Zork 1-3 going open source

[overgeeked]

Very cool.

 

[Nikosandros]

Does this affect the content within Zork? Could I make a Zork-based tabletop RPG? Or is it strictly about the underlying code?

It seems to be explicitly only about the code:

This release focuses purely on the code itself. It does not include commercial packaging or marketing materials, and it does not grant rights to any trademarks or brands, which remain with their respective owners. All assets outside the scope of these titles’ source code are intentionally excluded to preserve historical accuracy.

This is a bit unfortunate, IMHO. Do they really have plans to commercially use the Zork IP?

 

[Jahydin]

Neat!

Never got to play them, but love text adventures, so always wanted to give them a shot.

 

[Flying Toaster]

I have great memories of many hours playing these three games on Apple IIe computers with green screens in the school computer lab (after school activity) and on our home PC clone with its amber screen (exotic!). Some of the puzzles were that special kind of “how in the world was anyone supposed to figure that out?” so common in computer games of that era. One of my school friends tried to shame me for using hint books (remember those?), but I did not feel any obligation to waste time solving aggressively random puzzles the “right” way.

I think the Great Underground Empire was a pretty evocative setting that could be very useful for an old school dungeon crawl style of TTRPG, particularly if a slightly light-hearted tone is desired. Start with an ordinary dwelling and a secret entrance to a natural subterranean cavern system, expand with additional worked stone chambers, then add lots of tricks, traps, puzzles, gadgets, and mechanisms. Sprinkle in lots of clues that clever PCs can use to solve problems.

The GUE had relatively little lore or backstory to work with in the original trilogy of games, but that leaves the GM free to develop the history as they see fit. I imagine Gnomes or Dwarves who developed an underground empire by using advanced tunneling and clockwork mechanisms to master the subterranean environment, before succumbing to forces unknown. PCs could explore the area, hunt for treasure, and gather clues in order to learn what happened. Perhaps grues are not the only things lurking in the darkness. Perhaps there are some who would restore the Empire to its former glory...

 

[Jahydin]

I'm surprised that it is still so well known too. For my Senior Project, I assembled a small screen to a development board and programmed a dungeon crawl that was static images with text prompts at the bottom. One young student was playing around with it and said, "It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.", a reference I didn't get at the time, but his friends sure did!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The GUE had relatively little lore or backstory to work with in the original trilogy of games, but that leaves the GM free to develop the history as they see fit.

The lore eventually gets pretty deep over time, as the Zork series is long and multiple other Infocom games were set in the same setting. It always has the kind of woolly old school D&D campaign setting feel, as some of it is just silly, while other parts feel extremely serious (while still resting on fundamentally silly ideas).