What is a 'Zork' !?

This project, we are tasked to re-imagine one of five existing game for a modern audience. The games range in age from around the 70’s and 80’s, which is better then having an IP like for instance Mario, which is still fresh and current by gaming standards.

The games at there time of release were huge successes but have not aged well, the market has evolved but this is not to say that the ideas are any more sophisticated. Plot has tended to evolve a lot but it seems that when someone is asked about the current trend of gaming, FPS comes to mind.  Point and shoot is something I would like to stay away from no matter what game I am re-imagining.

With this in mind I got given Adventure/Zork, a text based game made by Infocom in the late 70’s. There is very little plot involved with Zork other then you have to find treasures from around the game world and get out alive with them. In the original there were minimal enemies, in my play through I have only come across a single troll.

Let the excitement roll..

So I have a lot of room to make this game my own, I have to maintain some aspects of the original but the only certain aspect I must keep is the title. I believe I’ll focus on the adventure and exploration more then anything else with benefits of finding rare treasures throughout the game.

The name Zork is fairly unattractive to me personally; it implies a juvenile character reminiscent of Jaks and Daxter or Ratchet and Clank, so I may try to be a little creative with what ‘Zork’ is within my version of the game. Zork was originally MIT hacker slang for an unfinished program and infocom were forced to keep Zork since they were threatened with legal action when they named the game dungeon. I believe Zork is the name of the game world itself so that’s always an option.

 Later installations to the Zork trilogy added in the use of magic spells, demons and time sensitive events. I like the idea of adding some form of demon, in Zork II the demon acted as a character which the player could trade and barter with, this is reminiscent of the devil in some folk lore in which a character is makes deals and trades with the devil in exchange for undeniable wealth or something out the reach of normal men. Time sensitive events are usually a given with modern gaming as most AI acts on real-time actions.

As for magic, I would like it included but possible not as a basis of combat, I think I’d like to include as an upgrade system, for instance adding a spell to your weapon to encase it in fire for extra damage. Magic would still be used by npc’s as I feel it enriches the worlds Mythos.

Out of all the 5 games I feel this was the most open in terms of what I can do with the IP.

Zork Screenshot - http://levgrossman.com/tag/zork/

Zork Online playable game - http://pot.home.xs4all.nl/infocom/zork1.html