Zork (video game)
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| Zork | |
| Developer | Dave Lebling, Bruce Daniels, Marc Blank, Tim Anderson |
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| Publisher | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Platforms | DOS, Glulx, ITS, TOPS-10, TADS, Z-code |
| Released | Worldwide: 1977 |
| Added to Museum |
DOS, Glulx, TADS, Z-code: September 7, 2019 |
Zork is a text adventure game that is the original full version of the first three video games in the Zork series.
It was developed under the title Dungeon. However, it was renamed to its prototype title, Zork, due to a trademark claim by the owners of the Dungeons and Dragons franchise
Zork was developed on MIT's ITS operating system for the PDP-6 and Digital Research's TOPS-10 operating system for PDP-10 mainframe computers, between 1977 and 1978 by MIT university students Dave Lebling, Bruce Daniels, Marc Blank, and Tim Anderson.
Versions
Zork was freely released on the ARPANET, the precursor of the internet. However, when three of the four designers of Zork formed Infocom, it was split into three text adventure games (Zork I, II, and III) so that it could be released commercially on the personal computer hardware of the time.
Volker Blasius ported Zork to DOS in 1987.
The original version of Zork has also been converted to several scripting languages:
- A TADS version was developed by Darin Johnson in 1996.
- A Glulx version was developed by Ethan Dicks in Inform 6 in 2004.
- A Z-code version was developed by Dean Menezes in Inform 7 in 2008.
