Zork

Developer: Infocom	Graphics:
Publisher: Infocom	Sound:
Year: 1986	Difficulty:
Genre: Interactive fiction	Replay value:
Number of players: 1	My overall rating:	7/10

To talk about a rather obscure genre on the Amiga, the text adventure game or interactive fiction, I chose Zork, which is probably the most emblematic.

It features the principle seen in Adventure Quest: you are an adventurer in a fantasy world in search of treasures. Zork is the advanced version, so to speak. It includes three episodes on Amiga, gathered in a trilogy:

Other episodes will come out later, you can find them in abandonware websites.

The game is presented like a gamebook but on the screen. You play by typing in complete sentences or key words in English (some of these games are available in French, have a look at the links below). The first interactive fictions date from the 70's, needless to say that the technological limitations of that time did not permit to add a GUI, even the amount of text was counted.

No interface, that means a piece of paper and a pencil to draw your own map as you progress, note the items you find, etc. You really feel like an actor, your imagination does the rest since there is only text. It is part of the charm which disappeared in later years with the "point & click" games.

Now the problem with this kind of game is that you need to be patient. Sometimes, we get stuck, sometimes we know what to do but not how to explain it to the machine. My games often end up in a litany of swear words stoically acknowledged by the computer. . . .

"Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over."

Places to download:
Planet Emulation
The Game Archives
Abandonia

Other sites of interest:
IFiction-FR
The Interactive Fiction Database
Roger Firth's IF Pages
Brass Lantern
XYZZYnews

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