Zork

Zork: The Great Underground Empire - the 1981 interactive fiction
adventure for Commodore 64 from Infocom.

Explore the ruins of the Great Underground Empire, solving puzzles and
collecting treasures while avoiding traps, thieves, and lurking grues.

Core loop
- explore text-described rooms using typed commands
- collect treasures and return them to the trophy case
- solve environmental puzzles through logic and experimentation
- survive encounters by observation rather than combat

Systems and items
- text parser - accepts complex commands like “PUT LAMP IN BASKET”
- inventory - manage light sources, keys, and special artifacts
- save and restore - preserve progress before risky actions
- scoring - points awarded for treasures and discoveries

Level design and feel
A vast, interconnected cave system mixing humor, danger, and logic.
Infocom’s smart prose and dynamic responses make the world feel alive.
The tone balances mystery with sly parody of adventure clichés.

Why it is notable
- one of the first major text adventures on home computers
- launched Infocom’s legendary line of interactive fiction
- originally based on the mainframe “Dungeon” at MIT in the 1970s

Tips
- keep your lantern charged—darkness means instant death by grues
- drop excess items to stay under the inventory limit
- map every passage; some mazes twist with one-way connections

At a glance
Year - 1981
Developer - Infocom
Design and programming - Tim Anderson - Marc Blank - Bruce Daniels - Dave Lebling
Publisher - Infocom
Genre - Interactive fiction
Players - 1
Controls - Keyboard