Zork: The Undiscovered Underground
Encyclopedia
Zork: The Undiscovered Underground (or ZUU for short) is an interactive fiction
computer game written by former Infocom
Implementors Marc Blank
and Michael Berlyn
and implemented by G. Kevin Wilson using the Inform
language. The game was released by Activision
on August 28, 1997 for free to coincide with the release of Zork Grand Inquisitor
. ZUU can be seen as having two goals: promotion of the commercial title Zork Grand Inquisitor, and an attempt to reconcile with die-hard Infocom fans who may have harbored resentment against Activision for their role in buying Infocom in 1985 and subsequent closure of the company in 1989.
to Zork Grand Inquisitor, is set in the year 1066 GUE. The game is played from the viewpoint of your character who is a private in the Inquisition Guard, tasked with exploring a recently-discovered area of the Great Underground Empire. The game merges classic "Zorkian" references such as grues
and zorkmids with elements created for the newer game, such as the Grand Inquisitor.
The purpose of the game is to explore and emerge successfully from the Undiscovered Underground. The player begins only with a low-quality Lantern and plastic imitation sword, a parody of the starting items from Zorks I, II and III. Upon entering the Undiscovered Underground, the adventurer is trapped by a freak avalanche. The only way to escape is to release the mutant Rat Ants (an echo from Starcross
) and to direct them to the avalanche, which they dispatch in a manner reminiscent of Aesop's Fables
. The player must demask the Grue
vendor to gain the four candy bars and place the relevant objects in the Mud Forum on the appropriate corresponding floor symbols. This unleashes a mutant chase reminiscent of Planetfall
where the adventurer stays one step ahead of the Rat Ants because of the shrewdly placed candy bars. However, the escape comes at the cost of unleashing a Rat Ant epidemic onto the empire and forces the adventurer to flee from the wrath of the Grand Inquisitor.
Alternatively, the player can solve the remainder of the puzzles for a slightly happier ending. Attaching the tinsel hidden in the tree in the Mud Forum to the zorkmid hidden in the trunk backstage allows the player to dupe the Implementer
s (named after the creators of the game) in the Museum of Illusion into revealing several hints. With the newfound information the player can use the clothes in the Changing Room (any matching combination works) to penetrate the Grue
convention in the Convention Hall to obtain the glasses. The glasses can be combined with the coloured lenses on the Stage to decode the image in the Mud Forum (which allows the adventurer to order the objects without using guess and check). However, the Implementers also tell the adventurer which rib of the skeleton in the Museum of Adventure to pry. The low-quality sword snaps if the wrong rib is attempted, and the correct rib (which varies from game to game) does not exist until the adventurer is tipped off by the Implementers.
Prying the rib gives the adventurer access to the Janitor's Closet, a room of global proportions that contains a spray can whose contents allow the adventurer to defeat the Rat Ants, earning an afternoon off from the Grand Inquisitor.
Interactive fiction
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...
computer game written by former Infocom
Infocom
Infocom was a software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone....
Implementors Marc Blank
Marc Blank
Marc Blank is an American game developer and software engineer. He is best known as part of the team that created one of the first hit text adventure computer games, Zork....
and Michael Berlyn
Michael Berlyn
Michael Berlyn is an American computer game designer and writer. He is best known as an Implementor at Infocom, part of the text adventure game design team....
and implemented by G. Kevin Wilson using the Inform
Inform
Over the following decade, version 6 became reasonably stable and a popular language for writing interactive fiction. In 2006, Nelson released Inform 7 , a completely new language based on principles of natural language and a new set of tools based around a book-publishing metaphor.- Z-Machine and...
language. The game was released by Activision
Activision
Activision is an American publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles...
on August 28, 1997 for free to coincide with the release of Zork Grand Inquisitor
Zork Grand Inquisitor
Zork: Grand Inquisitor is a graphical adventure game, developed by Activision and released in 1997 for the IBM compatible PC and Macintosh . It builds upon the Zork and Enchanter series of interactive fiction computer games originally released by Infocom. The cast includes Erick Avari, Dirk...
. ZUU can be seen as having two goals: promotion of the commercial title Zork Grand Inquisitor, and an attempt to reconcile with die-hard Infocom fans who may have harbored resentment against Activision for their role in buying Infocom in 1985 and subsequent closure of the company in 1989.
Plot
Zork: The Undiscovered Underground, a prequelPrequel
A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...
to Zork Grand Inquisitor, is set in the year 1066 GUE. The game is played from the viewpoint of your character who is a private in the Inquisition Guard, tasked with exploring a recently-discovered area of the Great Underground Empire. The game merges classic "Zorkian" references such as grues
Grue (monster)
A grue is a fictional predator that dwells in the dark. The word was first used in modern times as a fictional predator in Jack Vance's Dying Earthuniverse ....
and zorkmids with elements created for the newer game, such as the Grand Inquisitor.
The purpose of the game is to explore and emerge successfully from the Undiscovered Underground. The player begins only with a low-quality Lantern and plastic imitation sword, a parody of the starting items from Zorks I, II and III. Upon entering the Undiscovered Underground, the adventurer is trapped by a freak avalanche. The only way to escape is to release the mutant Rat Ants (an echo from Starcross
Starcross
Starcross is a riverside village with a population of 1,780, situated on the west bank of the estuary of the River Exe in Teignbridge in the English county of Devon...
) and to direct them to the avalanche, which they dispatch in a manner reminiscent of Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables or the Aesopica are a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE. The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today...
. The player must demask the Grue
Grue (monster)
A grue is a fictional predator that dwells in the dark. The word was first used in modern times as a fictional predator in Jack Vance's Dying Earthuniverse ....
vendor to gain the four candy bars and place the relevant objects in the Mud Forum on the appropriate corresponding floor symbols. This unleashes a mutant chase reminiscent of Planetfall
Planetfall
Planetfall is a science fiction interactive fiction computer game written by Steve Meretzky, and the eighth title published by Infocom in 1983. Like most Infocom games, thanks to the portable Z-machine, it was released for several platforms simultaneously. The original release included versions...
where the adventurer stays one step ahead of the Rat Ants because of the shrewdly placed candy bars. However, the escape comes at the cost of unleashing a Rat Ant epidemic onto the empire and forces the adventurer to flee from the wrath of the Grand Inquisitor.
Alternatively, the player can solve the remainder of the puzzles for a slightly happier ending. Attaching the tinsel hidden in the tree in the Mud Forum to the zorkmid hidden in the trunk backstage allows the player to dupe the Implementer
Implementer
Implementer was originally the self-given name of the creators of the Infocom text adventure series Zork. Implementor, often shortened to Imp, became the title given to game designers and programmers at Infocom. Implementers were inserted as minor characters in several Infocom games...
s (named after the creators of the game) in the Museum of Illusion into revealing several hints. With the newfound information the player can use the clothes in the Changing Room (any matching combination works) to penetrate the Grue
Grue (monster)
A grue is a fictional predator that dwells in the dark. The word was first used in modern times as a fictional predator in Jack Vance's Dying Earthuniverse ....
convention in the Convention Hall to obtain the glasses. The glasses can be combined with the coloured lenses on the Stage to decode the image in the Mud Forum (which allows the adventurer to order the objects without using guess and check). However, the Implementers also tell the adventurer which rib of the skeleton in the Museum of Adventure to pry. The low-quality sword snaps if the wrong rib is attempted, and the correct rib (which varies from game to game) does not exist until the adventurer is tipped off by the Implementers.
Prying the rib gives the adventurer access to the Janitor's Closet, a room of global proportions that contains a spray can whose contents allow the adventurer to defeat the Rat Ants, earning an afternoon off from the Grand Inquisitor.
External links
- Zork I, II, III and The Undiscovered Underground Download Zork I-III for Win, DOS or Mac (no Z-interpreter needed), and The Undiscovered Underground (Z-machineZ-machineThe Z-machine is a virtual machine that was developed by Joel Berez and Marc Blank in 1979 and used by Infocom for its text adventure games. Infocom compiled game code to files containing Z-machine instructions , and could therefore port all its text adventures to a new platform simply by writing a...
interpreters included). Includes "The New Zork Times" - Adventure Collective review
- Balmoral Software: Zork: The Undiscovered Underground Walkthrough
- The Interactive Fiction DB record