forest.
In front of you is a building – the well house for a small spring.
> enter house
You are in the Well House.
There is a well here with steps leading down.
There is an old lantern here.
There is a coil of rope here.
> take lantern
Taken.

Lunchtimes are no longer available as you spent them all exploring the vast underground cave system, collecting treasure and solving devious puzzles. Then one day it hit you – I'm having a rational dialog with a machine. And the world changes. Robots are no longer the stuff of science fiction, you are practically talking to one now. We just need to extend its capabilities a bit. Why, anything is possible!

This was an exciting moment in many people's lives. But for all of that, Adventure was quite limited – it could only parse a verb and direct object.

go north
take lantern
attack troll

But it did inspire a group of geeks at MIT to improve upon it. They developed a more advanced parser which could understand verbs, direct objects and indirect objects.

open chest with screwdriver
attack troll with sword

They also created NPC characters which moved about and acted on their own. Stir in large amounts of sophomoric humor and Zork was born.

The MIT geeks graduated and formed their own company, Infocom, just as the Microcomputers were coming out. Their first product was Zork, but split into three pieces to fit on these new, small machines. It seemed that anyone who bought a computer had to buy a copy of Zork to go with it. Zork became the first game to sell over a million copies and was still the industry's best-selling computer game until Myst was released in 1993 (Myst remained the best-selling pc game until the release of The Sims in 2002 – RandyJA).

Zork spawned many sequels and parallel story lines. Some of the later titles had simple graphics. The last Zork title developed by Infocom in 1987, Beyond Zork, was an RPG set in the Zork universe. Then the market for adventure games began to shrink as machine speed and graphics matured to the point where action games were possible. Infocom was bought out by Activision.

Activision dissolved the Infocom group and tried to make some easy money selling collections. They also wrote a couple of Zork adventures in the modern graphical style – Zork Nemesis and Zork Grand Inquisitor. But that was it. Dust began to collect in the Great Underground Empire (GUE).

Until now.

</nostalgia>

Activision has launched a series of web based computer games under the name of Jolt Computing. One of these games is Legends of Zork.

Legends of Zork is an RPG/Adventure which takes place in the Zork Universe. Your old familiar locations and characters can be found there right along with the off-beat humor which marked the original series. You play as a former member of the FrobozzCo International sales force who has lost his job. But there's plenty of opportunities out there for an aspiring adventurer. So, along with a camp of fellow treasure hunters all intent on plundering loot from the monstrous creatures that have invaded the land since the fall of the Great Underground Empire, you've pitched your tent in a field near a white house with a boarded front door.

The RPG play is very much like the old Bard's Tale – the computer compares your stats with the monster's, rolls the dice and then tells you the outcome. You fight monsters to collect money and experience. Money lets you buy better stuff and experience lets you improve your stats. You might also find the occasional playing card from a deck of Double Fanucci. These can be stacked in such a way so as to improve your stats as well.

A world map provides easy access to other locations each of which has a base where you can sell any loot you have gathered, purchase weapons, armors or spells, battle other players in the Arena, stack your Fanucci cards, join a clan or go on a Quest.

The game currently has five Quests available, each of which can only be completed by solving puzzles related to the Zork universe. The Great Unveiling – available once you reach level 50 – is actually comprised of thirteen mini-quests with puzzles that would make the original Zork developers proud.

So what does the game have going for it?
-) It's free.
-) It might bring back some old memories.
-) It is addictive.
-) It is well designed in its own right.
-) It allows for multi-player gaming
-) It's funny.
-) Did I mention that it was free?

So what are the down sides?
-) It's not an epic, like WoW.
-) There is no eye candy to impress.
-) The plot line is as thin as the Naught of Scythes.
-) You can only play 30 rounds of combat (Action Points) per day.

(Actually, once your character reaches level 30, you can acquire a sidekick. Some sidekicks, such as The Kid, have the ability to add extra APs (Action Points) to your daily minimum – RandyJA)

So how does Activision make any money off of this?
-) The advertising banners on the site.
-) Selling coconuts.

And not just any coconuts, these are replicas of the original Coconut of Quendor and can be used to buy all kinds of stuff, including more playing time.

(Coconuts can be purchased through a Paypal account or using a credit card. They are relatively cheap and are a must if you want to acquire charms and potions to enhance gameplay. There is also an option to purchase coconuts through Gambit which we highly discourage! – RandyJA).

Again, this is not an epic tale, but it is obvious that the authors are fans of the original game and had fun making this addition to the franchise. Legends of Zork is not a cheap knock off and deserves a solid “B”.

(To the developer’s credit, they do seem to respond to the fanbase and are constantly modifying the game. Unfortunately, once you reach level 50 and have collected all of the Fanucci cards, there seems to be little impetus to continue playing other than improving your ranking – RandyJA.)

Final Grade: B (find out more about our grading system)

If you liked this game, then Play: All the original Zork titles. They are still as playable today as when they first came out. Watch: Any DemoScene DVD. Read: Any of the articles about Interactive Fiction and Infocom.

Recommended System Requirements:
Firefox [3+], Safari [3+] or Internet Explorer 7

RandyJA is currently a level 60 adventurer ranked in the top 80 players. If you would like to join his Just Adventure clan and go on an adventure, just send him a request through the Legend of Zork website.