Zyll
Description official description
A young man named Zyll, who lived in the Land of Magic and Enchantment, tried to become a black mage, with the intent of conquering and ruling the entire realm. However, he was banished before he could realize his plans. Determined to have his revenge, Zyll took possession of the Black Orb, an ancient artifact of immense power...
The gameplay of Zyll follows a unique concept - it is a real-time, 1 or 2-player (cooperative or competitive) text adventure, with random treasure placement and character classes. Find the Black Orb and return to save your home from becoming a barren wasteland.
Screenshots
Credits (PC Booter version)
| Programming |
Reviews
Players
Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 11 ratings with 4 reviews)
A unique interactive fiction concept that hasn't yet been duplicated.
The Good
Zyll is all things to all adventure gamers. That sounds like a cliche, but it's the honest truth:
- It's interactive fiction because it's completely textual with verbose descriptions
- It's a role-playing game because you can define your character's attributes before you play
- It's got infinite replayability because the items and monsters are in different locations in every new game you start
- It's multiplayer--in realtime!
It's unreal and I can't believe it hasn't been duplicated before or since on home computers. It was a MUD before MUDs existed.
The Bad
Once you've completed the game, you have a basic idea of how to win each time. This is true of all games, but Zyll could've extended replayability a bit more by rearranging the locations and/or landmarks each time.
The Bottom Line
Zyll is such a unique concept that everyone should try it at least once.
PC Booter · by Trixter (8952) · 1999
One of the great-grandfathers in the IF / RPG series. You MUST play this game!
The Good
Very much ahead of it's time. It incorporated real-time events (walking through a doorway or down a hall went much quicker than walking along a path in a wide open field), multiplayer support (cooperative or competitive), and it was random enough to be replayed again and again.
The Bad
The actions are executed by single keystrokes. Player 2's menu is fine, but player 1's menu is designed for the older keyboards, with the F1-F10 keys down the left hand side. This takes some getting used to for playing on today's keyboards with the function keys along the top.
The Bottom Line
This game is great to play by yourself or with another person (or even with a group of people). Lots of fun exploring, and great room descriptions. One I've come back to again and again.
PC Booter · by Mirrorshades2k (274) · 2000
A fun game to write and to play!
The Good
I found your website recently and thought I would join.
Marshal Linder and I wrote this game back in 1984 while working for IBM. We wrote it during off hours and submitted through the employee submissions program. From what I recall, it was one of only seven games accepted by IBM. We had a blast during those days!
The Bad
Having to keep the core program under 64K in order to fit into the PC Jr's memory. Those were the days ...
The Bottom Line
A game ahead of it's time. Now it's an oldie but goldie for some! 8)
PC Booter · by Scott Edwards (2) · 2003
Trivia
If you take the boat from the catacombs up to the flowing river and go north, the game freaks out and quits. (Mike Uhrich)
<hr />Cracking notes: "I liked the encryption, with the 16-bit key that's modified using the previous word decrypted... Makes it impossible to modify anything without re-crypting the whole damn thing. I also liked the detail that they wrote the (c) string backwards... :) If more people had done this, we would have much less 'The Hermit presents...'". (Demonlord)
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Related Sites +
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The Zyll Shrine
The only Zyll shrine in existance (and really cool).
Identifiers +
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Trixter.
Game added March 1, 1999. Last modified August 13, 2023.