Zork I: The Great Underground Empire
Infocom 
1980
- Language:
- English
- Authors:
- Dave Lebling, Marc Blank
- Platforms:
- Amiga, Amstrad CPC , Amstrad PCW , Apple II, Atari 400/800, Atari ST, C16/Plus4, C64/128 , CP/M, Einstein , Kaypro-II , Macintosh, Mainframe , PC , TI-99/4A, TRS-80 , TRS-80 CoCo, Z-Machine
- Genres:
- Treasure hunt, Underground , Zork
- Related:
- Zork trilogy [1: Zork I: The Great Underground Empire, 2: Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz, 3: Zork III: The Dungeon Master]
- Entered by:
- Alex, computerclassics, Eriorg, Garry, Gunness, Mr Creosote, Starscream
- Added:
- 10-05-2010
- Edited:
- 12-09-2022
Synopsis
Plot
The Great Underground Empire confronts you with perils and predicaments ranging from the mystical to the macabre, as you strive to discover the Twenty Treasures of ZORK and escape with them and your life.Notes
Part of the original mainframe game.As well as all the official, original release platforms, the original game has been ported to many other systems that support z-machine.
The game was ported to emulated VZ200 in 2022 by R. Banks & S. Marks; see here.
The first part of Zork 1 was, unusually for the time, released as a demo.
Also released in Japanese for the NEC PC-98. Further Japanese versions for the Sega Saturn and Playstation 1 (featuring graphics and music) were released in 1996. However, as these aren't parser-based, they fall outside the scope of CASA.
Resources (Upload file)
- Solution
- by Gunness
- Solution
- by ?
- Map
- by Exemptus
- SLAG hints
- by Gunness
- Further Info:
- Review at The Good Old Days
- Search at Atari 8-bit Forever
- Search at Atari Legend
- Search at Atari Mania
- Search at CPC-Power
- Search at Curtis Boyle's CoCo site
- Search at Gamebase64
- Search at IFDB
- Search at Lemon Amiga
- Search at Museum of Computer Adventure Game History
- Search at Plus/4 World
- Search at Tatung Einstein Reborn
- Search at TI-99/4A Game Shelf
[+] Users who have solved this game
[+] Users currently playing this game
Great little beginning adventure! Only took a few tries and you can save! Definitely a must play for any adventurer!
The stuff of legends, despite some design shortcomings (Infocom would get more sophisticated later on). An awesome parser, not bettered until much, much later, and descriptions that are an awesome mix of evocative, lost grandiosity and self-referential geek wit, made this an instant AAA title. Maybe there is too much contrast between puzzles, but it is a riot to play in any case. Needs a good deal of planning (many an hour has been lost just dealing with the thief in the maze). Some of the older releases in certain platforms (like the original Apple II release 5 version) are so buggy as to be actually unwinnable, but these versions are very rare and an item for collectors.