24 Facts About Zork III

1.

Zork III is a text-based adventure game, first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,775
2.

Zork III was a massive success for Infocom, with sales increasing for years as the market for personal computers expanded.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,776
3.

Several more games in the Zork III series were released beginning in 1987, as well as books and gamebooks.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,777
4.

In 2007, Zork III was named to a list of the ten most important video games of all time, which formed the start of the game canon at the Library of Congress.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,778
5.

Zork III is a text-based adventure game wherein the player explores the ruins of the Great Underground Empire to find treasure.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,779

Related searches

Infocom Empire PDP-11 Iliad
6.

The original Zork III contained multiple ways of moving between the areas used in the three episodes, which were removed in favor of a single exit at the end of each game.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,780
7.

Zork III I begins with the unnamed player character near a white house in a small, self-contained area.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,781
8.

Zork III follows a similar pattern to the prior two episodes, but rather than just collecting treasures for their own sake, the player character gathers the garb of the Dungeon Master to become their successor.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,782
9.

Zork III was developed beginning in May 1977 by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,783
10.

Zork III released the port in March 1978, thereby making the game available to a wider set of players without access to a PDP-10 mainframe.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,784
11.

Zork III felt that the game would be wildly successful and develop a cult following, and urged Infocom to produce tie-in products like maps, hints, and shirts; while the rest of the company was not convinced enough to start producing any products, they did add an object in the game that gave an address for players to mail in for maps and hints in case it proved popular.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,785
12.

The first sale of Zork III I was earlier in the year, however; since Personal Software declined to publish the 1979 PDP-11 version of the game, Infocom announced it to various PDP-11 user groups.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,786
13.

Zork III was constructed by Marc Blank, who added gameplay changes and the modified point system to move the game away from straightforward dungeon exploration.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,787
14.

Zork III II was offered to Personal Software in April 1981 and the contract was signed in June, but Infocom began to be wary of continuing the relationship with Personal Software.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,788
15.

InfoWorld reported in April 1984 that Zork III I "has returned to the top of the sales charts two years after its release".

FactSnippet No. 1,247,789
16.

Zork III's praised the documentation and wondered if the game could ever be completed because it "lets you do pretty much what you want to do, even if the consequences are much less than desirable".

FactSnippet No. 1,247,790
17.

Zork III I continued to be reviewed for several years after its wide release.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,791
18.

Zork III was listed on several lists of the best video games a decade later.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,792
19.

Zork III has been described as "by far the most famous piece of [interactive fiction]" and "the father figure of the genre".

FactSnippet No. 1,247,793
20.

Game historian Matt Barton claimed that "to say that Zork III is an influential adventure game is like saying the Iliad is an influential poem".

FactSnippet No. 1,247,794
21.

Zork III went on to say that it had transcended simply influencing games and instead helped lay the foundations of concepts used throughout the medium around exploring, collecting objects, and overcoming problems.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,795
22.

Unofficial versions of Zork III have been created for over forty years for a wide variety of systems, such as browsers or smart speakers, and decades later it is still cited as an inspiration for text interfaces such as chatbots.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,796
23.

Zork III games have been released in several compilations in addition to Zork III Trilogy.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,797
24.

In 1996, Threshold Entertainment acquired the rights to Zork III and announced plans to create a Zork III movie and live action TV series, though it was never produced.

FactSnippet No. 1,247,798