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	Title: Zork III
	Author: Margot Comstock Tommervik
	Source: Softalk, v3(1)
	Date: September 1982
	Transcription by Steve Derby
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**Zork III**. By Marc Blank and Dave Liebling. A *Softalk* reviewer recently
reported the ringing of the death knell for the text adventure. This review
is out to prove that he was hearing things, and *Zork III* is the ideal
example for making the point. *Zork III*, along with its Zorkian predecessors
and the recent mystery hit *Deadline*, is very much alive and
totally text.

When there are no more computerists who pleasure in intelligence
and erudition, when there are no gamers with imagination, when there
are no users who enjoy good prose, then those who are left may hear
such a bell toll. For now, we can revel in *Zork III*.

The Infocom team improves with every outing — and they started at
the top. *Zork III* is filled with well-written descriptions of imaginatively
delightful and curious places. The grandeur of the ancient high-arched
aqueduct system, shining in stolen sunlight; the damp, swirling mists of
the Land of Shadow; the brilliance of the pit of fire, two hundred feet in
diameter, its depths and heights lost in turbulent smoke and sunlike
flame — all these are far more graphic than any depiction yet achieved by
an adventure with graphics.

Realize that the Zorks are essentially a trilogy chronicling the history
of a great lost empire that once flourished underground. It was a realm
that reached some level of achievement before its demise, having created
entire aqueduct systems and hollowed-out mountains. It had great banks
and businesses and a royal government, complete with crown jewels. It
also had a Royal Puzzle.

Most of these achievements exist only in ruins now, and much has
been lost completely. Grues menace the remains — gruesome predecessors
of gruds and far more discreet in that they never show themselves.
For many years the empire has been little more than a testing ground for
adventurers and a home for a few seldom-glimpsed eremites.

And, of course, a prime mover. No? Yes, indeed. Someone had to
give Blank and Liebling their inspiration, fill them in on the story. If you
are clever enough, and good enough, and sensitive enough, you may
meet this being in *Zork III*.

When you begin *Zork III*, you do not know your goal. That's one of
the problems you must solve. Careful observation and constant relating
of information will determine how well you'll solve this one.
What you will know is that the total score you are after is seven.
That's all.

Two things are most unusual about the scoring system in *Zork III*.
Each point is given for having behaved properly in a situation or toward
a puzzle; it is not given for solving the puzzle or for knowing what you've
done. You can earn all the points and not know how you did it. The
true lover of logic and adventure will not be satisfied until those points
are understood; all the evidence is there.

And, indeed, when you've gained all the points, you aren't through.
You still have to prove yourself with one of the hardest, yet most clearly
logical, puzzles in adventuredom.

*Zork III*, like all Infocom adventures, is not a word game. The vocabulary
is extensive for an adventure, and if you use a word Zork
doesn't know, it tells you which word is the problem. Niggling over
words is not the point; logical problem solving is. And you need not be
afraid to use erudite words; if the word fits the situation, Zork probably
knows it.

Although plot is not its forte, *Zork III* has a theme, morals, and
meaning. It's a masterpiece of logic that demands that you think. No adventurer —
or game-enjoying thinker — should be without it.

<p class="smaller"><em>Zork III</em>, by Marc Blank and Dave Liebling, Infocom (55 Wheeler Street, Cambridge,
MA 02138; 617-492-1031). $39.95.</p>