Context of Practice Research: Zork 1

 

The first game that I wanted to look at for this module was were I got my initial inspiration from for looking at environmental storytelling. In 1979 Zork 1, sometimes known as Zork: The Great Underground Empire - Part 1, was created and was one of the earliest forms of interactivity on a computer. It was a very sophisticated game which produces lines of text, which were written in a very rich way as it didn't just produce a description of the environment, but went into detail about everything that you can see. Even though the game was only ever in text form it allowed you as a player to image the scene and imagine walking around it in your head, and this is what I want to take inspiration from in my practical piece.

The game was divided into different sections of a house and then went underground into caves and eventually treasure rooms. The text that was used was well written and didn't understand if you typed back simple commands, you had to use clever ways of saying things and not just use simple verb-noun commands. You play as a nameless character who is trying to find secret ruins under the city with only the power of words to guide them there.

It is such a unique game that doesn't offer amazing graphics and beautiful settings, but still manages to be one of the best examples of environment storytelling in a game yet. This is down to the fact that we never see the environments. Strange as that may be, it offers the player the freedom of creating there own environment and imagining what it looks like, opening the game up to look however the player wants it to. One player could image the house there stood in front of at the beginning of the game is pure white in colour, set in a beautiful countryside and an air of beauty radiating from it another player could image it is white, but an old run down white with paint peeling off and a stench coming from it as if the last person that died in there might still be lingering. Its all about how you imagine it to look, and the text in the game just gives you that starting point, offering different endings and many possibilities of excitement along the way.