Yes, I do mention Spellbreaker near the end.
Up From the Bottom
In 1993, things at Activision were indisputably on the upswing. A short two years previous, the company, which held a sizable number of video game properties, was sixty million USD underwater. Since then, investors acquired it for a mere two million dollars, then took it through bankruptcy reorganization. Zork, and Infocom generally, played a surprising role in sustaining Activision through this process. The Lost Treasures of Infocom I and II were both hits. With no new content to create and no royalties to pay, these anthologies were comfortably profitable. The Infocom reissues are usually considered a factor in Activision’s survival during the reorganization process as a steady source of revenue with little overhead and sustained critical goodwill.
The Zork brand was part of Activision’s bounce back, too. 1993’s Return to Zork was a bona fide hit, with sales pushing beyond one million. It’s an incredible figure, considering that sales of the standalone version of Zork I never reached a half million. This isn’t a way of arguing that people preferred Return to Zork to Zork I then or now (remember that compilations like the Lost Treasures sold well). It’s more an indication that the audience and scale of video games as a medium were changing. Return to Zork was a success, mathematically, and suggested that a bright future might await Zork as a brand.
Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision both then and now, once famously said that “Zork on a brick would sell 100,000 copies.” Judging from Activision’s post-Infocom takes on the brand, he really believed that to be true. In fairness, it was true. Or, more accurately, Zork spackled on top of a point and click with high production values would sell quite well. It was a golden age of graphical adventure games: the landmark title Myst would release just after Return to Zork. Myst would prove to be a killer app for Macintosh, and PC owners had new technologies of their own that they wanted to fully utilize. Looking through old reviews, it seems that many customers, who may or may not have been familiar with Infocom’s text adventure games, enjoyed RtZ‘s full-motion-video snippets and humorous acting (though perhaps not all of its humor was intentional).
Return to Zork, then, was a successful product, and Zork must have seemed a viable brand. In addition to satisfactory sales figures, it was also named runner-up in Computer Gaming World‘s “Adventure Game of the Year” award, beaten out by Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers and Day of the Tentacle. Considering that Myst was the big leader from the Mac side of the house, Return to Zork was certainly keeping good company. Today, though, those other games have enjoyed staying power in terms of critical interest and player goodwill. Return to Zork, on the other hand, seems largely relegated to the status of inside joke or obscure meme.
Want Some Zork? Of Course You Do!
In fact, let me be clear right now: Return to Zork is a terrible adventure game. Under no circumstances should you play it, unless to satisfy historical curiosity or as a source of ironic amusement in the grand tradition of Ed Wood. And even in these special cases, you should take care to play it with a walkthrough in hand. To do anything else is sheer masochism; you’re almost guaranteed to lock yourself out of victory within the first ten minutes, and almost guaranteed not to realize it until many hours later. There’s really no point in mincing words here: Return to Zork is one of the absolute worst adventure-game designs I’ve ever seen — and, believe me, I’ve seen quite a few bad ones.
I’ve been asking this question since the very beginning of Gold Machine: what is Zork? Is it whatever the copyright holder says that it is? If Activision had made a Zork soccer/football game, would that have been Zork? What about one of those “interactive” CD ROMs so popular at the time? If Activision had published a “Paula Deen’s Zork Cookbook,” would that have been Zork? If your definition or conception of Zork is commercial, then cookbooks and soccer are in. Return to Zork, likewise, is in. The weirdly grimdark non-sequitur that is Nemesis? Zork.
Separating innocent little Bill and June (text only version here), only to have Bill (Bivotar) bludgeoned to death by the Nemesis? Zork, baby!
Note that I’m not really interested in determining which post-Infocom games are “good”. Rather, I am interested in what might or might not make them Zorkian. It’s fine to enjoy Nemesis, Grand Inquisitor, or even Return to Zork. It’s none of my business. I do think that six (seven if you count Wishbringer) games down the road, it’s probably time for me to say with the confidence one expects of video game critics: why does the saga end after six games? Point and click games are one thing, but am I really snubbing Beyond Zork? Zork Zero?
I shouldn’t beat around the bush: yes, I am snubbing Beyond Zork and Zork Zero. I personally consider Beyond Zork a noble but failed experiment and Zork Zero a complete failure. While both games will get their own time in (or out) of the sun at Gold Machine, I have to talk about them now because many of you have asked–reasonably–why the saga stops with Spellbreaker. To answer that, I have to try and define what Zork is to me as a critic. I need to explain the criteria I use to evaluate these games and make judgements about them. In a sense, the entire arc of this series–not just on Spellbreaker but on Infocom–has been leading to this question. I’ve returned to it again and again: what makes Zork what it is?
I have written more about Zork here than I have any other subject, including A Mind Forever Voyaging. As Zork III once advertised: “it all comes down to this.” To answer the questions of what Zork is and why it ends, we’ll have to go back to the beginning. I’ll examine the world models of both the original mainframe Zork as well as the commercial trilogy and try to determine how and/or if a significant evolution took place between the two. I’ll take a look at the “Great Underground Empire,” emphasis on “empire,” and compare it with the sunlit, federated world of the Enchanter trilogy.
Finally, I’ll discuss what I consider the aesthetics of Zorkian media, which frequently seem missing, misapplied, or, perhaps, misunderstood. Only in that context can the force of Spellbreaker’s conclusion can be measured in full. Furthermore, subsequent efforts to negate or undermine it can be understood as the disappointments that they are.
Disclaimer
I seriously don’t think Grand Inquisitor is a bad game. I like it better than Zork Zero. There’s no need to be upset!
Next
As advertised, we’ll go all the way back to the start. Stick around!
I am thrilled to have discovered Gold Machine. I had almost all of the Infocom games as a kid in the 80s/early 90s, but only managed to complete one without Invisiclues. (That was “The Witness”, which took about two days, leading my mother to ask why we spent good money on the thing.) Like many readers, I imagine, I’m more interested in the history and context than the games themselves; I’ve reread the Filfre/Maher archive in full more than once. This site, and particularly your takes on the literary and political context, is a welcome addition.
Glad to have you! I’m a huge Maher fan, too.
Oh you guys are so mean to Z0! Listen, I really liked the big (very big) world, reading entries in the Encyclopedia Frobozzica, and playing Double Fanucci. And I can’t say no to an ending that wraps everything up in a little bow that just means more when you know (as I’m sure everyone there did at the time) that the company was basically done.
I’m looking at these through a very specific lens. You have your own criteria, which is what matters! I’d never say that you or anyone else were wrong for enjoying it.
Drew: I agree with you about Spellbreaker being the end of Infocom’s Zork saga. I look forward to reading your future posts about Zork. Although Zork Zero takes place on the Zork timeline before Zork I and Beyond Zork is set before the end of SpellBreaker, I have never been fully satisfied as a player with plot/design of those two games.
In my mind, a genuine sequel to SpellBreaker is the fan fiction game SpiritWrak created in Inform by Daniel S. Yu. Although SpiritWrak was written/designed by an Infocom fan and not Infocom itself, it is what I consider a sequel to SpellBreaker.
I previously told Drew via email in 2022 that SpiritWrak takes place in the Zork/Enchanter universe hundreds of years after SpellBreaker. I correct myself here. Actually, events occur one decade after SpellBreaker. Magic can sometimes be problematic in-game due to events which occurred in SpellBreaker, but you have and can use a spell book. Although Mr. Yu’s interactive fiction is not part of the Infocom cannon for the reason stated above (fan fiction), I highly recommend that fans of Enchanter/sorcerer/SpellBreaker experience SpiritWrak. To download: search for spirit.z5 at:
https://ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/inform/
I will not link directly to this game at the If Archive because I think doing so would be inappropriate.
Blake, I was intrigued by what you told me about it, and I still plan to play it. Unfortunately, the game that I’m making has taken up all the time I used to spend playing games. Fortunately, it releases as part of Spring Thing in a few weeks, so I’ll have to stop working on it! I’ll be able to catch up on some games then.
When I wrote Spiritwrak 20+ years ago, my intent was to create a spiritual continuation of the story after Spellbreaker. I really enjoyed the world and lore that Infocom had created (I think I wrote to them asking if they planned on making another series of games using a Cleric or Thief, following traditional fantasy game class tropes — they never replied).
It’s not a great game (in my defense, I was young, and the .z5 format gave me limited space to work with), but I did try and emulate the whimsy and style of the Zork and Enchanter series, and used various entities mentioned-but-not-used in those games (e.g. the “tossio” spell). Blake, thanks for mentioning my game, and Drew, thanks for this post (I look forward to your next posts), and if you do ever get a chance to play Spiritwrak, feel free to let me know if you think I managed to capture the “Zorkian” spirit or not.
I quite liked Grand Inquisitor, albeit it leans into the sillier possibilities in Zork. I struggled a lot with Return to Zork in the 90s and never actually completed it until many years later, walkthrough in hand (and on a computer that didn’t have trouble keeping up with the graphics). There are some parts of it that are okay, but it doesn’t feel that “Zorky” to me. Same with Nemesis (I played it once and have never been back), about which the only Zorky thing to me is that you are exploring a grand abandoned environment. Zork Zero is a frustrating and repetitive game to be sure, but it counts as Zork to me because it has enough lore connections. Beyond Zork probably just misses – there’s things like the Implementors and an Ur-Grue but overall it seems to be a rather different idea. I do like it just as a game, though.
I personally think that Z0 attempts to demystify many things that had previously been mysterious in a pleasant way. For instance, getting to know the original Dungeon Master is an impoverishment for me, not an improvement. More later!
Grand Inquisitor lover here.
Actually I would like an elaboration of why Z:GI is not zorkian for you. If you like, of course 😉
I understand why it could not fit “in the saga of six games”, but that it is not a zork game? I dunno, it has the universe, it has the silliness, it has even the cool magic system (really neat ported to the graphical interface, IMHO).
Anyway, this has been a really neat series. It has been a very cool Zorkian month thanks to Jason and you. Thanks!
I never actually say that “Grand Inquisitor” is not a Zork game. I just say it is none of my business. I will probably never say, because I don’t want to spend the time that it would take to make a convincing argument. By the time this Infocom business is over, I will probably write about some Telarium games, then perhaps some RPGs!
I don’t think it is tonally or narratively contiguous with the six “saga” games, (I don’t think the Infocom games are as silly as everyone seems to remember, with the exception of Sorcerer and Zork Zero), but from a certain POV, who cares? It’s not objectionable, and I know that lots of people have enjoyed it as a Zork game. I do call out Return to Zork and Nemesis, because I do think they are just that far off base. But I don’t mention any flaws of Inquisitor (on purpose).
Experience it as you like! I will not argue either way. I’m glad you are enjoying the content (I enjoyed Jason’s, too!), and hope you will join us again next week.