Zork: The Great Underground Empire

Description

Zork: The Great Underground Empire is a classic text adventure game. The player begins as an "adventurer" standing near a white house in a nice forest, but soon descends into the Great Underground Empire, where most of the game takes place. The player's quest is to collect the Nineteen Treasures of Zork.

As was typical for adventure games of its era, Zork does not use graphics. Instead, it communicates with the player via text, and the player interacts with the game by typing commands, such as "examine mailbox" or "take torch". For movement, the player types in geographical directions (such as "north" or "east" - or just "n" and "e"), and can check what items are being carried with the "inventory" command (or just "i").

The game was ported over from mainframes in the late 1970s, and is one of the first examples of its genre.

Alternate Titles

• "Zork: The Great Underground Empire - Part I" -- Alternative Apple II media title
• "Zork I: The Great Underground Empire" -- Re-release title
• "Zork I: Le Grand Empire des Ténèbres" -- Canadian (French) title
• "Zork I" -- Renamed title (after second and third Zork games were released)
• "Zork" -- Personal Software published name

Part of the Following Groups

• Games made into books
• Zork universe

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User Reviews

Zork?!? Zork What? Zork you too, pal.	DOS	rs2000 (15)
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a great game here.	DOS	Steelysama (106)
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.	DOS	vedder (17925)
The most eclectic and interesting of the series	DOS	Colin Rowsell (45)
A great introduction to interactive fiction.	DOS	Mirrorshades2k (276)
The one that stated it all for Infocom	DOS	Tony Van (2692)

The Press Says

Adventure Classic Gaming	DOS	May 10, 1998	5 out of 5	100
Techtite	DOS	2000		100
Quandary	DOS	Jul, 1996		100
Retrogaming.it	Apple II	May, 2008	9 out of 10	90
Amiga Action	Amiga	Jan, 1991	83 out of 100	83
PC Player (Germany)	DOS	Aug, 1994	78 out of 100	78
SPAG	DOS	Dec 13, 1997	6.1 out of 10	61

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
Be honest about Zork	13	Indra was here (14332) Oct 23, 2007
You are likely to be eaten ...	5	hydra9 (3855) Sep 16, 2007

Trivia

There is a location in the game called "Aragain Falls."

Spell ARAGAIN backwards, and you'll see something more familiar.