Dungeon/The Mainframe Zork
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
The Mainframe Zork, which was later named Dungeon when people told the guys at MIT to give it a name, then changed back to Zork when they decided to go with what they knew in their harts was right, is the first Zork game ever. Having a ridiculous amount of different versions, this game is a severe challenge, even if you have completely mapped every room.
This game was designed, implemented, and thought out by four people at MIT: Marc Blank, Dave Lebling, Tim Anderson, and Stu Galley. This game was a sort of spin-off of a game called Adventure, but it managed to beat its predecessor by being capable of understanding more than two word sentances, having more realistic enemies, etc.
These four, or Implementors as they were often called, joined together, and formed a company called Infocom (information on which can be found here or here. This company produced several video games, including Zork, James Clavell's Shogun, and (I'll bet you've never heard of this one before) The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, which Douglas Adams himself contributed to. He also wrote a fun little game called Beureaucracy (I never could spell it), but let's not get into that now.
My Overall Review Of The Game
Okay, in my opinion, this is definitely a game worth playing if you can even find it. There are several versions, but they all basically follow the same pattern: You explore the caverns underneath a white house, finding treasures and matching witts against a clever thief and several monsters. In most versions of the game, there is a final test given by someone called the Dungeon Master. What is the final outcome? Don't expect me to ruin it for you!
