History VideoGame / Zork

''Zork'' was one of the earliest works of InteractiveFiction, written in 1977-79 by Tim Anderson, Marc Blanc, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling. In 1980, the game was split into two parts for home computers and sold on giant B: floppy disks (the 5 1/4-inch ones... remember those?), where it became an immediate success, launching game publisher Creator/{{Infocom}}. It was followed almost immediately by a part III (a completely original Infocom game), and eventually had no less than twelve sequels.

''Zork'' was one of the earliest works of InteractiveFiction, written in 1977-79 by Tim Anderson, Marc Blanc, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling. In 1980, the game was split into two parts for home computers and sold on giant B: floppy disks (remember those?), where it became an immediate success, launching game publisher Creator/{{Infocom}}. It was followed almost immediately by a part III (a completely original Infocom game), and eventually had no less than twelve sequels.

* FanSequel: ''[[http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2ModulesEnglish.Detail&id=378 ZORK: Rediscovering the Great Underground Empire]]'', a fan campaign for ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2''.
** A huge number of fan sequels have been created using the {{Inform}} programming language, including ''Balances'' and ''Spiritwrak.''

Zork was one of the earliest works of InteractiveFiction, written in 1977-79 by Tim Anderson, Marc Blanc, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling. In 1980, the game was split into two parts for home computers and sold on giant B: floppy disks (remember those?), where it became an immediate success, launching game publisher Creator/{{Infocom}}. It was followed almost immediately by a part III (a completely original Infocom game), and eventually had no less than twelve sequels.

The Zork series consists of:

** ''ZorkNemesis'' (1996)
** ''ZorkGrandInquisitor'' (1997)

* MethuselahSyndrome: Many characters, justified or otherwise: [[AWizardDidIt Dalboz and Yannick]], [[SealedGoodInACan Lucy Flathead]], Zylon the Aged, Antharia Jack, and the Wizard Megaboz..

* WeHaveReserves: Stonewall Flathead's military campaigns suffered 98% casualties on average (Replacing casualties with his powers of unlimited conscription), which makes his taking a mere 75% casualties when storming an empty fortress at the start of his career seem impressive. With casualties like that (Combined with the fact that his army was pretty much continuously in action due to his brother's inept rule), the amazing thing is how long it took before he got killed in a 'friendly fire' incident.

* BlackWidow: Lucrezia Flathead. Seventeen husbands, none of whom made it to their first anniversary (Fourteen of them didn't survive the wedding night).

* DolledUpInstallment: ''Zork Nemesis'' was clearly not originally intended to be set in the Zork universe

* HellSeeker: The backstory has the legend of Saint Yoruk, who travelled to Hades to meet with the Devil and learn the secrets of magic from him. When Yoruk died, his soul went to heaven, but as he'd gotten used to Hades, he fought his way back there.

* TheMagicGoesAway: Sets off the plot of ''Beyond Zork''.

* MethuselahSyndrome: Many characters, justified or otherwise: [[AWizardDidIt Dalboz and Yannick]], [[SealedGoodInACan Lucy Flathead]], Zylon the Aged, and Antharia Jack.

* NoNameGiven: Not only is the FeaturelessProtagonist nameless, there's also a "lean and hungry gentleman" in the first game who has no name, and needs none.
** The hint guide identifies the "lean and hungry gentleman" as "The Thief". Still fits the trope, though.

->It is bright white. You are likely to be indexed by a troper.

Four [[{{Novelization}} novels]] set in the world of Zork also exist: ''The Zork Chronicles'' by George Alec Effinger, ''Enchanter'' and ''The Lost City of Zork'' by Robin W. Bailey, and ''Wishbringer'' by Craig Shaw Gardner. As well as four ChooseYourOwnAdventure-style books, ''The Forces of Krill, The Malifestro Quest, The Cavern of Doom,'' and ''Conquest at Quendor.''

** Special credit must go to ''Zork Zero'' for including the FoxChickenGrainPuzzle, {{Towers of Hanoi}}, {{Game of Nim}}, and {{Three Plus Five Make Four}} all in one game.

* PresidentEvil (Lord Dimwit Flathead the Excessive)

* EverythingsBetterWithPlatypi: ''Creator/{{Wishbringer}}'' had platypus royalty (they're also given a cameo in ''Beyond Zork'').

* '''The Enchanter Trilogy'''

* BackFromTheDead and DeathIsCheap: You; most of the games have a mechanism for bringing the player character back to life, and in ''Sorcerer'' dying actually simplifies a certain puzzle.
** Although dying made some of the games unwinnable - ''Zork I'', for example. You lose 10 points for dying, and can only complete the game by getting all 350 points.

* ControllableHelplessness: In ''Sorcerer'' it is possible for the PC to end up in the Chamber of Living Death. There, the PC will be horribly torn apart and devoured by hideous parasites, only to not die but regenerate, over and over again, being unable to do anything about it because 'Your agony is too great to concentrate on such an action'.

* DarkerAndEdgier: ''ZorkNemesis'', which abandons almost all pretenses of comedy and light satire in favor of Gothic horror.
** The ''Enchanter Trilogy'', too, where you're thwarting the plans of some flavor of EvilOverlord instead of just searching for treasure in a cave and getting rid of a senile wizard along the way.

** ''Spellbreaker'' was so hard the developers actually ''apologized'' and admitted most people would have to use a hint book to finish it.

* TheMagicGoesAway: Sets off the plot of ''Spellbreaker'' and ''Beyond Zork'', the former [[BagOfSpilling starting with your spellbook]].

* NonstandardGameOver: If you mess up in the endgames of the ''Enchanter Trilogy'', you can get a negative score and the title "Menace to Society" for unleashing a horror upon the world.

* StableTimeLoop: One in ''Sorcerer'' and two interlinked loops in ''Spellbreaker''.

* UnwittingPawn: You, in ''Spellbreaker''

* WithThisHerring: In ''Enchanter'', you are a novice sent to kill Krill with almost no spells to start with. Gets a HandWave that Krill would detect a more powerful mage and raise appropriate defenses.

* ''Wishbringer'' (1985)

* EverythingsBetterWithPlatypi: ''Wishbringer'' had platypus royalty (they're also given a cameo in ''Beyond Zork'').
* {{Fauxshadow}}: Throughout the feelies and prologue of ''Wishbringer'', repeated mention is made of the threat of the dragon Thermofax; there are also a number of fake-clues in the hint book about dealing with him. Thermofax doesn't play any role in the game whatsoever.

* GaidenGame: ''Wishbringer''

** Notably, the LighterAndSofter and easier game ''Wishbringer'' has a bad one: [[spoiler: the can with the rattlesnake has a false bottom which contains Wishbringer]]. The only hint is the item rattling even after it's opened, and considering that you likely dropped it after using it the first time, you're not likely to notice.

* HostageForMacGuffin: ''Wishbringer'', [[spoiler: subverted, the [[MacGuffinGirl hostage]] ''is'' the MacGuffin]].

* LighterAndSofter: ''Wishbringer'', sort of; it's aimed at kids and beginners.

* TheTamingOfTheGrue: The trope namer, grues, first appeared as the unseen (and, because they never leave pitch-dark areas, unseeable) monsters who would eat adventurers careless enough to wander in dark places without a light source. Later works such as ''Wishbringer'' and ''Zork: The Undiscovered Underground'' would play grues for laughs; ''Wishbringer'' featured a grue lair with a refrigerator whose light goes out when you open it and a mother grue with an apron, while ''Undiscovered Underground'' had a grue convention where grues would discuss topics such as 'Surviving the lean years'. The grues were still dangerous, but played less seriously than in earlier works.

Zork was one of the earliest works of InteractiveFiction, written in 1977-79 by Tim Anderson, Marc Blanc, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling. In 1980, the game was split into two parts for home computers and sold on giant B: floppy disks (remember those?), where it became an immediate success, launching game publisher {{Infocom}}. It was followed almost immediately by a part III (a completely original Infocom game), and eventually had no less than twelve sequels.

* {{Feelies}}: Like all {{Infocom}} games, all the text-based Zork games came with several feelies. Almost all were essential for completing their respective game.
** ...other than the original trilogy, which predated Infocom adding feelies.

* TheVerse: In addition to the main games, the ''Zork'' universe contained ''Enchanter'', ''Sorcerer'', ''Spellbreaker'', and ''Wishbringer''. There are also a couple of hints that ''The Lurking Horror'', another {{Infocom}} game, may also take place in the same universe, but nothing concrete.

** Special credit must go to ''Zork Zero'' for including the {{Fox-Chicken-Grain Puzzle}}, {{Towers of Hanoi}}, {{Game of Nim}}, and {{Three Plus Five Make Four}} all in one game.

* '''The Zork Quest "Interactive Comics"'''
** ''[[VideoGame/ZorkQuestAssaultOnEgrethCastle Zork Quest I: Assault on Egreth Castle]]'' (1988)
** ''[[VideoGame/ZorkQuestTheCrystalOfDoom Zork Quest II: The Crystal of Doom]]'' (1989)

** Although dying made some of the games unwinnable - Zork I, for example. You lose 10 points for dying, and can only complete the game by getting all 350 points.

** Zork III had a much darker and more serious tone than the previous two games.

* TheTamingOfTheGrue: The trope namer, grues, first appeared as the unseen (and, because they never leave pitch-dark areas, unseeable) monsters who would eat adventurers careless enough to wander in dark places without a light source. Later works such as Wishbringer and Zork: The Undiscovered Underground would play grues for laughs; Wishbringer featured a grue lair with a refrigerator whose light goes out when you open it and a mother grue with an apron, while Undiscovered Underground had a grue convention where grues would discuss topics such as 'Surviving the lean years'. The grues were still dangerous, but played less seriously than in earlier works.

* ToHellAndBack: Zork I, Zork Grand Inquisitor

** Dungeon (1977-1979, noncommercial)

** Zork I: The Great Underground Empire (1980)
** Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz (1981)
** Zork III: The Dungeon Master (1982)

** Enchanter (1983)
** Sorcerer (1984)
** Spellbreaker (1985)
* Wishbringer (1985)
* Beyond Zork (1987) (adds RPGElements)
* Zork Zero (1988)
* Zork: The Undiscovered Underground (Activision, 1997)

** Zork Quest I: Assault on Egreth Castle (1988)
** Zork Quest II: The Crystal of Doom (1989)

** {{Return to Zork}} (Activision, 1993)
** ZorkNemesis (Activision, 1996)
** ZorkGrandInquisitor (Activision, 1997)
** Legends of Zork, an MMORPG (Now closed) (2009)
Four [[{{Novelization}} novel]]s set in the world of Zork also exist: ''The Zork Chronicles'' by George Alec Effinger, ''Enchanter'' and ''The Lost City of Zork'' by Robin W. Bailey, and ''Wishbringer'' by Craig Shaw Gardner. As well as four ChooseYourOwnAdventure-style books, ''The Forces of Krill, The Malifestro Quest, The Cavern of Doom,'' and ''Conquest at Quendor.''

* FeaturelessProtagonist: Former TropeNamer.
* FoxChickenGrainPuzzle: In ''ZorkZero''.

* NoNameGiven: Not only is the AFGNCAAP player nameless, there's also a "lean and hungry gentleman" in the first game who has no name, and needs none.

Zork was one of the earliest works of InteractiveFiction, written in 1977-79 by Tim Anderson, Marc Blanc, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling. In 1980, the game was split into three parts for home computers and sold on giant B: floppy disks (remember those?), where it became an immediate success, launching game publisher {{Infocom}}, and was followed by no less than twelve sequels.

->It is bright white. You are likely to be indexed by a troper.

* ArtisticLicenseEconomics: During the reign of King Dimwit the Excessive, all internal trade in Quendor was between various branches of MegaCorp [=FrobozzCo=], and there was only one bank. Not that many people had much in the way of savings, seeing as Dimwit enacted a 98% income tax in order to fund his enormous tributes to his own ego, such as an 18 month coronation ceremony, a palace large enough to hold a significant fraction of the country's population, a massive flood control dam in a region that was never in danger of flooding, and a statue of himself several bloits high. This may be the reason why his brother General T.J. "Stonewall" Flathead had to fight three civil wars and suppress roughly 16,000 tax riots over the course of his reign.