History VideoGame / ZorkGrandInquisitor

* FeaturelessProtagonist: [[Administrivia/RenamedTropes Former]] TropeNamer: It was once called AFGNCAAP.

* CuttingTheKnot: [[spoiler:That cage surrounded by chessboards? All you have to do is smash it with a wooden plank.]]

* FeaturelessProtagonist: [[Administrivia/RenamedTropes Former]] TropeNamer: it was once called AFGNCAAP.

** If you listen carefully to all the instructions on the Hades Shuttle Courtesy Phone, you can figure out which sequence of buttons get a shuttle dispatched. It's a lot easier, however, to just [[spoiler:cast Kendall, the "Simplify Instructions" spell.]]

* BigNo: This is Dalboz's reaction to [[NoSnackForYou some candy getting stuck in an uncooperative vending machine]].

* BigNo: Over an uncooperative vending machine.

* SchmuckBait: A sign near the entrance to GUE Tech warns the player not to Throck the grass. [[spoiler:Do it anyway and the grass will eat you.]]

* {{Hypocrite}}: After running his entire regime persecuting and stamping down magic in favor of technology, the Grand Inquisitor succumbs to the temptation of the Coconut of Quendor's magic. [[spoiler:This gets him killed if you don't cast Maxov. On the other hand things don't go so well for him when you do, either.]]

* HaveANiceDeath: Dying, being totemized or otherwise permanently messing up your quest results in a text scroll describing the aftermath of your last action. Falling down a bottomless pit, for example, leads to the computer describing how you fell for so long you died of old age. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI5K5PuVvUM Here is a video showing all deaths]].

* SpiderSense: Dalboz and your [[TheLordOfTheRings glowing sword]].

* {{Hypocrite}}: After running his entire regime persecuting and stamping down magic in favor of technology, the Grand Inquisitor succumbs to the temptation of the Coconut of Quendor's magic. [[spoiler:This gets him killed if you don't cast Maxov.]]

* EvilIsHammy: Being the inquisitor means never having to say you're subtle.

* GroinAttack: Antharia Jack is on the receiving end of one in an early cutscene. What, [[TooDumbToLive he didn't expect the guys seeming him to his execution to retaliate when he punched one in the face]]?

** Scenes from ''[[VideoGame/ZorkNemesis Zork: Nemesis]]'' appear as images on the pillars puzzle at G.U.E. Tech, and there's a reference to Thaddium on the soda machine [[spoiler:(appropriately enough, the time-delayed explosive item shares some similarity with the Irondune breakout puzzle in ''Nemesis'')]].

** If you cast Kendall on the instructions for Double Fannuci found in a student's locker, the result is a single sentence: [[Film/WarGames "The only way to win is not to play."]]

* WrongGenreSavvy: Upon defeating the Six-Armed Invisible Guard, Dalboz will inform you that "You gain 86 experience points and found a healing potion," before realizing that he's not [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons ''that'' kind of Dungeon Master]].

* PlotTailoredToTheParty: Each time tunnel contains a fragment of Zork's past that only one of the totemized characters can explore. Griff can fly, Brog is strong, and Lucy can read minds.

* SchmuckBait: A sign near the entrance to GUE Tech warns the player not to Throck the grass. [[spoiler:Doing it anyway causes it to eat you.]]

* WhatTheHellPlayer: Although most GameOver scenarios come with plenty of warning or are caused by failing a puzzle, a number can only be seen if the player goes out of their way to get themselves killed. The totemizer alone has eight unique fail states, and Dalboz will chew you out in a number of them.

* WrongGenreSavvy: Upon defeating the Six-Armed Invisible Guard, Dalboz will inform you that "You gain 86 experience points and found a healing potion," before realizing that he's not [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons that kind of Dungeon Master]].

About a hundred years before the start of the game, two fellow wizards-in-training, Mir Yannick and Dalboz of Girth became friends. However, while Dalboz was the most powerful and promising wizard in training, Mir was found to suffer from M.D.D. (Magic Deficit Disorder), and flunked out of the school. The two friends had a falling out, as well as Dalboz accidentally casting an immortality spell on them, and they went their separate ways. Dalboz retired to a cottage underground and became extremely bored (yet unable to kill himself), while Mir joined the Zorkastrian Seminary and advanced its ranks. During this time, magic began to decline, aided by Mir's use of the Totemizer, an ancient invention he refurbished, which rather than killing a magical creature or user (and thus allowing their magic to escape back into the environment), it would pulverize them and squish them, sealing them in a tiny token, forever unable to escape without the use of magic.

Dalboz came out of retirement to confront Yannick, but in the ensuing struggle Dalboz was nearly killed, but was transformed into a lantern (which Mir didn't see), and forgotten about.

With magic on the decline and the world in his hands, Mir Yannick ruled the land with an iron fist, using Totemization for the smallest crimes, and banned all magic use, instead forcing everyone to rely completely on technology, which had previously just been a supplement to magic. (Zork has a technology level somewhere around UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, [[SchizoTech though it can vary wildly]]. They can harness the power of electricity, and have radio, television, and movies, but lack the technology for cars, planes, or firearms.)

Enter the player, a PermaSuck vacuum salesman from PartsUnknown, who enters Port Foozle moments before curfew, and must find someplace to stay before he's found by Inquisition guards.

** [[AvertedTrope Averted]] when you pour Cola onto Zork Rocks, making them go critical. It takes about a minute to explode, but only four seconds to get rid of them.

* BeneathTheEarth: The Great Underground Empire.

* BreakingTheFourthWall: If you enter the well as soon as you get the rope when you start the game but not the lantern and wait. You hear loud snarling, chomping and then a belch. The game-over text says "You were eaten by a Grue, what was going through your head? A pitch black cave in a Zork game, what did you think was going to happen?"

* CaptainErsatz: Antharia Jack plays an Franchise/IndianaJones style character on television, [[SubvertedTrope but is quite cowardly in person.]]

** Also, the easy solution to the Hades Shuttle Courtesy Phone is to [[spoiler:cast Kendall, the "Simplify Instructions" spell.]]
** When you face a six-armed invisible guard blocking your way on a rope bridge, [[spoiler:you cut away the bridge, letting him fall to his death. You then build a new bridge using magic.]]
* DiscardAndDraw: Near the end of the game, the Inquisitor confiscates your spellbook and throws you in jail. Y'Gael gives you a scroll shortly after you escape, reversing the effects of everything in the book.

With magic on the decline and the world in his hands, Mir Yannick ruled the land with an iron fist, using Totemization for the smallest crimes, and banned all magic use, instead forcing everyone to rely completely on technology, which had previously just been a supplement to magic (Zork has a technology level somewhere around UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. They can harness the power of electricity, and have radio, television, and movies, but don't have the technology for cars, planes, or firearms).

Enter the player, a vacuum salesman from PartsUnknown, who enters Port Foozle moments before curfew, and must find someplace to stay before he's found by Inquisition guards.

* MeaningfulAnagram: The spell for making yourself attractive to other creatures, "Obidil", is an anagram of "libido".

* ViolationOfCommonSense: There's a door in the Cathedral that's barred from the other side, and cannot be unlocked with Rezrov. The only way through is to hurl yourself into the Totemizer and let it transport you to a storage bin on the other side. [spoiler: It works only if you're sure to deactivate the PermaSeal function on the machine, so that once you're on the other side, you pop out of being a totem. Fail to do that, and you HaveANiceDeath.]]

* ViolationOfCommonSense: There's a door in the Cathedral that's barred from the other side and cannot be unlocked with Rezrov. The only way through is to hurl yourself into the totemizer and let it transport you to a storage bin on the other side.

* WrongGenreSavvy: Upon defeating the Six-Armed Invisible Guard, Dalboz will inform you that "You gain 86 experience points and found a healing potion," before realising that he's being the [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons wrong kind of Dungeon Master]].

* {{Calvinball}}: The player can find a rulebook for Double Fanucci in a locker that describes an assortment of bizarre cheating methods. When simplified by Kendall, it simply reads "the only way to win is not to play."

* ContinuityNod: One of the {{Cosmic Keystone}}s is kept inside the white house. The one with the mailbox. The Coconut of Quendor was also featured in ''Beyond Zork'', as the perfect container for the knowledge of magic during magic's destruction.

** When the player gets [[spoiler:the door to Dalboz's house]] drunk, he says "Want some rye? Course ya do!" This is an [[CatchPhrase oft-repeated line]] from ''Return to Zork''.

** If you [[TooDumbToLive climb inside the Totemizer]] with it set on "Inquisition Hall" the game states that you lay there in complete boredom for hundreds of years and eventually become [[VideoGame/ReturnToZork Ms.]] [[SadistTeacher Peeper's]] paperweight.
** Indeed, the game can be seen as one big ContinuityNod to the earlier ''Zork'' games.

* {{Expy}}: Antharia Jack plays an Franchise/IndianaJones style character on television, [[SubvertedTrope but is quite cowardly in person.]]

* ForInconveniencePressOne: Part of a puzzle to summon Charon and cross into Hades.

* NinjaButterfly: Since the protagonist is a HeroicMime, Dalboz provides commentary on everything found in the Underground and gives less-than-subtle hints if the player keeps trying something that will not work.

* SchizoTech

** If you [[TooDumbToLive climb inside the Totemizer]] with it set on "Inquisition Hall" the game states that you lay there in complete boredom for hundreds of years and eventually become [[ReturnToZork Ms.]] [[SadistTeacher Peeper's]] paperweight.