Table of Contents
Page 1: History of Zork, Zork Trilogy
Enchanter - Amiga / Apple II / Atari 8-Bit / Atari ST / Commodore 64 / IBM PC / Other Unofficial Ports (1983)
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The first thing you'll likely notice when you boot up the game is the screen full of text describing the basic idea of the story. An evil warlock known as Krill is terrorizing a nearby land and slowly drawing out his plans to take over the world. The circle of elder wizards, realizing that action must be taken, and soon, realize that Krill is too powerful for an all-out attack by their most powerful wizards. It was written in an ancient prophecy
of this exact situation, which says that Krill can only be stopped is by a young wizard in training. Belboz, the leader of the Circle, therfore summons one of his most promising pupils and gives him the mission of stopping the most powerful evil wizard of the time, and of course, that pupil turns out to be you. This might seem cliche and ridiculous, but it makes the original Zork Trilogy look illiterate in comparison. According to official timelines, the game takes place in 952 GUE, a few years after the Zork Trilogy.
The game proper begins with you approaching the castle that Krill is using as his base of operations. Your only possession is your spell book, with a few spells already written
down inside. As you progress through the game, you'll find scrolls containing new spells for you to learn. To prevent your inventory from being bogged down with all these scrolls (you can still only carry so much weight!), you start with a spell that allows you to inscribe the spells found on scrolls into your spell book. Being that this is a game about magic, it should be quite obvious that your spells play an important part in solving puzzles.
However, just like in Dungeons and Dragons, it is not enough to simply have the spell in your book to be able to cast it.; you will also need to memorize all said spells. Don't worry, it is as simple as "memorize (spell name)."
One interesting new feature is the fact that your character must also take care of basic needs, such as food, water, and sleep. If you don't get enough food and water, you die. If you don't get enough sleep, you'll eventually get exhausted, then forget your memorized spells, and finally pass out. Thankfully, you can easily replenish your food and water stores, and a bed can be found early in the game.
The descriptions of locations, characters, and objects are intricately written, and the jokes are back in top form, perhaps even better than ever. Even the error messages for when you do something not related to the story are funny! Be sure to try casting spells on yourself, although it would be a good idea to save first!
One of the more brilliant hidden jokes comes when you learn the zifmia spell, which instantly teleports the target of the spell to the same room as yourself. In a certain room, you find a book of legends, one being about a monster of old being imprisoned in the earth, the other being a tale of the creation of the world, in which it is revealed that the Implementers (name given to Infocom's text adventure authors) created the world
as a test for others of their kind. In a brilliant scene, the player can actually "zifmia implementers" for a chance to meet Mark Blank and Dave Lebling.
Another wonderful point is when you actually meet up with the Adventurer that you play as in the Zork Trilogy, whose personality, it turns out, is a list of adventure gaming cliches. He picks up everything he can find, gets into fights with monsters, constantly eyes your inventory items, and even follows you around like a puppy if you are carrying any "treasures." He even helps you with a puzzle! This is definitely one of the major highlights of this game.
One of the major problems with the Zork Trilogy is the puzzles, which are incredibly obtuse and obnoxiously complicated. In Enchanter, almost every puzzle makes logical sense, while still being quite creative, and they are described with clues that are not too subtle, yet not too obvious. there was only one spot in the game that seemed obtuse. This is the first game in the series so far that seems to give players a chance to make progress without
requiring gobs of hints or a walkthrough. There are few red herrings, few ways to get stuck, and while the time limit in the game (now related to running out of food) is still somewhat of a problem, it isn't nearly as problematic as the lantern in the Zork Trilogy. There finally seems to be a balance. The only problem I can think of is that some of the puzzles require you to die a few times in different places to know you need to do something before that point.
All in all, Enchanter is a massive improvement on the original Zork Trilogy, striking a perfect balance of difficulty, plot, fun characters, interesting locations and puzzles, secrets, and everything else that makes Interactive Fiction fun. It even has a greatly satisfying ending. It truly is a step in the right direction, in every sense of the phrase.
Page 2: Enchanter Trilogy
Page 3: Beyond Zork, Zork Zero
Page 4: Infocom's Fate, Return to Zork
Page 5: Zork Under Activsion, Zork Nemesis, Zork: The Undiscovered Underground, Zork: Grand Inquisitor, Legends of Zork
Page 6: Spinoffs, Zork's Status, Links
After the Zork Trilogy was completed, Infocom quickly began a new trilogy taking place in the same universe. The Enchanter Trilogy is basically like Zork, only you are a wizard in training. The first game in the new trilogy, Enchanter, was developed under the idea that it would be Zork IV. However, this name was dropped, possibly due to the fact that it has nothing to do with the original trilogy. This was used as the basis of a joke in the Enchanter Hintbook. While not Zork games by name, they are considered to take place in the same universe.
Enchanter is a quantum leap in quality from the original Zork Trilogy. Everything from the story and writing to the puzzles and characters reek of excellence compared to Zork 1-3.
Sorcerer - Amiga / Amstrad CPC / Amstrad PCW / Apple II / Atari 8-Bit / Atari ST / Commodore 64 / CP/M / DEC Rainbow / Kaypro II / Apple Macintosh / NEC APC / Osborne 1 / IBM PC / TI-99/4A / TRS-80 / Other Unofficial Ports (1984)
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The story, taking place a few years after Enchanter, opens with you waking from a foreboding nightmare to find the Guild of Enchanters deserted. Belboz has disappeared, and the rest of the guild is out shopping (type 'wake up' during the nightmare for a joke death). Upon reading Belboz's journal, you get the idea that an ancient demon may be behind all of Belboz's strange behavior of late.
This would be fine, if the game wasn't so dull. The story is never directly mentioned over the course of the game, and there are few characters and interesting moments to break up the monotony. It palys like the Zork Trilogy, only more linear. Once again, you are stumbling from one situation to another until the game abruptly ends, only this time, in a certain order. This of course leads to the possibility of getting stuck quite easily. If you do
not get the item you need early in the game, and carry it with you all the way up to the point where you need it, tough beans, you are stuck!
You can still cast spells, of course, but the uses for them felt much more dull and obvious, whereas Enchanter made you feel that your magic could do anything, and had more creative uses. At the beginning you even drink a potion that keeps you from getting hungry or thirsty, effectively ridding the game of a full-length time limit, but still feeling like a let down. Instead, there are a few sequences in the game that are timed, the coal mine
being the most frustrating; you have absolutely no free time. One wrong move, and you better restore. Ironically, this part has one of the more ingenious puzzles in the game.
In the coal mine, you run into your future self, who helps you solve a puzzle. Later, you go back in time, and end up doing the same thing for your past self. A similar puzzle would later be used in Escape From Monkey Island. This part is quite ingenious, and would be a lot of fun, if you weren't busy worrying about the horribly strict
time limit, which makes it hard to enjoy the moment.
Another puzzle that will have you howling with rage is the glass maze. Not only is there a time limit; not only is the maze 3-D, but after going through it once, just to get the item hidden deep within, the maze layout changes, and now you have to go through it with a monster chasing you! Luckily, if you can't stand that, there is a spell that will allow you to get out easier, but the very idea of going through the maze "the right way" while under a
time limit, without any help is terrifying!
The difficulty is incredible; if you can beat the game without any help at all, you should be very proud of yourself. Unfortunately, there is not enough satisfaction to be had afterwards. The climax is not nearly as satisfying as the end to Enchanter.
The death system is different in this game. Instead of a "Three Strikes" rule, you now must continue from a saved game whenever you die, similar to Sierra adventures, and if you don't know what you are doing, you will die a lot.
Sorcerer is a huge step down from its prequel. After the wonderfully exciting and fun experience of Enchanter, I had high hopes for this game. Unfortunately, it is nowhere near as much fun. The puzzles are mostly boring, the locations are mostly bland, the story is not well-executed, it's humor is more subdued, etc. This one is probably only for hardcore Zork fans, or for those who want to play all three games of the Enchanter Trilogy.
Sorcerer, the second game in the Enchanter Trilogy, is sadly, after the brilliance of the first game, a step down in quality from Enchanter. The story is incredibly vague and is never fully explained, there are not as many fun and interesting moments, and it just seems dull.
Spellbreaker - Amiga / Apple II / Atari 8-Bit / Atari ST / Commodore 64 / IBM PC / Other Unofficial Ports (1985)
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The story takes place some time after Sorcerer. Magic has been failing across the world, and the guildmasters have all been turned into reptiles by a mysterious cloaked figure. Of course, it is up to the player to figure out what's going on.
At least this time, the story is actually explained at the end of the game, if you can get there, that is. The game is more open-ended than Sorcerer, but less so than Enchanter in the fact that the world opens up the more you progress. Too bad the game's so hard you'll likely never see half of it! Throughout the game, it is very probable that you'll be reading the hint book or walkthrough, and every few minutes get upset not because you feel
like an idiot for not solving the puzzle, but wondering how on Earth ANYONE could solve it!
Still, for those who persevere, there are several interesting elements in the game. Early on, you get a bag of holding, allowing you to carry almost every item you find with you at once, which is very important, considering how many important items there are. Another neat idea is the magic marker, allowing you to "name" any object you find and refer to it by that name, which is actually quite useful when you are carrying a dozen otherwise identical
magic cubes.
As mentioned earlier, the puzzles will have you howling with rage most of the time. Cruel ones include the Green Rock, the compass rose maze, the giant idol, and the cube pile, which, while having creative solutions, leave you wondering how you were supposed to think of the solutions in the first place. The only puzzle that's somewhat fun is bartering for the magic carpet, although even that one has a bit of a "low blow."
The story is much better played out than Sorcerer or even Enchanter, and by the end everything more or less makes sense. The ending is a downer, but is about the only real good outcome there could've been, considering the plot. The villain is interesting, but you end up wishing that you saw more of him. He's only referenced a couple of times before making a grand appearance at the end. At least the way you deal with him is clever, if a bit sad,
considering the consequences. The sad ending is actually quite strange, considering that all the previous ones had some element of triumph. This one ends with uncertainty, but at least with a small joke (read your rank).
One thing that bugged me was the copy protection. Sorcerer had something similar, but Spellbreaker strangely places it near the end of the game. If you screw up, the game doesn't tell you until later, when it suddenly kills you if you made a mistake earlier. Sorcerer actually got that part right.
Overall, this one is, despite its difficulty, arguably the second best of the Enchanter trilogy, due to its coherent story, interesting if absurd puzzles, cool gimmicks, and an ending with balls. It's much better in plot and gameplay than Sorcerer, but not quite as fun and exciting as Enchanter.
Spellbreaker is the first game in the Zork series to be classified as an 'Expert' level game, and for good reason: It is by far the hardest game yet, so hard in fact that players accused Infocom for deliberately making it nigh-impossible to beat to sell hint books!
