Zork: The Great Underground Empire is a classic text adventure game. The player begins as an "adventurer" standing near a white house in a nice forest, but soon descends into the Great Underground Empire, where most of the game takes place. The player's quest is to collect the Nineteen Treasures of Zork.
As was typical for adventure games of its era, Zork does not use graphics. Instead, it communicates with the player via text, and the player interacts with the game by typing commands, such as "examine mailbox" or "take torch". For movement, the player types in geographical directions (such as "north" or "east" - or just "n" and "e"), and can check what items are being carried with the "inventory" command (or just "i").
The game was adapted from a larger mainframe version from the late 1970s, and is one of the first examples of its genre.
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Header Image (Windows)
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Starting location
(Apple II)
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A curious introduction
(Apple II)
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I've found a priceless treasure!
(Apple II)
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Game start
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Found a grating
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Reading the leaflet in the starting location.
(Commodore 64)
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Walking down a forest path
(Commodore 64)
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Entered the house and in the kitchen
(Commodore 64)
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Facing a troll
(Commodore 64)
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The starting location
(DOS)
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Found an interesting treasure...
(DOS)
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Entering the house
(DOS)
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The grating is locked...of course.
(DOS)
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Everything echoes in this room - even your thoughts.
(DOS)
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Sloppy artists are one of the reasons Zork is a text-only game ;)
(DOS)
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Defeating the first foe you encounter in the Zork universe - the Troll.
(DOS)
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Zork's sense of humor is truly unique.
(DOS)
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The cult phrase that Zork is famous for. You'd better get some light fast!
(DOS)
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Performing exorcism is just one of the many tasks you will face in the game.
(DOS)
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There's nothing a tube of Gunk can't fix.
(DOS)
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The Thief is a tough opponent but definitely not unbeatable.
(DOS)
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Ouch! I'm hurt - I'd better be careful.
(DOS)
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Entering the mines with an open flame (e.g. a torch) is a pretty bad idea. Very noisy too...
(DOS)
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Title
(Macintosh)
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Game start
(Macintosh)
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South of House
(Macintosh)
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Behind House
(Macintosh)
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Kitchen
(Macintosh)
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Living Room
(Macintosh)
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Cellar
(Macintosh)
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East of Chasm
(Macintosh)
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Gallery
(Macintosh)
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Game save
(Macintosh)
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Starting location
(Atari ST)
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Starting location
(Amiga)
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Title screen
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Getting started. The famous description of the white house :)
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This is so funny! The game asks this question (in English!) if you just hit Return :)
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Okay, I typed "what" and the game didn't understand me. So I started swearing... but it didn't help :)
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Okay, finally some communication! I typed "look" and got a description! Hurray!
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What am I doing wrong? I said "open the door", it says "you can't"...
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To help you, there is a special object menu
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Later in the game; a long description!
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Your inventory is now huge...
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...and you can even see it graphically!
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Official Screenshot
(Windows)
from Steam
Official Screenshot
(Windows)
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Official Screenshot
(Windows)
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Official Screenshot
(Windows)
from Steam
Official Screenshot
(Windows)
from Steam
Official Screenshot
(Windows)
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