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Game Reviews Z

These reviews are in alphabetical order according to the name of the game reviewed. The index also has a few extra features. First and foremost of these is the instant gratification feature. If you see the SPAG button:

Then you can click on it to retrieve the file from ftp.ifarchive.org, or to go to that file's directory on the archive (in the case of competition games).

The email addresses used are those submitted with the review, so naturally some of them may be out of date. All email addresses are spamblocked -- replace the name of our magazine with the traditional 'at' sign.

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    Table of Contents
    Zanfar
    Zero One
    Zero Sum Game
    Zombie!
    Zork Zero
    Zork I
    Zork II
    Zork III
    The Zork Trilogy
    Zork: A Troll's Eye View
    Zork: The Undiscovered Underground
    Zugzwang
    Zuni Doll

    Zanfar
    From: Christopher E. Forman <ceforman SP@G worldnet.att.net>
    Review appeared in SPAG #8 -- February 5, 1996

    NAME: Zanfar                              PARSER: Good ol' AGT
    AUTHOR: YAK (Your Adventure Kreator)      PLOT: Explore-the-old-mansion
    EMAIL: ???                                ATMOSPHERE: Very, very ordinary
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware, IF Archive               WRITING: Unremarkable
    PUZZLES: Generic                          SUPPORTS: AGT Ports
    CHARACTERS: Cardboard                     DIFFICULTY: Easy, if you can
                                                force yourself through it.

            There are a number of ways for authors to draw attention to their
    games: by promoting them through newsgroups, web sites, and e-zines; by
    creating a favorable (or unfavorable) impression on players, who spread it
    by word of mouth; et cetera.  A more imaginative trick is to give the game
    a name that places it dead last in an alphabetic directory listing on an
    FTP archive, so it grabs attention by being the very last thing a user sees
    when doing a "dir".  Well, it worked on me, anyway.  The title I refer to is
    "Zanfar," an appellation that seems to have absolutely no significance in the
    game itself, apart from the promotional scheme I've just outlined.
            In fact, there's very little about "Zanfar" that's significant.
    Though it boasts 140 rooms, there just isn't much there.  Very few of the
    rooms are more than padding, and it's painfully obvious what's important and
    what's not (the game doesn't allow you to examine ANY scenery).  The
    rudimentary plot simply tells you that you're someone who enjoys exploring
    old houses like the one in the game, despite the fact that the locals warned
    you there's something dangerous there.  Before long, though, you find out
    that the whole thing is just another collect-all-the-treasures operation,
    with no innovations to recommend it.
            The puzzles are so cheesy and cliched, they could have come out of a
    white box labelled "Acme Jenerik Advenchur Puzzuhlz."  Your exploits in
    "Zanfar" range from obtaining a light source for dark rooms, to unlocking
    things with keys (Did I say "The Awe-Chasm" had a lot of locks?  "Zanfar" has
    even more!), to solving a drop-an-item-in-each-room maze, to dealing with a
    group of cookie-cutter NPCs -- there's an enraged wizard, a "Junk Food
    Junkie," and a "Humongeous [sic] Bat," to name a few.  All this is strung
    together with wholly unremarkable writing.
            As a result, "Zanfar" is neither good enough to gain widespread
    popularity nor awful enough to be a must-play for bad game aficionados.  It's
    the kind of game that you forget all about a couple days after you solve it.
    If nothing else, "Zanfar" deserves recognition as the most _ordinary_ text
    adventure I've ever had the privilege(?) of having played.

    AGT files with PC executable runtime (.zip)

    Zero One
    From: Cirk Bejnar <eluchil404 SP@G yahoo.com>
    Review appeared in SPAG #39 -- January 7, 2005

    TITLE: Zero One
    AUTHOR: Edward Plant
    EMAIL: shed_plant SP@G hotmail.com
    DATE: October 2004
    PARSER: ALAN
    SUPPORTS: ALAN interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: IF Archive
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/competition2004/alan/01/01.acd
    VERSION: Beta Version 1.2

    My first abandoned research complex game of the comp! Well, really it's
    more of a prison, but you are an experimental subject so it's close. The
    game was written last year just after the comp and the author has been
    sitting on it since then. Can I be the first to say, "Don't do this."
    Release what you've written! We want to play games all year round, not
    just in October!

    As for the game itself, it is pretty slight. The author claims that it
    shouldn't pose any problems for the player, yet almost immediately I was
    fighting with the parser about disambiguation. This was an issue
    throughout the game. The problem was especially severe with not being
    able to refer to items by their adjectives. Scope was also handled
    poorly, making it easy to refer to things that you can't see and
    shouldn't know about. Similarly "take all from drawer" was parsed as
    'take all'-including the drawer and my clothes.

    The writing was fine for the most part, though occasionally a bit over
    the top. Design was less strong, such as a blocked door that leads back
    to where you have already been and a padlock on which you can't try the
    keys you find. In addition, I would have liked at least a little more
    backstory. Who am I? How do I know the man is named Terry? Mystery is
    all well and good but confusion is not.

    Overall, Zero One was a competent text adventure, but, for me at least,
    not particularly fun. I lacked all but the most basic motivation, and
    the contrast between graphic violence and silly humor was off-putting as
    well as mimesis breaking.

    Directory with ALAN .acd and .dat files, walkthrough, and readme

    Zero Sum Game
    From: Duncan Stevens a.k.a. Second April <dns361 SP@G merle.acns.nwu.edu>
    Review appeared in SPAG #13 -- February 5, 1998

    TITLE: Zero Sum Game
    AUTHOR: Cody Sandifer
    E-MAIL: sandifer SP@G sunstroke.sdsu.edu
    DATE: 1997
    PARSER: TADS standards
    SUPPORTS: TADS interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (IF Archive)
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/competition97/tads/zero/zero.gam
    VERSION: Release 1

    PLOT: Funny, innovative (1.6)   ATMOSPHERE: Cartoonish (1.3)
    WRITING: Quite good (1.6)       GAMEPLAY: Weak in spots (1.3)
    CHARACTERS: Very funny (1.7)   PUZZLES: Some bad choices (1.2)
    MISC: Original concept, well executed (1.7)
    OVERALL: 7.5

    In premise and execution, Cody Sandifer's Zero Sum Game is a genuinely
    funny send-up of an adventure game (Pork, eat your heart out) and
    perhaps the funniest work of IF since C.E. Forman MSTed
    Detective. Your mission: you have completed an average hack-and-slash
    adventure game, but when you come home, your mother sends you out to
    undo everything you've done. The goal is therefore to lose all 75
    points you have at the start of the game, by unslaying a dragon,
    giving back treasures, and making good all your dirty deeds. That you
    frequently have to do more dirty deeds along the way is, of course,
    part of the humor.

    Humorous enough as a concept, but there's more: you get a sidekick
    named Maurice the Follower (when commanded to do something salacious:
    "Maurice can't spring to your aid if he's busy doing that!") who
    invariably refers to himself in the third person and provides running
    commentary on everything in the game. And I mean everything:
    periodically, Maurice exclaims "Oh boy! Look at the size of this [room
    name]!", which has quite the effect when it comes along in the
    location named Dirt Patch. Though Maurice is only minimally useful, it
    is advised that the player keep him around as long as possible to hear
    his various contributions. My personal favorite Maurice line, when
    accompanied by a nasty character:

        Maurice claps.  "Hooray for goodness!  Down with evil!"
        Irritated, Darlene glances sharply in Maurice's direction.
        "Um," stumbles Maurice.  "Maurice is shutting up now."

    The comedy in Zero Sum Game extends well beyond Maurice. (When you try
    to give something to a dead character: "I bet you also loan money to
    trees.")  The antiheroic "hero" character affords some humor in his or
    her own right (the gender varies with yours, which you choose at the
    beginning), stalking around killing everything in sight in a fashion
    reminiscent of many a combat-based role-playing game. (And berating
    his or her big toe for its interference.) There's even a sex scene of
    sorts (or a series of them), played for laughs rather than thrills,
    naturally. As with Mr.  Sandifer's most recent work, "Everybody Loves
    a Parade," there are numerous particularized lines for ho-hum
    commands, notably "kiss", whose generic response is "You're not
    attracted to [character] in that secret special way" but which draws a
    wide variety of funny lines in certain situations.

    The glitches in Zero Sum Game mostly arise from the puzzles. For one
    thing, there are many opportunities to make the game unfinishable,
    many of them merely from doing things out of sequence; the player is
    advised to save often, since many of the key developments are a bit
    hard to foresee.  One puzzle can even be solved "wrong" -- you'll get
    the points, but you won't be able to finish the game -- which is a bit
    irritating. Even though the game is short enough that restarting it is
    not a major hassle, the gameplay problems detract a bit from the
    overall enjoyability. There are also numerous small illogicalities --
    you steal an object and its owner doesn't notice, though he does if
    you show up carrying it; you can't take an object from Maurice, even
    if he follows you around slavishly; the superstrong hero can't break
    an old rusty padlock. Logic is not a major factor in humorous games,
    of course, but then again that's one of the drawbacks of humorous
    games (witness Bureaucracy, one of the hardest games Infocom ever
    produced simply because the puzzles all required Douglas Adams logic),
    and Zero Sum Game suffers from that problem.

    Small problems aside, this is certainly one of the best of this year's
    competition, and without a doubt one of the most consistently
    enjoyable; even with the gameplay problems, I still thought it merited
    a 9.

    From: Paul O'Brian <obrian SP@G colorado.edu>
    Review appeared in SPAG #13 -- February 5, 1998

    Zero Sum Game (hereafter called "ZSG") is like the proverbial apple
    which is shiny & enticing on the outside, but inside is rapidly
    rotting away.  The game starts with a fun premise: You've won. You've
    collected treasures and solved puzzles, and now (before the first move
    of the game) you're bringing them home to your mother. Unfortunately,
    she doesn't approve of theft and killing and other such goings on, and
    orders you to go back and put right all the wrongs you've
    committed. Thus the game's name: you try to bring your score down to
    zero before your moves (5000 of them) run out.  This could have been a
    fun romp of reverse thinking, or an interesting exploration of the
    morality of the traditional stock adventurer character, or even
    both. As it turns out, the game doesn't really succeed on either
    count.

    The main problem that I had with ZSG is that it takes a much more
    callous approach to cruelty (no, not Zarfian cruelty. Real
    cruelty. [No offense, Andrew -- yours feels pretty real at the time.])
    than I'm comfortable with. SPAG has a no-spoiler policy, so it's
    difficult to provide concrete examples of this problematic
    tendency. Suffice it to say that in order for the player to reach the
    solution, several harmless and friendly creatures within the game must
    be killed, sometimes in grotesque ways. These (and other) scenes make
    it apparent that the author has not taken a thoughtful, mature
    approach to the implications of his theme. That's OK -- not everything
    has to be thoughtful and mature. But ZSG reached such a level of
    cruelty that it wasn't much fun either. Dead bodies piled up in
    proportions comparable to any hack-and-slash MUD, and even though
    there's a resurrection spell in the game, you can't use it to revive
    any of the dozens of dead elves and villagers, or any of the other
    beings killed in the game (with one partial exception). The game's
    ending provides the final barb. Without giving away too much, I'll
    just say that it inflicts some arbitrary punishment on you, not as
    penance for your crimes, but because you're a "mama's boy" (or girl,
    as the case may be.)

    To give it its due, ZSG does have a clever premise, a promising start,
    and some good puzzles. Some of these puzzles have no particular moral
    bent, but are cleverly designed. Others in fact do have the particular
    ethical direction of reversing wrongs: you give the candy back to the
    baby, for example. That's why it left such a bad taste in my mouth to
    learn that other puzzles required coldly slaughtering your friends for
    the sake of a few points. I learned this from the walkthrough -- I had
    already thought of the "killing" solution to one puzzle, but couldn't
    believe it was the right thing to do until I heard it from the author
    himself. After that point, I detached from the game, using the
    walkthrough to see the whole thing and make notes for this review. It
    didn't get better. Zero Sum Game's gimmick is one that works best the
    first time it is used -- too bad this game did such a poor job of
    using it.

    Prose: The prose in ZSG is actually pretty good. It's what enabled me
    to become a little affectionate about Maurice and Chippy before I had
    to slaughter them. Still, much like the rest of the game, the prose is
    a good tool used for the wrong purpose. It's like a beginning
    carpenter using the best quality wood -- the result may look pretty,
    but it falls apart much too easily.

    Plot: I think this is a game that doesn't know what it wants to be
    about.  After the competition ended, the author posted to rgif that in
    fact there was a "larger purpose" to the cruelty in ZSG, and that he
    was trying to do a number of things, including explore 1st person
    morality in IF, and to spoof the traditional treasure hunt in a funny,
    absurd, and extreme way.  It's interesting to know this, and also to
    know that for a number of people, the game worked. Still, maybe I'm
    overly sensitive (or taking things too seriously), but it didn't work
    for me. The game's arbitrary limits force brutal answers to trivial
    problems -- not a very powerful exploration of the concepts the author
    claims to have had in mind. The plot is a wandering mess, ending in a
    big "piss off" to its player.  Unsatisfying and unpleasant.

    Puzzles: The puzzles represented both the best and the worst things
    about ZSG. On the one hand, the first couple of puzzles I solved (the
    baby and the key) were really clever and interesting, and they raised
    my expectations from the already high level achieved by the game's
    premise.  Unfortunately, the excitement of these only intensified the
    letdown of consulting the walkthrough and discovering what cold
    solutions were required for the other puzzles. It's a pity that the
    game didn't keep a consistent tone throughout -- I was much more
    disappointed than I would have been had all the puzzles required nasty
    measures to solve.

    Technical:
    writing -- I only found one grammar error in the entire text, a
    misplaced modifier.

    coding -- The coding was relatively coherent, though there was one
    major problem: the warning system was a complete failure. To test it,
    I ate the candy, killed the merchant, and killed Maurice in the first
    few turns of the game. No response. Other than that, I found no major
    bugs.

    TADS file (.gam) (Updated version)

    BinHexed Macintosh format (.sit.hqx) (Updated version)

    DOS executable (.zip) (Updated version)

    Windows 95 executable (.zip) (Updated version)

    Directory with TADS .gam file and hints (competition version)

    Solution (Text) (Updated version)

    Zombie!
    From: Paul O'Brian <obrian SP@G colorado.edu>
    Review appeared in SPAG #13 -- February 5, 1998

    NAME: Zombie!
    AUTHOR: Scott W. Starkey
    E-MAIL: starkey SP@G wcic.org
    DATE: 1997
    PARSER: TADS standard
    SUPPORTS: TADS interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (IF Archive)
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/competition97/inform/zombie/zombie.gam
    VERSION: 1997 competition release

    I love the beginning of Zombie!. In it, you play Valerie, a junior at
    the local college who is enjoying a relaxing camping trip after having
    finally dumped her loser boyfriend Scott. The atmosphere of the
    camping trip is very well-done, from the CD player spinning 80s hits
    to the various characters squabbling over how to build a
    campfire. Equally well-done is the terror of learning that there is
    something awful lurking in those woods, and it's coming to get
    you. You run, but to no avail: you are overtaken and killed... and
    then the prologue is over and you find yourself in your actual role:
    that of Scott, the unlucky guy who has just been dumped by his
    heartless girlfriend Valerie, ridden his motorcycle out into the
    country to get his mind off the breakup, and (wouldn't you know it?)
    run out of gas in the remote woods. The viewpoint shift caught me
    off-guard, and it worked marvelously. I felt like I had a better
    insight into my character after having seen him through the eyes of
    another, and vice versa for the character I played in the
    prologue. Viewpoint shifts in traditional fiction can make for a
    dramatic effect; interactive fiction, with its customary second person
    form of address, made the shift all the more dramatic, at least this
    time. It also serves perfectly to crank up the tension: one of the
    first things you hear with Scott's ears is a scream -- it sounds like
    Valerie, but what would she be doing out here in the woods?

    Unfortunately, after this promising beginning Zombie! stumbles
    badly. For one thing, after taking so much time to develop the
    relationship between Valerie and Scott, the game never returns to it!
    I fully expected to see Valerie show up again as a zombie, to see
    Scott's emotional reaction to encountering her in that state, and to
    find out what happens after he rescues her from zombification. A
    reunion, perhaps? Well, no. In fact, the prologue is the last we see
    of Valerie. Now, I usually like it when a game proves itself less
    predictable than I thought it would be, but this time I felt
    cheated. I wouldn't have paid so much attention to Valerie or put so
    much time into learning about the relationship had I realized that she
    was just a throwaway character. Doubly unfortunate is the fact this is
    far from Zombie!'s only problem. There are numerous bugs in the code,
    hand-in-hand (as they so often are) with an unpleasantly high count of
    mechanical errors in the writing.

    I kept finding myself feeling frustrated, because every time I really
    got into the game, allowed myself to get interested in its tensions, a
    bug or a spelling error would come along that would shatter mimesis
    and deflate the emotional effect. The thing is, the game does a great
    job of building that tension. It's a b-movie all the way, no deep or
    serious issues here, but it's definitely got that suspenseful, creepy
    feeling that the best b-movies have. (Yes, I'm aware of the irony in
    that phrase, so you needn't bother pointing it out.) The sound of
    heavy footsteps approaching, or the feeling of driving rain beating
    against a worn, gothic mansion, or the sight of horrific creatures
    staring dead ahead (literally!), and similar gothic pleasures were all
    very well-executed in this game, until you hit the inevitable
    technical error. Still, better to have a good game with lots of bugs
    than a mediocre game executed flawlessly. Bugs are easy to fix. When
    Starkey fixes them, Zombie! will definitely be one to recommend.

    Prose: The prose isn't beautiful by any means, and it often shows
    signs of awkward construction or phrasing. On the other hand, it does
    achieve many suspenseful moments, and quite often has some very nice
    pieces of description or atmosphere. I found the rain very convincing,
    and the eerie outside of the mansion was also well-portrayed. In
    addition, the prologue had some well-done dialogue and atmosphere, and
    built the tension just right for entry into the game proper.

    Plot: The plot was a good combination of the spooky and the silly,
    with the emphasis on the silly. I found it reminiscent of some of the
    early LucasArts games, especially the moments with Ed the Head. The
    kitschy charm of the mad scientist, his lumbering assistant, the
    haunted mansion, the unholy army of the dead, etc. was great. The main
    disappointment I had with the plot was the ending. It felt tacked on,
    as if there were more story to tell but because the game is a
    competition entry the author didn't have time to explore it. Also, as
    I mentioned above, the emphasis placed on Valerie was rather odd
    considering that she never again showed up in the game. I also felt a
    little frustrated by the ending. I don't want to give too much away,
    except to say that it managed neither the triumphant feeling of
    destroying evil nor the spooky feeling of inevitable defeat.

    Puzzles: I actually liked the puzzles in Zombie! quite a bit. Some of
    them were a little tacked on (the measuring cups), and the overall
    puzzle framework (collect the elements of a recipe) is quite shopworn
    by now.  However, all the puzzles, cliched as they may have been, fit
    very well into the overall story, and that seamless fit makes a lot of
    things pretty forgivable. If the game hadn't been plagued by bugs, its
    puzzles would have come very close to achieving the goal of aiding the
    narrative rather than obstructing it.

    Technical:
    writing -- There were a significant number of mechanical errors in
    Zombie!'s writing.

    coding -- The game also had quite a number of bugs. It needs at least
    one round of intense playtesting before it's really ready for the
    world at large.

    Directory with TADS .gam file and walkthrough

    Zork Zero
    From: Duncan Stevens a.k.a. Second April <dns361 SP@G merle.acns.nwu.edu>
    Review appeared in SPAG #14 -- May 17, 1998

    NAME: Zork Zero
    AUTHOR: Steve Meretzky
    E-MAIL: Beats me
    DATE: 1988
    PARSER: Infocom, advanced
    SUPPORTS: Multiple platforms
    AVAILABILITY: Commercial (Masterpieces)
    URL: N/A
    VERSION: Release 393

    PLOT: Not much (1.0)            ATMOSPHERE: Uneven (1.1)
    WRITING: Amusing, mostly (1.4)     GAMEPLAY: Remarkable (1.9)
    CHARACTERS: One major one, a bit annoying (1.0)
    PUZZLES: Many derivative, some good (1.2)
    MISC: Hard to sustain tone over full-length game (1.3)
    OVERALL: 6.7

    The original Zork series was probably best described as treasure hunt
    with a satirical touch: there was humor here and there, but most of
    the plot was straightforward adventure/fantasy, and elements of the
    ridiculous were added only sparingly. Not so in Steve Meretzky's
    followup, Zork Zero, a "prequel" that subordinated the adventure
    aspect to over-the-top camp--and while it works in many ways, fans of
    the austere feel of the original series may find it a bit jarring.

    As a game that purports to explain some of the confusing backstory
    that had swirled around the various Zork entries, Zork Zero is
    admirable. The documentation--"Lives of the Twelve Flatheads"--is
    extensive and very funny, and the game is awash in amusing details
    about Dimwit's excessive tastes. (For example: "This is a small
    closet. Well, it's small by the standards of this castle; in a pinch,
    it could probably sleep a few regiments.") Though I would have liked a
    few more nuggets about how and why various elements of the trilogy
    came to be, there are more than enough--including the origin of the
    white house--to keep the Zork fan entertained for a while on that
    score. The various Flathead siblings and their professions--Ralph
    Waldo Flathead, J. Pierpont Flathead, etc.--are also well rendered,
    though I was a bit disappointed that there was only one woman among
    them, Lucrezia Flathead. C'mon, Steve. Couldn't you come up with any
    other notable women in history to parody? (My pick would have been
    Joan of Flathead, though I guess the history would have been hard to
    rewrite.) Typically of later Infocom works, additionally, the copy
    protection is woven into the documentation, which provides several
    unguessable actions. (A few of them, though--such as the 400-floor
    building with an item on a certain floor mentioned in the
    materials--feel a little gratuitous.)

    The plot, though ostensibly serious, is largely a romp. The game
    tosses you into the fall of the Great Underground Empire, as the
    descendant of a witness of Dimwit Flathead's death at the hands of the
    wizard Megaboz and Megaboz's curse on the empire, and the heir to a
    fragment of parchment that might provide a clue to averting the
    curse. 94 years have passed since the curse was imposed and the day
    has arrived, and it is now up to you to break the curse by finding two
    items belonging to each Flathead and adding them to the wizard's
    cauldron. The items have now been scattered to the winds, many in
    rather improbable places, though there is some logic to the location
    of virtually all of them. You might think that saving the empire is a
    grave responsibility, but this is a Steve Meretzky game, and virtually
    everything in it is there for laughs. Items you acquire include a
    "ring of ineptitude" and an "anti-pit bomb", obstacles come in the
    form of whimsical word or logic games, and a central piece of the
    geography is a giant brogmoid. Indeed, the player may justifiably
    wonder why he or she is bothering to save the empire anyway, since
    everyone else has cleared out.

    The setting is relentlessly silly: Zork Zero is set less in a fantasy
    universe than in a Meretzky world. The bits of swords and sorcery that
    pervaded the original trilogy give way to absurdism (occasionally a
    tad adolescent; earwax and toe fungus are pivotal in one puzzle). In
    one scene, you stumble into an "Inquisition" in which you outwit the
    executioner with wordplay; in another, you deal with a massive,
    obnoxious talking toad. Centering the action on a castle full of
    absurdities is the perfect game idea for Meretzky, but the result is
    less fantasy than mock-fantasy--whereas the original trilogy used
    fantasy conventions while mocking them, Zork Zero uses only a few of
    them and mocks them in such ridiculous ways that it's easy to forget
    that it's mockery at all. The result is that the humor is less
    effective than that of many of Infocom's earlier games, oddly, since
    it's more or less trying to be funny start to finish, while the humor
    in Zork I, say, came from an occasional fourth-wall one-liner.

    Perhaps the most peculiar element of Zork Zero is the puzzles. There
    are some clever and original ones, certainly--particularly one
    involving a certain chessboard--but most are classic logic puzzles
    cribbed directly into the game. There is, for example, a Towers of
    Hanoi puzzle--thoroughly frustrating to wade through for those of us
    who already know the idea--and a "lady or the tiger" problem, and a
    Hi-Q game, and even a measure-out-the-fluid-with-two-different-
    size-vessels puzzle. Suffice it to say that, when you encounter a fox
    and a rooster in close proximity, it's fairly obvious that a certain
    crossing-the-river puzzle lurks somewhere in the game. The problem
    with this isn't that they're poorly done, because most of them succeed
    brilliantly (and many are adapted to the context); several games are
    represented in full-color VGA graphics, even. It's just that a set of
    minds as creative as those of Infocom shouldn't need to copy so many
    puzzles from the canon. Still, in that this is a long game with lots
    of puzzles--virtually every object of significance, and there are
    many, requires some sort of puzzle-solving to obtain--the derivative
    aspect isn't as troubling as it might be. Most of the puzzles are
    relatively straightforward, though a few require rather exact timing,
    and it is sometimes possible to lock yourself out of victory merely by
    lack of foresight regarding transportation. (Zork Zero does employ one
    of the niftiest transportation devices in all of Infocom, though, and
    though the game area is fairly vast, proper use of the device can keep
    the player moving around it at a rapid rate.)

    Technically, Zork Zero is spectacular. The graphics are not
    extensive--pillars framing the screen, most of the time--but there are
    more elaborate displays here and there, and the details of the pillars
    change with the setting. The games you play require changing graphical
    displays, an edition of the Encyclopedia Frobozzica has illustrated
    entries, and a mysterious rebus (with a bizarre twist) is a crucial
    part of one puzzle--and the graphics are more than adequate for
    figuring it out. The parser is up to the standard of Infocom's later
    games, with the inclusion of function keys that can stand in for
    common commands. (Since this is a Steve Meretzky game, one of the
    defaults is "give magic locket to moose.") There is an internal hint
    system (non-adaptive) which takes care to preserve the copy protection
    and even makes fun of you if you resort to it too often. As if to
    showcase the parser's disambiguation abilities, in fact, the game
    includes two sets of scaled objects--for example, there is a large
    fly, a larger fly, an even larger fly, and the largest fly. Liquids
    are skillfully coded several times over, and the transportation system
    mentioned above, which offers seemingly infinite bug possibilities,
    works flawlessly.

    But technical wizardry isn't enough to overcome the game's basic
    incoherence: though the finale is impressive and suitably surprising,
    the game meanders considerably before that because it doesn't really
    have anywhere to go. When your plot simply requires that you pick up
    24 random objects, it's hard to develop the plot along the way, and
    the one significant opening up of new territory isn't enough to really
    draw the player into the game. There isn't, in other words, enough
    payoff for most of your accomplishments; usually, you simply get
    another item to toss into the cauldron. Zorks I and II, though
    treasure hunts as well, restricted the initial area available far more
    than Zork Zero does, and conditioned more discovery on solving
    significant puzzles. Here, solving three puzzles, all of them easy,
    will allow access to virtually every room in the game. In moving away
    from the Zork trilogy's conventional-fantasy roots, therefore, Zork
    Zero loses something of what makes conventional fantasy compelling:
    danger, discovery, the intrigue of what might be next.  Here, there's
    never really any question about what you'll find, merely where you'll
    find it, and the fun therefore turns to the puzzles--which deliver in
    some cases but not all.

    Certainly, Meretzky's writing is witty and helps to counteract the
    traipsing-to-and-fro aspect; there are plenty of silly things to try
    (documented by a "have you tried" section) and funny discoveries. But
    over the course of 1500 turns, which is what the average player could
    easily end up spending to solve this, even the best writing begins to
    pall--and the comic relief in the form of the jester becomes tiresome
    long before the end. (The jester has an irritatingly small stable of
    jokes, and many of them have annoying side effects--for instance, he
    occasionally turns you into an alligator for several turns, meaning
    that you drop everything and you have to pick it all up and put on the
    items you were wearing.  Alternately, a bat might come along and whisk
    you to somewhere distant.  The appeal of all this wanes considerably
    after a while, and the spectacular payoff can't overcome the tedium of
    getting there. Given the amount of story underlying Zork Zero, it's
    strange how little of it comes out in the game (until the finale,
    anyway); it doesn't seem that it would have been impossible to
    discover interesting things about the Flatheads or about Megaboz that
    shape your quest and draw the player into finding out more. As it is,
    until the last few moves, what you see is largely what you get.

    There are entertaining moments in Zork Zero, to be sure. It's
    questionable whether there are enough to keep the average player
    interested throughout, though, and to whatever extent it succeeds, it
    does so in a very different way from any of the other Zork entries.
    Though it has its moments, I found Zork Zero the weakest of all
    Infocom's text Zork games.

    Walkthrough (Text)

    Zork I
    From: Duncan Stevens a.k.a. Second April <dns361 SP@G merle.acns.nwu.edu>
    Review appeared in SPAG #12 -- December 13, 1997

    NAME: Zork I
    AUTHORS: Marc Blank and David Lebling
    E-MAIL: WHO WANTS TO KNOW?!
    DATE: 1981
    PARSER: Early Infocom
    SUPPORTS: Infocom ports
    AVAILABILITY: Commercial (IF Archive)
    URL: N/A
    VERSION: Release 88

    Consideration of the relative merits of Zork I, in 1997, is difficult
    to undertake fairly. Infocom's achievement in publishing such a game
    in 1981 -- to fit the limitations of tiny microcomputers, in a
    language that they had written themselves -- was considerable, and
    flaws in the game cannot be considered in the same critical light as
    those of games written today. Numerous bugs have been corrected since
    the original release, but the game is still essentially the same --
    none of the bugs addressed design flaws that affected the plot or
    structure of the game; its limitations were not serious enough to
    warrant fundamental changes.

    Nor was the popularity of Zork I a fluke. Novelty was part of its
    appeal, certainly, and the game suffers in comparison to later, more
    polished efforts, but the attempt to create a plausible game
    environment with only text was sufficiently successful that many, many
    people were genuinely absorbed -- by the challenge of the puzzles and
    by the story, such as it is.  The versatility of the parser was
    doubtless part of it -- to get the true experience of playing
    Infocom's games in the early '80s, struggle through some Scott Adams
    or the like and its volume of "go tree" and "look rock" commands. The
    primitiveness of the game environment of Adams and the like is not an
    indictment, given cost and size limitations, but the wizardry of
    Infocom in overcoming those limitations should be recognized through
    the comparison as near genius.

    Graeme Cree's bug list inventories some of the design flaws of Zork I,
    some of which have been corrected, some not. My personal favorite,
    from the first release, involves "give troll to troll," whereupon the
    troll eats himself and disappears. There are some problems that live
    on, though -- for example, the player is given an extensive
    description of the jewel-encrusted egg upon first encountering it, but
    that description can never be reached again once the egg is moved --
    it began with "In the bird's nest...", but the rest of the description
    relates only to the egg and would be relevant in any setting. Some of
    the synonyms are a bit off -- "examine passage" yields "there's
    nothing special about the way."

    Among the stranger red herrings are the tool chests at the dam, which
    "are so rusty and corroded that they crumble when you try to touch
    them," and they certainly do crumble -- after that response, the
    chests are gone, apparently melting into dust and blowing away. There
    are numerous small illogicalities -- how does one raise and lower a
    basket up and down a mine shaft from the bottom of that shaft? Remote
    control? How does it happen to be that one inevitably happens upon a
    small object when digging in a room, without prior guidance? Is the
    thief really so clever -- or are you really so dumb -- that he can
    steal your light source? Why is it that a room filling up with water
    obligingly stops filling and waits for you to return if you leave?

    Many of the rules that IF players have come to expect designers to
    follow came about as a result of bad experiences with the early games,
    and Zork I is no exception. Though the inclusion of alternate
    solutions to problems is welcome, some of the alternate paths are a
    bit strange -- it is handy to know the shortcut to the thief's
    hideaway, but there is no way of guessing that shortcut without taking
    the long, arduous route, and players might well feel they have been
    put through needless aggravation. There are quite a few save-restore
    puzzles -- the "squeaky sounds" are hardly adequate warning for the
    bat puzzle, nor is it obvious that you, the player, will be so dumb as
    to puncture the boat by boarding it with a sword or other sharp
    object. The maze is large and irritating -- and the addition of the
    thief to the mix, while an amusing innovation on Colossal Cave, makes
    things worse. And most frustrating of all, of course, is the
    randomized combat, with no way to improve your chances -- an element
    that Infocom largely set aside after Zork I, thankfully.

    The writing is somewhat uneven, frankly. There are many rooms whose
    descriptions are cursory -- whereas Colossal Cave had clearly drawn on
    explorers' accounts of Mammoth Cave in Kentucky in its attention to
    geological detail, providing a measure of realism, there are many Zork
    I descriptions like this: "This is a circular stone room with passages
    in all directions. Several of them have unfortunately been blocked by
    cave-ins." Such a variety of settings comes in such a short space --
    chasm, canyon, lake -- and with so little description that the reality
    of the environment suffers at time. Most room descriptions begin with
    something like "You are in a small room," which says little. Like, how
    small, man?  Bread-box? Closet? There are moments of fairly thorough
    description in largely irrelevant locales, notably the canyon outside,
    and there are places where the descriptions are so terse that one
    wonders whether the intent was humor:

            Land of the Dead

            You have entered the Land of the Living Dead. Thousands of
            lost souls can be heard weeping and moaning. In the corner are
            stacked the remains of dozens of previous adventurers less
            fortunate than yourself. A passage exits to the north.

    Here I am in Hades. *yawn* Wonder if there's a gift shop around. Well,
    back to the adventure. Examining the remains elicits the response "You
    see nothing special about the pile of bodies." But though Zork I had
    little of the atmosphere that would mark later Infocom efforts, the
    very spareness of its prose was sometimes effective, as in the Troll
    Room:

            This is a small room with passages to the east and south and a
            forbidding hole leading west. Bloodstains and deep scratches
            (perhaps made by an axe) mar the walls.

            A nasty-looking troll, brandishing a bloody axe, blocks all
            passages out of the room.

            Your sword has begun to glow very brightly.

    Where a more thorough description of blood and gore might have seemed
    excessive, the brief reference to "bloodstains and deep scratches"
    allows the imagination to conjure up the scene -- and the description
    followed by the mention of the troll, while provided to separate out
    objects from scenery, heightens the effect of first impression -- the
    ominous decor -- and sudden realization of the source of that decor,
    as if the player were peering around the room and saw the troll
    last. Equally effective is the experience of dying once past a certain
    point in the game and wandering around as a ghost -- being told that
    your hand passes through objects, finding exits from the dungeon
    barred; the feel is reminiscent of Sartre's "Les jeux sont faits."
    Though the lack of an endgame seems strange to experienced IF players,
    the final reference to the sequel is genuinely tantalizing.

    Zork I does work, in the end, though it's hard to pinpoint just why.
    Collect-the-treasures as a plot is a weary old device, and it doesn't
    only seem that way to IF players -- it had, after all, been the
    subject of innumerable fantasy novels and games before IF hit the
    scene. But its recurring presence points to some appeal that Zork I
    managed to tap into -- the allure of getting rich, and of obtaining
    things as diverse as the coffin of Ramses II, a songbird's bauble, and
    a dead adventurer's bag of coins, keeps the intrigue of finding the
    next treasure alive, somehow.  Vital to the enterprise is, of course,
    the humor, even if the barrage of self-reference becomes wearying;
    responses like "Only Santa Claus climbs down chimneys" make the game
    feel more intelligent than a "You can't do that" response would have,
    and moments like the description of the vampire bat and the behavior
    of the thief break up the traipsing-from-room-to-room feel that
    sometimes plagued Colossal Cave. For my part, I still enjoy this
    response:

            >zork

            At your service!

    The variety of responses to "jump" -- a command with, of course, no
    practical value in the game -- and the provision for other
    nonessential verbs points to the pains that Infocom took from the very
    beginning to make the environment genuinely interactive, rather than
    the minimum of nouns and commands needed to get the player through the
    game. The value of that is hard to measure, but Zork I, with its many
    Easter eggs, is a good example of a game that felt worth the price
    because of its breadth -- much to do, many responses to try.

    Playing Zork I now is indeed worthwhile, both to see how far IF has
    come and to appreciate its origins, despite the annoyances. It is a
    credit to its design that it remains an enjoyable game, well worth its
    popularity.

    Solution (Text)

    Zork II
    From: Duncan Stevens a.k.a. Second April <dns361 SP@G merle.acns.nwu.edu>
    Review appeared in SPAG #12 -- December 13, 1997

    NAME: Zork II
    AUTHORS: Marc Blank, David Lebling
    E-MAIL: No, 'e don't
    DATE: 1982
    PARSER: Early Infocom
    SUPPORTS: Infocom ports
    AVAILABILITY: Commercial (Masterpieces)
    URL: N/A
    VERSION: Release 48

    Zork II picks up where its predecessor left off in many ways -- the
    beginning deposits you inside the barrow that had marked the end of
    Zork I, your trusty lamp and sword are by your side, and your mission
    seems at the outset to be more treasure-gathering. But Zork II parts
    company with the first of the series in a variety of important ways as
    the game progresses -- that sword is useful, but in a way far more
    interesting than hack-and-slash -- and the changes suggest that the
    folks at Infocom were interested less in putting out more of the same
    than in refining their product and heightening ths challenge.

    One way in particular that the designers of Zork II chose to raise the
    difficulty level bears mention because it seems to have been deemed a
    failure as a game device, and rightly so: the reliance on random
    events.  Two major elements of Zork II are random -- the role of the
    Wizard and the function of the Carousel Room -- and while each can be
    disabled over the course of the game, each makes the normal course of
    gameplay rather tiresome while active. An ill-timed Wizard appearance
    can actually render the game unwinnable at several points, making Zork
    II the only Infocom game I can think of (well, Zork I had randomized
    combat, true, but unforeseeable random events -- meaning save-restore
    cannot be relied upon in the same way as with combat -- are different)
    where one can lose the chance to finish a game through no fault of
    one's own. Usually, this happens because his spells disrupt a
    time-dependent sequence that only happens once (actually, I just
    discovered that becoming the object of a "float" spell in the volcano
    spells death, though an amusing death), but there is one spell which,
    if cast, instantly cuts off the possibility of winning, in a way that
    the player could not possibly be expected to guess. This is a cruel
    trick indeed, and later Infocom games eschew unfairness of this sort
    -- but first-time players of Zork II should be warned that frequent
    saves are in order.

    While the plot, as noted, seems at first to be an extension of the
    scavenger theme, it turns out to be something quite different; the
    treasures have a use that marks a change in emphasis of sorts for your
    character, from gathering booty to exploring the deeper recesses of
    the cave -- and in that, perhaps, one might say that the plot thickens
    slightly over the course of the game. The paragraph at the end of the
    game suggests a larger mission, one that will come as a surprise to
    the merry treasure-hunter -- and yet it makes some sense, in that it
    suggests that the valor the player has demonstrated in getting that
    far points to a more important goal.

    Magic is prevalent in Zork II, more so than in the original,
    appropriately so since it is a wizard's domain that you are exploring
    -- and the progress of the game moves you from object and victim of
    the magic to its controller, to some extent at least, in that you
    outwit a variety of magical traps and learn to use some magic items to
    your own ends. The magic is haphazard -- no hint of the more organized
    system of the Enchanter trilogy -- but there is a real sense by the
    end that you, the unskilled but savvy adventurer, have beaten the
    wizard at his own game, and it helps deepen the admittedly thin sense
    of a plot. Magic is also played up for humor value, including the
    wizard's failed spells ("There is a loud crackling sound, and blue
    smoke rises from the wizard's sleeve. He sighs and disappears.") and
    such sidelights as the "fudge" spell. (Though I was hoping that there
    would be amusing applications of the power you gain toward the end of
    the game, and I didn't find many.)

    Several of the puzzles are lifted from the original "Dungeon"
    mainframe game, though most of that had ended up in Zork I. (Though,
    at one point, you see, from a distance, a location that had existed in
    Dungeon but had dropped out of Zork I -- slightly confusing to the
    uninitated.) One of the puzzles has a drastically different -- and
    much more creative -- solution than in the original "Dungeon" game,
    though it's more a "wonder what happens if I do this" solution than an
    "oh, I know, I should do this" solution. The quality of the puzzles is
    uneven: one requires some trial and error, amusing in its effects when
    you get it wrong but trial and error all the same. The Bank of Zork
    puzzle has drawn some criticism for being possible to solve without
    fully understanding, though the rationale behind it is elegant enough
    that it seems a minor problem -- and another puzzle requires that one
    largely set aside one's knowledge of how liquids work (meaning that
    what I suspect was supposed to be among the easier puzzles stumped me
    completely when I first played the game).

    There is, of course, one notoriously bad puzzle toward the end -- bad
    for its "guess-what-I'm-thinking" aspect and for its inaccessibility
    to the non-American -- and for pretending to be a maze when not
    one. And the final puzzle is, I think, ridiculously hard -- the
    required action is motivationless and the game gives not the slightest
    nudge in the right direction. Infocom rated Zork II "advanced," but
    their sense of how to make a game hard without making it unfair was as
    yet not fully developed.

    Zork II feels much more polished than Zork I; the geography of the
    game is somewhat more coherent, there are fewer illogicalities, and
    the layout is less a series of puzzles than a set of locations that
    revolve -- literally -- around a central area. The writing --
    substantially better than that of Zork I -- confirms that impression;
    there are virtually no rooms without a complete description, and at
    times the writer manages to paint quite a vivid picture. The tunnel at
    the beginning, while otherwise irrelevant, draws the reader in
    effectively and provides atmosphere and attention to detail that had
    been absent in the first game; it's as if the player has become less
    intent on treasure and more apt to notice the surroundings now and
    again. There are many locations worth picturing in one's own mind in
    the course of Zork II, this among them:

            North End of Garden

            This is the northern end of a formal garden. Hedges hide the
            cavern walls, and if you don't look up, the illusion is of a
            cloudy day outside. The light comes from a large growth of
            glowing mosses on the roof of the cave.  A break in the hedge
            is almost overgrown to the north. A carefully manicured path
            leads south. In the center of a rosebed is a small open
            structure, painted white. It appears to be a gazebo.

    And this:

            Menhir Room

            This is a large room which was evidently used once as a
            quarry. Many large limestone chunks lie helter-skelter around
            the room. Some are rough-hewn and unworked, others smooth and
            well-finished. One side of the room appears to have been used
            to quarry building blocks, the other to produce menhirs
            (standing stones). Obvious passages lead north and south.

            One particularly large menhir, at least twenty feet tall and
            eight feet thick, is leaning against the wall blocking a dark
            opening leading southwest. On this side of the menhir is
            carved an ornate letter "F".

    Providing the salient details as the player looks around the room
    makes the experience more real and adds to the illusion of stumbling
    on a world rather than a series of puzzles; many of the most memorable
    images or scenes in the trilogy are in Zork II simply because the game
    authors gave the settings so much attention. (When I first played this
    -- I was 7 -- I had dreams about the Bank of Zork.) Even the
    after-death sequence was intriguing, and points to mysteries that
    unravel as the game progresses.  Part of the appeal of the writing in
    Zork II is that it genuinely felt like a series of caves, with
    geological detail noted and occasional references to a natural light
    source.

    In summary, the appeal of playing Zork II lies less in the puzzles
    than in the game environment, and this installment is best enjoyed at
    a measured pace, with time to read room descriptions and visualize the
    scene. Notable for the way it changes the feel of the series, Zork II,
    despite its flaws, points to Infocom's developing skills.

    Solution (Text)

    Zork III
    From: Duncan Stevens a.k.a. Second April <dns361 SP@G merle.acns.nwu.edu>
    Review appeared in SPAG #12 -- December 13, 1997

    NAME: Zork III
    E-MAIL: One of the world's great mysteries
    DATE: 1983
    PARSER: Early Infocom
    SUPPORTS: Infocom ports
    AVAILABILITY: Commercial (Masterpieces)
    URL: N/A
    VERSION: Release 17

    To say merely that Zork III represents a departure from the first two
    entries in the series is to understate the case. Though much in this
    game will be familiar to the experienced Infocom gamer, and though it
    resolves the series reasonably coherently, Zork III works on a
    thoroughly different premise from the first two -- and to the extent
    that it succeeds, it does because the player is willing to set aside
    expectations built up by Zorks I and II.

    This is not, of course, to say that Zork III is a letdown, or not an
    enjoyable game, but it is hardly enjoyable on the same terms as the
    other parts of the series. The humor, to take an obvious example, is
    subordinate to the story in Zork III and appears at odd moments,
    Easter eggs typical of Infocom's writing (listening to the guards in
    the museum is a good example, or reading the plaque in the Jewel Room
    after you solve the puzzle). But there is little humor in the
    storyline itself -- nothing, for example, along the lines of cakes
    that cause you to evaporate, or wizards casting spells like "Fudge,"
    or thieves making sardonic remarks, or a room that mocks mocks your
    your syntax syntax until until solved solved. There is one slightly
    jokey puzzle, true, but the game doesn't really play up the humorous
    aspect as it might; it is the resolution to a problem that is, like
    most of the game, thoroughly solemn. The main NPC of the game, when
    you encounter him toward the end, offers minimal interaction -- and it
    seems that, considering his identity, something amusing could have
    been coded in (I certainly never found anything). (No, the bugs
    involving what happens when he follows you around don't count.)

    Again, this is not to say that Zork III is humorless -- but the plot
    feels deadly serious and there is little of the comic in any vital
    element to the game. (Compare, for instance, the rainbow and bat
    puzzles in Zork I, or the lizard or Cerberus in Zork II.) The reasons
    for that are debatable, but my own feeling was that it was a product
    of the structure of the game; more on that in a moment.

    The writing reinforces the feel; most of the locations you visit are
    either on barren landscape or in abandoned rooms evocative of the
    decayed empire. Though the quality of writing is similar to that of
    Zork II, the mood created is different: where Zork II's images
    depicted a mysterious and slightly dangerous cave, with breathtaking
    views juxtaposed with cramped caverns, Zork III gives us gloom and
    emptiness. In a sense, though there are a few NPC interactions, no one
    is there; you are wandering around a region where no one is or has
    been for a while, and no one wants to be. For example:

            Land of Shadow

            You are standing atop a steep cliff, looking west over a vast
            ocean. Far below, the surf pounds at a sandy beach. To the
            south and east are rolling hills filled with eerie shadows. A
            path cut into the face of the cliff descends toward the
            beach. To the north is a tall stone wall, which ends at the
            cliff edge. It was obviously built long ago, and directly
            north is a spot where you could climb over the rubble of the
            decaying wall.

    Or:

            Scenic Vista

            You are in a small chamber carved in the rock, with the sole
            exit to the north. Mounted on one wall is a table labelled
            "Scenic Vista," whose featureless surface is angled toward
            you. One might believe that the table was used to indicate
            points of interest in the view from this spot, like those
            found in many parks. On the other hand, your surroundings are
            far from spacious and by no stretch of the imagination could
            this spot be considered scenic. An indicator above the table
            reads "IV".

            Mounted on one wall is a flaming torch, which fills the room
            with a flickering light.

    It is hard to put a label on the mood of Zork III -- "brooding,"
    perhaps, but that would make it more ominous than it is. If anything,
    it seems like a T.S. Eliot scene, with its barren landscapes and wisps
    of mist and enigmatic encounters with unidentified characters. (As I
    spent last winter in Scotland -- on the North Sea coast, even -- the
    Land of Shadow description above feels familiar indeed.) The adjective
    "gray" never appears, as far as I can tell, in any of the room
    descriptions in Zork III, and yet there is a grayness about the game
    environment that makes the feel of the game far more real, more
    coherent, than the other two, even if the scenes themselves are less
    picturesque than those of Zork II. The description of the clifftop
    captures the study in contrasts:

             Cliff

             This is a remarkable spot in the dungeon. Perhaps two hundred
             feet above you is a gaping hole in the earth's surface
             through which pours bright sunshine! A few seedlings from the
             world above, nurtured by the sunlight and occasional rains,
             have grown into giant trees, making this a virtual oasis in
             the desert of the Underground Empire. To the west is a sheer
             precipice, dropping nearly fifty feet to jagged rocks
             below. The way south is barred by a forbidding stone wall,
             crumbling from age. There is a jagged opening in the wall to
             the southwest, through which leaks a fine mist. The land to
             the east looks lifeless and barren.

    A vivid scene, indeed -- a glimpse of the life above ground in full
    awareness of the bleakness of the setting, and, implicitly, color
    contrasting with drabness, the look up toward the hole in the cavern
    balanced against the look down, over the cliff. There is much to
    appreciate in the writer's ability to accent the pertinent visual
    details.

    The plot -- well, thereby hangs a tale. Though, as in the first two
    entries, you discover what the plot is as you progress, you are given
    a sense in the prologue of what you are looking for, and it quickly
    becomes clear that no crystal tridents or golden statuettes are at
    issue this time around. The scoring system -- you have seven major
    tasks to perform and are given a point for each, though the game will
    be far from over when the seven tasks are done -- reflects the new
    approach. "Seek me when you feel yourself worthy!" proclaims the
    figure of the prologue, and prowess is not established by a propensity
    for gathering loot. It can be argued that the substitute makes little
    more sense, but my own reaction was that I was on the trail of
    something more interesting than another chunk of gold -- and Zork III
    does try as well, though not very successfully, to put a different
    face on the skillful adventurer. (Suffice it to say that your final
    encounter gives a touch of Matthew 25:31-46 to the rest of the game.)

    There is a tension here between the two sides of what you are
    accomplishing over the course of the game, and my own feeling was that
    it would have been a more interesting tension with more development of
    the second, more subjective angle, the element not measured by items
    acquired.  (As it is, there are still shades of the more
    tried-and-true scavenger-hunt approach, though the objects sought are
    different.) The outcomes in the museum and at the top of the cliff
    particularly play up how the player's assumptions must change -- in a
    sense, the central puzzles are those of a child presented with a
    cookie jar. It is certainly worth pondering how the nature of your
    escapade with the ring fits into the character-development angle --
    and it seems like the sword-in-the-stone angle might have been
    reworked to fit that idea better. To discuss the plot any more
    specifically would give away too much of the game, but whatever the
    failings of the storyline in Zork III, it does offer food for thought,
    and brings the would-be looter, fresh from amassing two games' worth
    of bounty, up short. (And the ultimate ending offers, in a sense, the
    ultimate twist.)

    The puzzles vary widely -- some are memorable, some are nothing
    special, and some are just irritating -- and there aren't many. There
    is one that there seems little possibility of guessing -- the player
    hits on it by chance if at all. One required series of actions is
    time-sensitive in a thoroughly nonobvious way; it is easy to lock
    yourself out of victory simply by waiting too long to settle a certain
    matter. The infamous Royal Puzzle is not the hardest puzzle in the
    game; once the player grasps the mechanics, it is a matter of careful
    planning more than anything else. But small slips can, again, lock one
    out of completing it (and there is disappointingly little payoff to
    solving it, other than survival).  Others -- the museum and viewing
    room puzzles, in particular -- are rather rewarding, though, and the
    latter even explains one of the odder red herrings from Zork II. And
    the mirror box, while it takes considerable mental aerobics to picture
    and use properly, is one of the more intriguing Infocom contraptions;
    mastering its more complicated purpose without help is no small
    feat. I found the last puzzle a bit unfair -- I learned later that a
    clue to it appeared where no clue had been before, but, silly me, I
    didn't think to check. But the novice should be warned that a few of
    Zork III's puzzles are difficult indeed, and require some trial and
    error -- considerable, actually -- to solve.

    There are many small things to enjoy along the course of Zork III,
    including the obligatory bits of self-reference; like Infocom or hate
    it, it certainly did come up with novel ways to plug upcoming games,
    and the advertisement for Enchanter in Zork III is no exception
    (though it's something of a bitter taste). Some of the problems
    involve Zork in-jokes of sorts, humor appreciable mainly for its
    cumulative effects through the first two games -- at the ocean and
    south of the lake, in particular, and upon examining the plaque in the
    Jewel Room. And there are genuinely riveting moments, in particular
    your last glimpse of the hooded figure from the Land of Shadow and
    your encounter, successful or not, with the Guardians of Zork. A game
    as skillfully written as Zork III need not describe every room
    elaborately, simply because the more lengthy descriptions are more
    than adequate to set the scene in the player's mind; I know I could
    picture the hallway of the Guardians of Zork vividly, though the room
    descriptions were fairly cursory. Though the gameplay is sometimes
    clumsy -- at one point, "enter the flaming pit" elicits "You hit your
    head against the flaming pit as you attempt this feat", and "climb
    wall" yields "There's no tree here suitable for climbing" -- the
    parser is usually strong enough to smooth things over.

    To appreciate Zork III, I think, the player needs to appreciate what
    the game authors were setting out to do -- and it was not simply to
    end the series, because a final spectacular treasure hunt would have
    done that perfectly well. To have solved Zork III is to have looked
    critically at some of the cliches of the fantasy genre, some obvious
    -- the treasure element -- but some less so, such as the expectation
    of spectacular or striking locations. By setting much of the game on
    what could be an English moor or heath -- the Crystal Grotto is a
    somewhat jarring exception -- or an American plain and mountainside,
    the designers subvert those expectations and make your quest, if
    anything, prosaic -- at least, prosaic relative to the expectations of
    the genre. The many locations that are not significant for any puzzle
    reinforce the same effect, as do details like "The ground here is
    quite hard, but a few sickly reeds manage to grow near the water's
    edge." There are few mighty deeds in Zork III -- no dragon to slay or
    gates of Hades to enter; instead, the puzzles involve cleverness or
    survival, and using fairly conventional tools to achieve your
    ends. Perhaps most interestingly, there is minimal magic in Zork III,
    and you have minimal control over anything magical; logic and
    mechanics are at issue in the puzzles.

    Certainly, not everything about the game is fresh -- the overarching
    plot is not, after all, especially original -- but the experience of
    playing the game yields something unfamiliar to the fantasy
    enthusiast. In a sense, the nature of the world of Zork III brings the
    person sitting at the keyboard into the game in a way that the Zork II
    player was not likely to feel, unless he or she was used to
    encountering wizards and unicorns.

    In the end, the success of Zork III depends on how open the player is to
    the game's peculiarities. The game is less fun in the most obvious sense
    than its two predecessors; it indulges in fewer amusing antics and has
    fewer rewarding things to do. But it ties up the series in a way that more
    of the same would not have; it marks the end of a process that had been
    hinted at in Zork II, a process whereby the player's interests and
    priorities change, and there is more impetus to see and understand than
    simply to secure what is valuable and bolt. The ending provides a certain
    perspective on the adventurer that was, particularly in light of the
    ending of Zork Zero, and the endgame -- centered around prison cells -- is
    appropriately down-to-earth for the feel of Zork III. There are many good
    things about Zork III, in the end, and perhaps the best of them is that,
    in most respects, it goes against the fantasy-game grain.

    Solution (Text)

    The Zork Trilogy
    From: Molley the Mage <mollems SP@G WKUVX1.WKU.EDU>
    Review appeared in SPAG #2 -- September 26, 1994

    NAME: The Zork Trilogy                  PARSER: Early Infocom
    AUTHOR: Infocom                         PLOT: Item Collection
    ATMOSPHERE: Coherent and rich           AVAILABILITY: LTOI 1
    WRITING: Solid                          PUZZLES: Varies, usually good
    SUPPORTS: Infocom ports                 CHARACTERS: Memorable, but simple
    DIFFICULTY: Standard for all three (5 out of 10), but Zork III hardest
    EMAIL: ???

    Ah, the Zork Trilogy.  Basically chopped-up components of the Dungeon game
    which was so popular at MIT, these were the games that launched Infocom to
    its evenutal fame and fortune.  Based more or less on the concepts put
    forth by the original Adventure game, the Zork trilogy games are mostly an
    exercise in collection of "treasure" items and solving more or less
    unrelated puzzles.  Zork I is a particularly good example of this, where
    the player is apparently looting for looting's own sake, while Zork II sets
    the collection of treasures up as part of the plot (although you must
    discover this for yourself; at first, you are merely collecting them
    because you get points for having each one).  Zork III changes from
    collection of "treasures" to collection of related items which taken
    together serve as a complete set of "Dungeon Mastering" equipment.  But in
    all three of the games, the puzzles surrounding these items (while for the
    most part well-written, logical, and fun to solve) are basically unrelated
    to one another or to the story as a whole.  The disparate elements are
    loosely glued together by the concept of the "Great Underground Empire"
    wherein all three games are set, but beyond that there is no real
    connection (and thus the games become rather non-linear in places, which is
    a good thing in this reviewer's opinion, but for the wrong reasons!)

    In Zork I, you play an adventurer who seemingly stumbles upon the ruins of
    the Great Underground Empire in the basement of an abandoned white house.
    You immediately set about gathering the Twenty Treasures of Zork, and put
    them in your trophy case for safekeeping.  Along the way, you'll deal with
    a nasty troll, a particularly nasty thief, and a maze (blech).

    Zork II casts you as this same adventurer, continuing his explorations into
    the GUE (as detailed at the end of Zork I).  This time, however, you find
    yourself in the realm of the crafty and capricious Wizard of Frobozz, whose
    magic seldom works exactly as he intends it to but always causes you a
    hassle or two.  Freeing yourself from his domain and taking his power for
    your own is the goal of this one, though it's really just another "collect
    the treasures" exercise with the worst puzzle in Infocom history thrown in
    for good measure (the baseball diamond one, for those who know).

    Zork III ends the tale of your exploits, as you find yourself confronted by
    the mysterious being known as the Dungeon Master.  This game is the worst
    of the lot, and should be played more for the sake of completeness than
    anything else.  The ending will be apparent long before you get there, and
    it's not particuarly fun getting there either because of some very stupid
    random elements to the puzzles which require proper timing (but give no
    warning to the player that this is the case).  This game experiments with a
    strange scoring system unlike any other Infocom game -- 7 points, one for
    each of the "major" actions you must complete (which does not include
    actually winning, I might add).  Much shorter than the other two, this game
    seems more like an afterthought than a conclusion.

    At any rate, in comparison with Infocom's later works, the Zork Trilogy are
    on a much lower level.  However, they are enjoyable games each in their own
    right, (though Zork III stretches it right to the limit!) and should be
    played by any fan of interactive fiction.  Don't expect detailed plot,
    however; it simply isn't there.  These games, however, form an important
    part of the base upon which today's IF is built, and therefore are entitled
    to a bit of easy treatment.  As the first truly "commercial"  IF played by
    any significant number of people, the Zork games are a major milestone in
    the history of IF -- and they are fun, taken at face value.  If you can get
    them in the original packaging, do so -- the GUE materials are worth the
    price of admission alone.  If not, however, they are part of the Lost
    Treasures of Infocom pacakge.  Highly recommended for play by everyone who
    wants to know where IF in general and Infocom in particular got going.

    Zork: A Troll's Eye View
    From: Bonnie Montgomery <bkm SP@G pobox.com>
    Review appeared in SPAG #14 -- May 17, 1998

    NAME: Zork: A Troll's Eye View (An Interactive Tedium)
    AUTHOR: Dylan O'Donnell
    EMAIL: dylanw SP@G demon.net
    DATE: January 1997
    PARSER: Inform
    SUPPORTS: Inform ports
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (IF Archive)
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/inform/troll.z5
    VERSION: Release 2

    I must say I had my doubts about this game during the first few turns.
    The player character is a workaday troll toiling in the underground
    world of Zork, unable to leave his post and with only his bloody axe for
    company. I worried that perhaps the tedium aspect was the only comment
    Dylan wished to make about a troll's work. When the first adventurer
    appeared in the room but then retreated, I really thought there might
    not be anything more to the game. Then out of nowhere, another
    adventurer appeared and unsportingly killed me! I had to have revenge! I
    stuck around for the next 100 turns until I killed and was killed at
    least a dozen times. Sated, I quit.

    If I had stuck to my post for a couple dozen more turns, my shift would
    have ended, reported Dylan. I played the game again and was gratified to
    receive my paycheck. The game rewards you with extra commands to use in
    a replay, including how to cut down on the tedium and maximize the
    combat.

    This game is a good example of how an author can set clear limits for a
    small game and satisfy the player within those boundaries. Just about
    every possible action is rewarded with a response in this one-location
    game.  Several classic Zork commands are supported. Responses vary
    depending on whether you are on guard or in combat. While the combat
    text is not original (it is taken from the Dungeon source), it
    highlights the spurting blood aspects of Zork's sword and axe play.

    Shameful confession: I wrote to Dylan praising his text in the combat
    scenes and received his reply that the text was not his own. I have
    never gotten very far playing Zork or its progenitors. Dylan explained
    the retreating adventurer I had first encountered: "The adventurers that
    don't stop are the ones that didn't get the sword from the Living Room,
    spot a big nasty monster and think, 'Oops. Maybe I'd better try a
    different route'; they're back as soon as they find the chimney up and
    come back round with the sword." I was the kind of adventurer who fooled
    around a bit, got bored, and quit before ever meeting a troll in
    battle.  Maybe it's time to go back and try again.

    Zork: A Troll's Eye View is billed as a coding exercise by its author,
    but I think it serves another useful purpose. Give it to your friends
    who might like IF, but who might also find the full-scale Zork daunting.
    Whet their appetites with this game, and you may have a new convert to
    interactive fiction.

    Inform file (.z5)

    Zork: The Undiscovered Underground
    From: Duncan Stevens a.k.a. Second April <dns361 SP@G merle.acns.nwu.edu>
    Review appeared in SPAG #14 -- May 17, 1998

    NAME: Zork Undiscovered Underground
    AUTHORS: Marc Blank, Mike Berlyn, G. Kevin Wilson
    E-MAIL: Dunno, dunno, gkw SP@G pobox.com
    DATE: 1997
    PARSER: Inform
    SUPPORTS: Available either as .z5 file or as executable for DOS
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware from Activision
    URL: http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Download/
    VERSION: Release 16

    PLOT: Not much (1.0)             ATMOSPHERE: Effective (1.4)
    WRITING: Solid (1.3)            GAMEPLAY: Quite good (1.5)
    PUZZLES: Not too hard (1.3)     CHARACTERS: Few (1.2)
    MISC: Effective, though not really much as teaser (1.3)
    OVERALL: 6.5

    Short but entertaining, Zork: The Undiscovered Underground is the
    first Zork text adventure to be produced under the auspices of Infocom
    since 1987's Zork Zero. Changes in the entertainment world since then
    mean that the text game that couldn't exist as a marketable product in
    its own right (or so believes Activision) was produced for the sake of
    the graphic game Zork: Grand Inquisitor, as a teaser/prequel. While I
    can't comment on the worth of ZGI, I do think there's more than enough
    in ZTUU to make it an enjoyable game, with or without the larger game,
    and the whole thing feels appropriately Zorklike.

    That it should, as it happens, because the writing comes courtesy of
    original Implementors Marc Blank and Mike Berlyn, while our own (the
    IF community's, that is) G. Kevin Wilson did the programming, in
    Inform. The mechanics of the collaboration aren't clear--to me,
    anyway--but it's skillfully done: there are very few slips that I can
    see 'twixt writing and programming (a room description beginning "As
    you step through the door...", for example). The game is awash in
    references to Zorks of old--there are 69,105 seats in a theater, you
    carry an "ersatz-Elvish sword of no antiquity whatsoever"--and there
    are several responses that mimic the original trilogy (notably, ZORK
    still yields "At your service"), though I missed the variety of snappy
    retorts to JUMP. (YELL, unaccountably, yielded nothing at all. I
    thought that was in one of the Inform libraries.) At any rate, ZTUU
    also reproduces the atmosphere of the earlier games: the setting is an
    abandoned "cultural complex" with plenty of details about the Flathead
    influence (there is a backstage scrim for Uncle Flathead's Cabin), and
    plenty of funny self-reference. The game is set after the fall of the
    Empire and the end of the Age of Magic (the Age of Science is now
    underway)--the year is 1066--and the sense of rediscovering the
    crumbling underground world is just as strong as in the originals: the
    game strives more for Zork II-style silliness than Zork III-style
    desolation, but there is some of both, for example in the "fifty-story
    triumphal arch" leading into the ruined theater.

    The puzzles are few and not particularly hard, with the exception of
    one toward the end that requires some intuition (though there's an odd
    parallel with one of this past year's competition entries.) The main
    problem is that the whole thing is a little directionless--your
    initial instruction is to "explore, enjoy yourself, and bring back
    news," though the objective soon becomes getting out. But you don't
    plan your escape so much as solve a series of puzzles, the last of
    which happens to give you a rather unlikely escape route (clued, but
    not in a way that most would guess). This isn't a huge setback--after
    all, it's consistent with the "go-wander-around" feel of Zorks I and
    II--but given that the game never really goes anywhere, plot-wise,
    it's a little odd to consider this a "teaser." It certainly didn't
    tease me into buying ZGI (though that was probably inevitable, since
    it would require that I buy a new computer as well), nor could it,
    really, since there are no cliffhangers, nothing intriguing that won't
    be resolved until the later game. (I was expecting ZTUU to leave me in
    some perilous place, or afford me a glimpse of something tantalizing.)

    The most interesting element of ZTUU, to my mind, was what it
    indicated about Activision's view on the continuing IF community. The
    amount and variety of references to the older text games--and the
    simple fact that it was produced in Inform by a member of that
    community--suggested to me that any promotional effect this might have
    for the graphic-adventure crowd was incidental: the point was to hype
    ZGI to the die-hard text fans (though, again, I'm afraid it didn't do
    that well). After all, those most comfortable with point-and-click
    wouldn't be likely to catch on to the parser quickly enough to make
    the game worthwhile. (Reinforcing that, when the Implementors make
    their obligatory appearance: one of them recalls the "virtues of ZIL,
    but offers the opinion that a faster compiler would have been nice."
    Cute, and obviously directed to the latter-day programming
    crowd. Blank and Berlyn have their fun with the project: the room
    where you find the busts of the Implementors goes on at some length
    about the "Golden Age of Text Adventures," and then notes that "it is
    clear that an attempt was made to commercialize what remains, for now,
    above the busts, is a sign reading, 'Consult the Oracles - 10
    Zorkmids.'")

    It is worth wondering, though: if the attention of the latter-day
    text-IF community is important enough for Activision to produce
    freeware as promotion, even short freeware, might the company secure
    the services of Blank and Berlyn for a full-length commercial text
    game again? (I know I'd buy it.) Alas, probably not, for a few
    reasons. For one thing, piracy would be too easy--data files for text
    games are small enough to transfer here and there quickly, and copy
    protection in the old Infocom style could be easily duplicated. (As
    far as I can tell, the existing community has been reasonably honest
    about not giving away copy-protection secrets even for the
    Masterpieces games, but that's not exactly something that Activision
    can bank on.) More importantly, it's not clear that the market is big
    enough to make such a project worthwhile--spending some extra money on
    a game likely to make plenty from the graphics crowd is one thing,
    relying on text-gamers to make a game profitable on their own is
    another. Finally, the sheer size of the free- and shareware IF market
    would probably discourage anyone from trying to market a new
    commercial game, since text fans don't really need any one new game
    for a fix (and those who have exhausted the resources of the GMD
    archive are probably few). It'd be nice if there were a way to
    convince Activision that enough of us would buy a new text Zork entry
    to make it profitable, but I'm afraid it probably ain't so. (And
    yet...if there were another freeware teaser that actually worked as a
    teaser, except leading to a larger _text_ game...well, one wonders.)

    At any rate, though there isn't a lot there, ZTUU is a charming return
    to the Zork universe in text form: those who appreciated the humor
    then are sure to enjoy it even more now. With more to do and more of a
    plot, further text offerings from Activision might even be
    commercially viable.

    Inform .z5 file, readme, and InvisiClues (.zip)

    Map in GUEmap format (.zip)

    Walkthrough and map (.zip)

    Zugzwang
    From: Stas Starkov <stas_ SP@G mail.rb.ru>
    Review appeared in SPAG #25 -- June 20, 2001

    [This review popped up in my mailbox on April 1st, and while I've edited
    the language, I've made no effort to fact-check the contents. Make of it
    what you will... --Paul]

    NAME: Zugzwang - The Interactive Life of a Chess Piece
    AUTHOR: Magnus Olsson
    EMAIL: zebulon SP@G pobox.com
    DATE: 1999
    PARSER: Inform Standard
    SUPPORTS: Z-code (Infocom/Inform) interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/zugzwang.zip
    VERSION: Release 2

    If you don't know what the term 'zugzwang' means, I don't want to spoil
    your fun of playing the game. But if you're one of those several
    geniuses who play chess sometimes, you already know what it means. Yes,
    this game is about chess. I'll tell you more -- this game is a sort of
    chess simulation. You yourself are a chess piece -- imagine this. But
    this is not so bad as it sounds -- in the beginning you're only a Pawn
    (the least powerful piece in chess). And if you're smart and bold (you
    must be very bold or, umm, very bald -- I'm not sure) you will really
    win. Your moves can bring peace and order on the chess fields.
    Incredible responsibility lies on your weak (in the beginning) shoulders
    -- it is up to you to save the entire world. 'Zugzwang' features many
    never-before-seen aspects of RPG (role-playing games) and RTS (real-time
    strategy). There are about ten big battle fields, and hundreds of types
    of armor and weapons. The deepest depth of NPC implementation that the
    IF world has ever seen would be enough already to earn Zugzwang the
    honor of most intellectual game in GMD. But it must not distract you
    from the game: 'Zugzwang' features a floating level of difficulty; that
    is, the game observes your playing skill and if you're good, the
    difficulty rises and vice versa. The AI (Artificial Intelligence) never
    lets you stay bored.

    There are some bad things about game itself: if you own a quite small
    computer screen you can't enjoy the beautiful almost-3D graphics. But if
    you have a good fast 3D accelerator (like Voodoo 5 or GeForce 256 -- I
    have both) and a really fast computer you'll experience the full quality
    of this technically high-end game. But if you want more, a good
    expensive sound system will help, as well your favorite joystick. This
    game compelled me to buy a professional sound card, and I don't think
    that my money was lost. And there is this unique feature: 'Zugzwang'
    supports VR-helmets of six types. But most important, this game is
    compatible with almost every computer system (Windows 2000, Linux, Mac
    etc., etc.).

    You must know that this particular game is only a demo. To receive the
    full story of 'The Interactive Life of a Chess Piece' you must register.
    And I can say that it is worth your money. The full version comes on
    _two_ DVDs or on _twelve_ CDs. "But what is the special offer mentioned
    in the demo game?" you can ask. It is source code for the _entire_ game,
    which means that you yourself can create a game that you can sell after
    that. Yes, sell -- and get really big money for several hours work. This
    game is really good from the standpoint of creating your own version.
    And, of course, even the demo version supports multiplayer mode via the
    Internet.

    This game is the apotheosis of the text adventure. You _must_ play at
    least a demo. But I'm sure that after the very beautiful, stunning, mind
    bending climax, for the next several hours you'll only be able to do one
    thing: reminisce over the greatest moments of the game. And after that
    you'll smash your piggy bank and order the full registered version of
    'Zugzwang'.

    One last thing that I absolutely must say -- this game is fully
    compatible with RAIF-POOL. And if you're not a beginner in IF, that will
    definitely mean something to you.

    Textfire 12-pack containing original version (.zip)

    Inform .z5 file and source code

    Zuni Doll
    From: Duncan Stevens a.k.a. Second April <dns361 SP@G merle.acns.nwu.edu>
    Review appeared in SPAG #14 -- May 17, 1998

    NAME: Zuni Doll
    AUTHOR: Jesse Burneko
    E-MAIL: burnekoj SP@G cs.lafayette.edu
    DATE: 1998
    PARSER: Inform
    SUPPORTS: Inform interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (IF Archive)
    URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/infocom/doll.z5
    VERSION: Release 1

    PLOT: Conventional horror-film (1.1)    ATMOSPHERE: Uneven (1.1)
    WRITING: Sometimes good (1.0)       GAMEPLAY: Weak (0.8)
    PUZZLES: Illogical in places (0.9)  CHARACTERS: Entertaining (1.2)
    MISC: Promising beginning, not sustained (1.0)
    OVERALL: 5.0

    Zuni Doll bills itself as an "interactive horror story," and its setup
    faithfully recalls horror movies: you, the unsuspecting schlump, have
    bought a doll associated with a strange legend involving homicidal
    tendencies held at bay by magic, and the setup ends with an indication
    that the magic has been disabled. What follows is predictable but
    entertaining, to a point: you are attacked by the bloodthirsty
    foot-high doll and devise various clever means of saving your skin. If
    you haven't seen "Child's Play," no need to rent it: Zuni Doll has
    roughly the same idea.

    Zuni Doll benefits, to some extent, from appearing at a time when
    horror movies are in scant supply (well, they're still in video
    stores, but they don't get released much)--and to the extent they
    appear, they have to make fun of the genre, as in Scream. (Admittedly,
    this isn't a horror buff writing, but I'm gonna generalize anyway.) If
    it were the mid-'80s, Zuni Doll wouldn't feel remarkable, since the
    player could get the same idea far more vividly on screen--but in
    1998, there's a nostalgia to playing a game that tries to reproduce
    that feel. And Zuni Doll is successful to some measure: the setup is
    appropriately ominous, the contrived circumstances that loose the doll
    on you just plausible enough to feel real, and several of the
    confrontations (particularly when the doll is hacking its way through
    a door) genuinely suspenseful even if improbable.

    Unfortunately, implementation problems weigh the game down
    considerably. A certain device that you throw together to thwart the
    doll defies both logic and reasonable syntax--I was forced to resort
    to the walkthrough.  (Actions that aren't on the author's mind get
    "This dangerous act would achieve little," as if danger were a primary
    consideration with a homicidal doll on the loose.) At several points,
    hitting the doll elicits "That would be less than courteous,"
    hilarious enough (Graham probably didn't have this sort of thing in
    mind when he wrote Inform's default responses) but not helpful for the
    overall feel of the game, shall we say.  And after a certain point in
    the game, the suspense more or less disappears, and you can take as
    long as you like to dispose of the doll.  That, unfortunately,
    subverts the desperate feel of the earlier scenes--you're out of
    danger, and you needn't make every move count--and thereby loses the
    aura of the horror movie. Grammar problems and some improbable
    coincidences don't help. And, if I may say so, the author humanizes
    the doll just a bit too much, in that it seems to acknowledge pain and
    takes time to lick its wounds, so to speak--wouldn't a villain intent
    only on killing be a little more scary ("it's STILL COMING!")?

    There are, to be sure, many things that Zuni Doll does well, and the
    author seems to be familiar enough with the conventions of horror that
    another attempt might be quite successful. Notably, the MacGyver-esque
    feel of turning ordinary household objects into weapons or shields is
    well rendered and often very funny, and the ultimate resolution is
    satisfying.  The game builds tension well, in the prologue and when
    the doll is hacking through the door, though the game might have
    benefited by even more of it (after all, the scariest bits in movies
    of this ilk are always when the bad guy is lurking somewhere, not when
    he's on screen)--perhaps an extended buildup, with ominous noises and
    such? Also, there are some fairly clever puzzles, though making time
    to figure them out slows the game down--my feeling is that the author
    should either keep the puzzles or the horror-movie feel, but not try
    to do both.

    This is a nice effort that needs some work, in short. If it breaks new
    ground in IF--I can't think of any slasher games as such--it should be
    noted as such; perhaps it might lead to more polished efforts. As it
    stands, it recaptures the feel of horror movies only in fits and
    starts.

    Inform file (.z5)

    Solution (Text)

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