[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Choose Your Own Zork Adventure
November 18th, 2013 by Benj Edwards
“Don’t eat me, ghostly tiger-snake!”
During the Choose Your Own Adventure (RSOTW, 2008) book craze in the early 1980s, interactive fiction meisters Infocom decided to get in on the act by publishing a series of Zork-themed “What-Do-I-Do-Now” titles through TOR Books.
Here is one of them, formally titled Zork #4: Conquest at Quendor. It was written by none other than Infocom legend Steve Meretzky, whom I met briefly in person back in 2008. He is a very personable fellow. (FYI: Back in 2007, Meretzky made a cameo in Jason Scott’s video for the Zork-themed “It Is Pitch Dark” by MC Frontalot, which I love.)
As for the book, I haven’t read it in ages, so I am not equipped at present to tell you if it’s any good. I just recently found it in a box of my brother’s old computer game boxes at my parents’ house (which seems to be how a lot of these scans originate these days). My brother is and was a huge Zork fan, which reminds me that we need to play Zork Nemesis together again sometime.
I will add that the cover art featuring a translucent, floating fuzzy tiger-snake with squidlike suction cups on its body always freaked me out a bit as a kid.
Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s your favorite entry in the Zork game series?
November 18th, 2013 at 3:46 pm
Great!
November 18th, 2013 at 4:42 pm
I really liked Planetfall – I used to play it on Thursday mornings at work while waiting for backups / IPLs to finish. I also really like the first one. Zork was one of the first games I ever played on the computer. My friend had it on his green-screened Apple. He introduced me to both Zork and Bard’s Tale.
John
November 19th, 2013 at 1:56 pm
Never played Zork but I was (and still am) a HUGE fan of the Choose Your Own Adventure series, and I happily check out anything similar when I can.
November 22nd, 2013 at 12:34 pm
Never came across these but had some from the Fighting Fantasy series of books such as Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Deathtrap Dungeon and Forest of Doom.
November 23rd, 2013 at 2:35 am
I think I’m one of the few people who loved the Zork Nemesis game. It was very dark and too much of a departure from the Zork world for fans who had been with it sense those text based games.
December 1st, 2013 at 5:08 pm
I still have that book in a crate someplace – it was always one of my favorite while-away-an-afternoon books.
That said, my favorite Infocom game remains to this day The Lurking Horror.