Zork

Zork
Zork I Atari ST cover art
Developer(s)	Infocom
Publisher(s)	Personal Software Infocom Activision
Designer(s)	Tim Anderson Marc Blank Dave Lebling Bruce Daniels
Engine	ZIL
Platform(s)	PDP-10, Atari 8-bit, C64, CP/M, TRS-80, IBM PC, Apple II, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Amstrad PCW, Macintosh, Atari ST, MS-DOS, NEC PC-9801, MSX, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, TI-99/4A
Release date(s)	1977 (PDP-10) 1980 (Zork I) 1981 (Zork II) 1982 (Zork III)
Genre(s)	Text adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player

Zork is one of the earliest interactive fiction computer games, with roots drawn from the original genre game, Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written between 1977 and 1979 using the MDL programming language on a DEC PDP-10 computer. The authors—Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling—were members of the MIT Dynamic Modelling Group.

When Zork was published commercially, it was split up into three games: Zork: The Great Underground Empire - Part I (later known as Zork I), Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz, and Zork III: The Dungeon Master.

Zork distinguished itself in its genre as an especially rich game, in terms of both the quality of the storytelling and the sophistication of its text parser, which was not limited to simple verb-noun commands ("hit troll"), but recognized some prepositions and conjunctions ("hit the troll with the Elvish sword").

Zork is set in "the ruins of an ancient empire lying far underground". The player is a nameless adventurer "who is venturing into this dangerous land in search of wealth and adventure". The goal is to return from exploring the "Great Underground Empire" (GUE, for short) alive and with all treasures needed to complete each adventure, ultimately inheriting the title of Dungeon Master. The dungeons are stocked with many novel creatures, objects, and locations, among them the ferocious but light-fearing grues, zorkmids (the GUE's currency), and Flood Control Dam #3—all of which are referenced by subsequent Infocom text adventures.