Legends of Zork: The Misadventures of Slapyfitsgood

West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.
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This was the opening to one of the first and quite possibly greatest computer adventure games of all time. No sound, no pictures, nothing but words and a blinking cursor. With this simple description, a world of adventure and treasure awaited those brave enough to enter. Danger followed your every footstep and death was the penalty for those silly enough to enter the dark. This was the world of Zork as I remembered it.

Now, to a younger audience, the Zork games, published by Infocom in the 1980s don't seem to age well. I mean, the only control the player had was words. (Look around. Go east. Open mailbox. Take lantern. Attack troll.) Kids these days just cannot understand how we older generations found this entertaining. The fact is, when this game came out, computers were mainly used for work and not much else. Then some guys at M.I.T. started fooling around and came up with some nonsense about an Underground Empire filled with traps, mazes, some ass-hole thief. yeah I hated that guy. I'm gonna be 30 years old in October, and I'm pretty sure the game is as old as I am. It has aged better than I have. Because it was one of the first, and best examples of interactive fiction, many older people cherish this series as a true classic. I would also go on to say that many of today's game designers owe a small bit of gratitude to Zork for opening up the public to what games can become when it comes to story. Lets face it, BioShock is a great game, but if you took away the story elements and themes, 2k Bostons powerhouse loses a lot of its bite.

I am a huge Zork fan. So when I heard that a new game was coming out, I got very excited. Then I heard it was a free browser game and I started to worry. Who were the guys designing it? what kind of a game would it be? Would it be a MMO or another text adventure? These were the questions on my mind leading up to Legends of Zork release date this past Wednesday. After playing it for a while, I'm going to share my experience with you and tell you how I feel about this new entry to the series.
The first thing you do after you login to the site is to create your character. You are given a choice of what kind of person you want to be, (fighters, magic users, and some other classes),what your characters look like, and type your bio. Then you are magically transported to the white house with the boarded up front door, which now acts as your base. Here you can go to the arena to fight other players, join a group to do a multi-day quest, shop for armor, weapons, or magic. or you can head out to fight creatures in the areas surrounding the house. Sounds exciting right?

Its' not.

Now before I tear this one down, understand that I think this game has a promising future. The website and frontend to this game is really well done. The artwork is amazing, colorful, and well designed. All the information you need is right at your fingertips. The dice rolls don't seem broken. This is a good start. No my problem is with the way the game plays, or the way it plays itself. the only interaction I do is click a button that says explore. Click button, get random encounter. If I win I get some loot, some experience, and the option to click the explore button again or click the button to go back to base. When you go back to base you can upgrade your skills, buy new weapons and armor that up your attack and defense to help with random battles or PVP. Anytime you move from your base to another area you spend action points. You only get 30 a day so you have to use them wisely. I wouldn't mind the automatic nature of the game if this game had a good story to get behind. Sadly it is lacking. Any time you explore a area you get the same text with your random encounter doing the same thing. The text is lacking and breaks my heart because this was the very essence of what Zork was, a text adventure. Now granted I'm still playing so maybe it gets better.

Multiplayer is another thing that bothered me. I wanted to start a quest so I clicked on that button and was taken to a screen where you enter how many AP you want to use for the quest. I said 9. Then you are given an message showing you other members of the group and a statement that reads check back tomorrow to see how well your group is doing on that quest. WTF! I did't even get to click a button. The next day I was 41% completed and I still didn't have to click a button. Completely automatic. Where is the game in THAT. Now the arena is a better place to spend your time and AP. This is where all your stats and skills really come to make a this seem more like a game. Again, you just click on a character you want to fight, click go and it crunches the numbers automaticaly. No other interaction is required. Its very simple but for some reason I find this compelling. I can't explain it.

All this is leading up to the conclusion I've been wrestling with all week. This game is NOT Zork. The story of Zork was simple and effective, the interaction was precise and brutal, and at the end of the game you felt like you accomplished something great. When I play Legends of Zork I feel none of that. Maybe I'm asking to much out of a free browser-based game. But this game has Zork in its title, and there are people who remember what it was. I don't know if these people will like Legends of Zork. My opinions are just that, opinions. I could be wrong so go to www.legendsofzork.com and try it for yourself.

After you spend your 30 points go here and try the first 3 Zorks. See if I'm crazy.