Beginners guide to Zork and other text-based adventure games

Some hints to get you started and useful text commands

What is Zork?

West of house
You are standing west of a white house with a boarded front door.
There is a mailbox here.
>

Back in the early 1980s, graphics were primitive. The best story telling was just that -- good writing allowed you to imagine fantasy worlds of fire-breathing dragons, evil trolls, glowing magic swords with mystical runes... and computers that someday will have ONE FREAKING MEGABYTE OF RAM!. The original Zork series were text adventures, and the later games in this collection are early works of incorporating a graphical info display to go along with the text. You type in text commands to interact with the game world, and get a description of what happens. Think of these as novels as compared with modern First Person games which are more like Pixar movies. I think of this type of storytelling text game as "The best graphics that you can imagine (from only 144KB of code)."

Exploring a 1981-era computer world

Needless to say, the original Zork series pre-dates in-game mapping (the later games generate a map for you as you go along). EDIT: apparently there are online programs like Where Are We and Grid Cartographer that you can use to assist with mapping. I haven't tried them, YMMV. Having a pad of graph paper and a pencil is a great tool to map the game world -- you're never sure just how big the world is going to be, so drawing 2x3 or so boxes in the center of the paper at the beginning of a level and working outwards is a good strategy. Put a short description of the room's name in the box for reference. Draw a line from the top of a box to indicate leaving the room by going north, a diagonal up-right line indicating leaving by going northeast, "u" for up, etc. Just be aware that the directions don't always match both ways -- if you go north to enter a room, you might not get back to the original room by going south (this is why pencil helps). And the rooms are not always a set distance apart, so you'll be re-drawing bits a few times. And there are a few places that are designed to confuse mapping and get you lost... can you see where this is heading? You'll eventually have pages filled with maps and notes on rooms -- think of it as an explorer's journal.

Zork is a dungeon exploration adventure. It is a good idea to save periodically. When you are exploring and area that is tough to map, it sometimes helps to drop items that you don't need in order to leave a "bread crumb trail" (but reminder that an evil bird ate the bread crumb trail that Hansel and Gretel tried to leave...)

How to write text commands

Sometimes using the text-based interface or stringing a few command words may take getting used to. In the next section are the most useful commands to get you started. Many of these have single-letter abbreviations that work.

Commands are often in the form of "VERB [ADJECTIVE] [OBJECT]" and there is no need for commas or articles. the object and adjective-object pair are added if it is ambiguous what you want the verb to act on. For example, assume you are in a library with several books and magazines and you want to get a particular book. You could try typing "GET" but then it might be ambiguous what you are trying to get (in which case you will get a reply of something like "Which item do you want to get?"). If you then type "GET BOOK" you might get a reply like, "Do you want to get the blue book or red book?". Finally try "GET BLUE BOOK" to get the blue book (yes, it's that easy!)

Useful commands

gameplay:
SAVE
RESTORE
QUIT or Q

movement:
N S E W NE NW SE SW U D (or "NORTH", "UP", etc)
CLIMB x (e.g. "CLIMB TREE")
ENTER x

LOOK or L (looks around)
EXAMINE x (abbreviation for EXAMINE is X, like "X BOOK" or "X SWORD")
READ x
VERBOSE/BRIEF/SUPERBRIEF (gives a room description always/once/never)
WHAT x (or "WHAT IS A x", gives a description or explanation of x)

INVENTORY or I
GET x
DROP x (can do "GET ALL" or "DROP ALL")
OPEN/CLOSE x
LOCK/UNLOCK x WITH y

PUSH x
TURN ON/OFF x
AGAIN or G (repeats previous command)
ATTACK x WITH y
SAVE/RESTORE

XYZZY

HELLO SAILOR

PLUGH

[Kevin (Boricua_Kevin on gta 5 O]

And I played this on I B M pcjr

[Kevin (Boricua_Kevin on gta 5 O]

When I first play this it was either Christmas 85 or Xmas 86

But [at that time]
A) the game was on 5 point 25 disk..and had to START WITH MSDOS. BEFORE TYPING ZORK
[rest you know open mailbox....]

[Kevin (Boricua_Kevin on gta 5 O]

If you (pay) attention in this game and make it to POINT BARROW...that is the start of Zork 2

[IceHippo]

Much thanks, Kevin, that is a great suggestion! I've added the "WHAT" command, players can also have fun asking it about stuff like that

[Kevin (Boricua_Kevin on gta 5 O]

ask what is a zorkmid?

[IceHippo]

Thank you to everyone who has read and enjoyed my guide! I appreciate all the awards you have given me. Best of luck in your adventures!

[IceHippo]

You're welcome!

[Kevin Costner from Waterworld]

thank you for your contribution

[IceHippo]

Glad you like it, DanAntiqq!

[//Velvet Muffin//]

Thank you for your help kind sir