You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
You are standing
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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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You can actually play Zork (and other text adventure games) in your browser. The location is:
http://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/5zyoqrsugeopel3ffhz_vq/zork
I’m not associated with this website, and I don’t play adventure games anymore, but I thought I’d mention it for those that want to re-experience old-school games.
XYZZY.
Back in circa 1977, I (and my coworkers) were dialed in to a DEC-10 or DEC-20 somewhere and up popped a message from a fellow player at another company, timesharing on the same machine, who saw that we had a session open on the same executable code.
He asked “Do you know how to open the egg?” (the very last puzzle you have to solve). And of course, we told him.
This circulated online for quite a while before it was released as a commercial property. My colleagues and I were all over the source code, to see how it was coded and to look for clues. The data was hidden, but the code was accessible (weak security / session fences on DECs at the time).
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/29885/eaten-grue-brief-history-zork
Do you know it’s based (loosely) on a real place? (Mammoth Cave).
Ah, the memories… ๐
Never got to play it – too busy in school – but I know what you’re talking about.
More tuned in than me – I thought it was a writing prompt. (Would probably make a good one, come to think of it.)
I played D&D in school – but almost clobbered my DM roommate when he started in with the “twisty little passages”…
I thought it was a writing prompt too. And substituted “The Whjite House” for “a white house” and watched it change genres. ๐
I think there are a lot of parts of Zork that would make good writing prompts, Harvy.
Zork!!
You’re absolutely right, Maggie!
With your great knowledge, you are unlikely to be eaten by a grue
I lost many hours wandering helplessly through the underground world of Zork. Back when games were hardmode and you were lucky to get hints or walkthroughs by mail-ordering them from the backs of magazines.
Ah the pre-internet days. ๐