Infocom games

Which cracked version are you running? I just booted up a version cracked by the Blade, in an Apple II emulator on my Mac, and when I typed in turn on light it proceeded into the game. Let me transfer it back to a real disk and see if it works the same on my GS.

Dean

Ran fine for me when I transferred it to a 5.25 disk and tried it on my GS.

Dean

And some map-making tips for Zork? I have a paper and pencil and am trying to draw a map but seem to go around in circles?

Early adventure games, including the Infocom games, can be maddening to map because of the twists and turns of the "corridors" joining game areas. Be very careful to take note of descriptions like:

> You wind your way toward a field...

Or:

> The hallway curves through the dark and you find yourself in a library...

These sorts of descriptions frequently mean you left the last room going one direction (say, North) but entered the new room on a different heading. As a rule of thumb, the earlier the adventure game the worse the writers were at being clear about these things.

A second way some games may trip you up, including Zork, are actual looping passages. You head north from room A, and you wind up in ... room A. These sorts of "virtual mazes" are particularly tricky to map, especially when the "slides" are between multiple rooms. A to B to C to A... Argh.

Check out the following link for a glimpse of original map from Dungeon (a precursor to Zork) for an example of how complicated these maps can be. Caution: while it's not a real Zork map, it contains many similarities and may spoil some things for you if you read the text -- I suggest squinting. :-)

http://almy.us/image/dungeon.jpg

If you really get stumped in your mapping, there are lots of places to find the Zork maps online.

I've considered creating "blank maps" with all the rooms and corridors marked as just empty squares, so gamers could fill in the names and details as they went but avoid getting tripped up by the windy corridors. Sort of a "template map" for a given game. Any interest?

Thanks Carrington, as long as its part of the challenge and not something stupid which I was doing. Confusing, though.

The question I need to answer is:
Am I less of a man if I use a Zork map

I mapped out Neuromancer and the layout of the nets made it easy. I never tried mapping some of the really tricky ones like Dungeon and Zork. The looping rooms always put me off before I got very far into the games.