Zork: The Great Underground Empire

Zork
Zork: The Great Underground Empire	1980
Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz	1981
Zork III: The Dungeon Master	1982
Enchanter	1983
Sorcerer	1984
Spellbreaker	1985
Wishbringer	1985
Beyond Zork	1987
Zork Zero	1988
Return to Zork	1993
Zork Nemesis	1996
Zork: The Undiscovered Underground	1997
Zork: Grand Inquisitor	1997

General information

"Official" developer fan site

Interactive Fiction Wiki - A wiki for all text adventure games

Zork Wiki - A small wiki for every Zork game made

Zork Bug List

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability[edit]

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail
GOG.com		Pre-packaged with DOSBox.^[2] Bundled in The Zork Anthology
Steam		Bundled in The Zork Anthology.

THCNET 404 is a version modified to add in MMO-lite multiplayer interaction.

Version differences[edit]

The Original MDL mainframe version predates the later versions released for micro computers. This version contains content of all 3 of the original games. An interpreter to run it in its original form is available here. The FORTRAN port can be found here with an older Mac version (PowerPC and intel 32) available here and Windows 64 compatible version here. Source to this version can be obtained here. Additionally a port of the mainframe version to z-machine can be found here.
The Zork Anthology is a compilation pack containing Zork: The Great Underground Empire, Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz, Zork III: The Dungeon Master, Beyond Zork, Zork Zero, and Planetfall.

Essential improvements[edit]

Recommended Z-machine interpreters[edit]

Frotz - The most popular and portable Z-machine available
Nitfol
Zoom

A Z-machine standards document is available for those wishing to make their own interpreter.

Utilities[edit]

A list of various Zork related tools and utilities can be found here.

Game data[edit]

Configuration file(s) location[edit]

System	Location
DOS
Windows	<path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)^{[Note 1]}
Mac OS (Classic)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/570580/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game data location[edit]

System	Location
DOS	<path-to-game>\
Windows	<path-to-game>\SAVE^{[Note 3]}
Mac OS (Classic)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/570580/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game cloud syncing[edit]

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video[edit]

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		See Recommended Z-machine interpreters
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed		See Recommended Z-machine interpreters
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)		For DOSBox use an unofficial build (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		All on-screen content is text only.
Color blind mode		All information is delivered via text.

Input[edit]

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		For DOSBox use the DOSBox Mapper (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support		For DOSBox use the DOSBox Mapper (see the glossary page for other workarounds).

Audio[edit]

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		No sound.
Surround sound
Subtitles		Everything is text-based.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English

Other information[edit]

API[edit]

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
DOS video modes	CGA, EGA, MCGA, VGA, SVGA

System requirements[edit]

DOS
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	5.0	6.2
Processor (CPU)	IBM PC or 100% compatible
System memory (RAM)	512 KB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	2 MB
Video card (GPU)	CGA, EGA, MCGA, VGA, SVGA

Notes

↑ File/folder structure within the installation folder reflects the path(s) listed for DOS and/or PC booter game data. For the GOG.com release, file changes in DOSBox are redirected to <path-to-game>/cloud_saves/ even if GOG Galaxy is not used (this folder contains all redirected files, so some files in the cloud_saves folder might be temporary files or other files that do not contain saves or settings).
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/570580/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (570580) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.
↑ When running this game without Administrator elevation, activity in %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMFILES(X86)%, and %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore\ (more details).

References

[DOSBox_mounted-3] File/folder structure within the installation folder reflects the path(s) listed for DOS and/or PC booter game data. For the GOG.com release, file changes in DOSBox are redirected to <path-to-game>/cloud_saves/ even if GOG Galaxy is not used (this folder contains all redirected files, so some files in the cloud_saves folder might be temporary files or other files that do not contain saves or settings).

[Proton_path_note-4] 2.0 ^2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/570580/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (570580) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

[gamedir-5] When running this game without Administrator elevation, activity in %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMFILES(X86)%, and %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore\ (more details).

[1] New release: The Zork Anthology - GOG.com

[2] List of GOG games using DOSBox, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com

[1]

[2]

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

[Note 3]

Developers

	Infocom
Engines
	ZIL
Release dates
DOS	December 1980
Mac OS (Classic)	1984
Windows (DOSBox)	January 18, 2011^[1]