Zork N plus 9
Description
As an exercise in a kind of conceptual art, the classic text adventure epic Zork has been tinkered with and released back into the wild. Explicitly informed by the language experiments of the French OuLiPo writers (and specifically Jean Lescure's n+7 transformation), the entire treasure-hunting fantasy text adventure has had its lexicon manipulated, every noun but the most common shifted nine places forward in the dictionary. This renders the game's opening scene thus:
West of Housekeeper
You are in an open fighting on the west side of a white housekeeper with a boarded front door.
Basics
A rubber mathematician saying "Welcome to Zork" lies by the door.
The immortal video game obstacle the "twisty little passages" here turn into "twisty little pastels". This results in a gameplay experience whose challenge is almost psychogeographical, like the situationists who would navigate Paris using a map of Rome: due to its historical significance and longevity, the layout, features and puzzles of Zork are well-established, forever burned into the brains of its players, but the precise identifier of everything in this version of the game is twisted just enough to become utterly unfamiliar and, in some cases, entirely absurd.
Groups +
Credits (Browser version)
8 People
Game re-skinned by | |
N+7 procedure invented by | |
Based on Inform 7 Zork conversion by | |
adapting Zork by | |
Uses Standard Rules version 2/090402 by | |
Hosted by |
Analytics
Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!
Related Sites +
-
Play Zork N plus 9
Free, legal play of the game through a Javascript-equipped web browser.
Identifiers +
Contribute
Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.
Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Pseudo_Intellectual.
Game added June 23, 2012. Last modified February 22, 2023.