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“Open mailbox and read leaflet” – WELCOME TO ZORK!
If you had a home computer in the 1980s, chances are you played the game Zork. Zork is a computer game that first appeared on home computers back then. Unlike arcade inspired games, however, Zork is a text adventure game. With using just a keyboard and text screen, you could type in sentences like “open mailbox and read leaflet” and the computer would understand and respond to it. Despite the apparent simplicity, stories grew out of the text adventure with puzzles to solve, making Zork a compelling game to play.
Zork sequels and other text adventure games appeared on home computers, thanks to the Z Machine, an interpreter for running text adventure games. With the release of a Z Machine for Adafruit’s Fruit Jam (CPZ Machine), owners can now play these text adventures in their original full text glory!
This guide gives a brief history of Zork and the Z Machine, explaining how 1980s text-adventure games worked and why they remain compelling. It provides instructions for installing and running a Z Machine interpreter on the Fruit Jam so you can play original text-adventure games like Zork on the device.
Needed:
– Fruit Jam (CPZ Machine) — the hardware used to run the Z Machine interpreter and play Zork.
– The free Fruit Jam Z Machine interpreter port (software for the Fruit Jam) that enables full-text interactive fiction on the device is available via the Fruit Jam product page.
Read more in the new Fruit Jam, Zork and the Z Machine guide!
