''Beyond Zork'' (full title: ''Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor'') is an
interactive fiction
''
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the ...
computer game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...
written by
Brian Moriarty
Brian Moriarty (born 1956) is an American video game developer who authored three of the original Infocom interactive fiction titles, ''Wishbringer'' (1985), ''Trinity'' (1986), and ''Beyond Zork'' (1987), as well as ''Loom'' (1990) for LucasArt ...
and released by
Infocom
Infocom was an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced a business application, a relational database called ''Cornerstone (software), Cornerstone''.
...
in 1987. It was one of the last games in the
Zork
''Zork'' is a text-based adventure game first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. The original developers and others, as the company Infocom, expanded and ...
series developed by Infocom (titles such as ''
Zork Nemesis
''Zork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands'' is a graphic adventure game developed by Zombie LLC, published by Activision, and released in 1996 for Windows 95, MS-DOS, and Macintosh. It is the eleventh game in the ''Zork'' series, and the first title n ...
'' and ''
Zork: Grand Inquisitor'' were created after
Activision
Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...
had dissolved Infocom as a company and kept the Infocom brand name). It signified a notable departure from the standard format of Infocom's earlier games which relied purely on text and puzzle-solving: among other features, ''Beyond Zork'' incorporated a crude on-screen map, the use of character statistics and levels, and
RPG RPG may refer to:
Military
* Rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-launched anti-tank weapon
**''Ruchnoi Protivotankoviy Granatomyot'' (Russian: ''Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт''), hand-held anti-tank grenade laun ...
combat elements.
The game, Infocom's twenty-ninth, was available on the
Amiga (512KB),
Apple (128KB),
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...
,
Commodore 128
The Commodore 128, also known as the C128, C-128, C= 128,The "C=" represents the graphical part of the logo. is the last 8-bit home computer that was commercially released by Commodore Business Machines (CBM). Introduced in January 1985 at the ...
,
IBM (192KB), and the
Macintosh (512KB) computers.
[
]
Plot
The player explores the Southlands of Quendor somewhat aimlessly at first. Soon, however, a task is bestowed by the Implementors, a group of godlike creatures jokingly based on Infocom's game designers. The Coconut of Quendor, a mighty artifact that embodies the whole of Magic, has fallen into the claws of an unspeakably foul beast: an Ur-grue. Rumoured to be the spirits of fallen Implementors, Ur-Grues can surround themselves in a sphere of darkness that only sunlight can pierce. The player must recover the Coconut from this monster's grasp or face the unthinkable consequences.
Ur-grue
''Beyond Zork'' introduces the "Ur-grue", a being which game materials describe as the progenitor and ruler of the monstrous race of
grues—the term "Ur-grue" combines the German prefix
ur-
Ur (; Sumerian language, Sumerian: , , or ''Urim''; akk, 𒋀𒀕𒆠 ''Uru''; ar, أُوْر, ʾūr; he, אוּר, ʾūr) was an important Sumerian city-state in ancient Mesopotamia, located at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar ( ar, ت ...
signifying "original" and "grue"—as well as the source of many other evil monsters. He is said to have originated as the shade of a "fallen Implementor".
The Ur-Grue character in ''Beyond Zork'' may be a reference to
Brian Moriarty
Brian Moriarty (born 1956) is an American video game developer who authored three of the original Infocom interactive fiction titles, ''Wishbringer'' (1985), ''Trinity'' (1986), and ''Beyond Zork'' (1987), as well as ''Loom'' (1990) for LucasArt ...
himself, the creator of the game, who is notably absent from the game's portrayal of an "Implementors' Luncheon", where each Implementor is recognizably based on a member of the Infocom staff. His persona as the progenitor of grues and creator of monsters may be linked to his role as the creator of the games' challenges, Infocom having long made joking references to grues being the foremost example of the Implementors' capricious, sometimes nonsensical design decisions.
The Ur-grue is revealed to be the primary villain of the story. The player, sent to retrieve the Coconut of Quendor from the Implementors, arrives at the Implementors' Luncheon on the Ethereal Plane of Atrii only to find he has been followed by the Ur-grue in shadow form, who takes the opportunity to steal it for himself. The player must then venture into the Ur-grue's extensive underground lair and retrieve it.
The Ur-grue is shown to be a
dungeon master of sorts, controlling huge parts of the ''Zork'' underground and having accumulated an enormous hoard of treasure, of which the Coconut is his crowning acquisition. He has not only an army of grues at his disposal but also bizarre creatures of evil such as Lucksuckers, spirits who attack the player by draining his good fortune (reducing his Luck stat). The Ur-grue himself is surrounded by a pool of magical darkness that is capable of overcoming and destroying all artificial light sources, and is therefore only vulnerable to pure sunlight—the player, therefore, can only best him by using a series of mirrors to transmit a beam of light at him from outside the dungeon.
After doing so, the Ur-grue's shadowy form is dissipated revealing what may be his true form, that of a broken, withered old man. It is implied that the Ur-grue cannot survive long in this form and must possess others' bodies, like a
demon
A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in media such as comics, video games, movies, ani ...
, in order to survive—he attempts to possess the player. If he succeeds, a negative ending is revealed where the possessed player-character finds and strangles baby grues until he finds one strong enough to hold the Ur-grue's essence, implying that the Ur-grue's usual shadowy form is an enhanced version of a grue's body.
If the player's Compassion stat is high enough—represented by having done enough good deeds throughout the game—the Ur-grue is shown to be unable to possess the player, his evil apparently unable to coexist in the same body with an extremely pure or virtuous spirit, and the Ur-grue's old man form fades away. Whether this means the Ur-grue was permanently destroyed in this encounter is unclear, as is the possibility of others of his kind existing somewhere in the world, although, being magical in nature, it seems unlikely any Ur-grues could survive in Quendor following the Great Change.
Feelies
Almost since the company's beginning, Infocom's games included "extras" (called
feelie
Infocom was an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced a business application, a relational database called ''Cornerstone''.
Infocom was founded on ...
s) in the packages, often serving a dual purpose of entertainment and
copy protection
Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy prevention and copy restriction, describes measures to enforce copyright by preventing the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media.
Copy protection is most commonly found on ...
. ''Beyond Zork'' is no exception. The game package contained:
*A large fold-out map of the "Southland of Quendor"
*A small book titled ''The Lore and Legends of Quendor'', a field guide of sorts to the flora and fauna of the area (several entries contained information necessary to defeat or incapacitate creatures in the game)
Notes
''Beyond Zork'' combined
procedural generation
In computing, procedural generation is a method of creating data algorithmically as opposed to manually, typically through a combination of human-generated assets and algorithms coupled with computer-generated randomness and processing power. In ...
and
character creation
Character creation (also character generation or character design) is the process of defining a game character or other character. Typically, a character's individual strengths and weaknesses are represented by a set of statistics. Games with a ...
with a very plot-heavy story, as the player's scores affected not just numerical gameplay mechanics, but crucial puzzles as well. The game's mechanics combine the engine of a broader puzzle-based
adventure game
An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...
with areas featuring the mechanics of a simplified
role-playing game
A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...
or
Multi-User Dungeon
A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, usually text-based or storyboarded. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash ...
, particularly in the implementations of character statistics and levels. The "attributes" that affected the character were endurance, strength, dexterity, intelligence, compassion, and luck. These attributes could be manually allocated by the player at the beginning of the game or randomly set by the computer. Additionally, there were several preset characters that could be used. The values of these attributes affected combat and other aspects of the game. Combat sections of the game were dependent on the player's strength, dexterity, and endurance (and slightly on luck); meanwhile, puzzles often depended not just on solving a creative puzzle but on a required value in any one of the six statistics as well.
The game's design encouraged multiple playthroughs. The map was presented nonlinearly, and some paths and interactions required a high statistic to successfully complete the task. Every statistic could unlock at least one, and usually several, crucial puzzles and solutions; but the player would find him or herself at a disadvantage in others. For example, an intelligent player character could read the words on magical scrolls, and use magical items, from early on in the game - this allowed the wide-ranging traversal of the map and the completion of many plot points; but the value required generally meant taking points away from the combat statistics. A dexterous character could traverse paths and enter rooms unavailable to the clumsy. Some enemies did not damage the character's
hit points
Health is an attribute in a video game or tabletop game that determines the maximum amount of damage or loss of stamina that a character or object can take before dying or losing consciousness. In role-playing games, this typically takes the for ...
but instead their other statistics, and "dying" due to a non-hit-point statistic score falling to zero resulted in quite interesting death sequences. All values could be improved to the required solution values by gaining experience levels, eating or drinking certain foods or magical items, or wearing or using certain objects. Every playthrough of the game was different, due to
procedural generation
In computing, procedural generation is a method of creating data algorithmically as opposed to manually, typically through a combination of human-generated assets and algorithms coupled with computer-generated randomness and processing power. In ...
of maze-like dungeon areas, and many items that could actually unlock puzzles were semi-randomly placed. Puzzles for which the easiest solution was disallowed by a low statistic required either raising that statistic through items and exploration, or alternate solutions not dependent on player scores, with some of these solutions quite obscure and/or requiring wide-ranging map traversal. (Humorously, repeated typing of
profanities
Profanity, also known as cursing, cussing, swearing, bad language, foul language, obscenities, expletives or vulgarism, is a socially offensive use of language. Accordingly, profanity is language use that is sometimes deemed impolite, ru ...
would lower the player's intelligence.)
Many locations, creatures and events encountered in other ''Zork'' games were referenced in ''Beyond Zork'' via its fictional setting in Quendor, the legendarium of the other Zork games. As with all Zork games, the player must find and carry a
light source
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 terahe ...
in any darkened area of the map or be "eaten by a
grue" within several turns of wandering around in the dark.
A short section of the game involves the magical land of Froon, "the setting for a series of beloved children's books by L. Frank Fzort, and later became a successful movie musical starring Judy Garlic." This is a not-very-subtle tribute to (or parody of)
L. Frank Baum
Lyman Frank Baum (; May 15, 1856 – May 6, 1919) was an American author best known for his children's books, particularly ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' and its sequels. He wrote 14 novels in the ''Oz'' series, plus 41 other novels (not includ ...
's ''
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' is a children's novel written by author L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. It is the first novel in the Oz series of books. A Kansas farm girl named Dorothy ends up in the magical Land of Oz after s ...
''.
''Beyond Zork'' was one of 20 Infocom games bundled in the 1991 compilation ''
The Lost Treasures of Infocom
''The Lost Treasures of Infocom'' is a 1991 compilation of 20 previously-released interactive fiction games developed by Infocom. It was published by Activision for MS-DOS, Macintosh, Amiga, and Apple IIGS versions. It was later re-released on ...
'' published by Activision.
Technical details
The game's most noticeable enhancement relative to its Infocom predecessors is the addition of an onscreen map to the
heads-up display
A head-up display, or heads-up display, also known as a HUD (), is any transparent display that presents data without requiring users to look away from their usual viewpoints. The origin of the name stems from a pilot being able to view informa ...
, which shows the player's location in relation to the surrounding area. In addition, game navigation can be accomplished via mouse clicks on the map, if the
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
that the game is running on supports mouse input.
In addition, the game continued the ''
Zork
''Zork'' is a text-based adventure game first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. The original developers and others, as the company Infocom, expanded and ...
'' series' early use of
procedural generation
In computing, procedural generation is a method of creating data algorithmically as opposed to manually, typically through a combination of human-generated assets and algorithms coupled with computer-generated randomness and processing power. In ...
in videogaming. A number of magic items have initial locations and descriptions that are randomly determined, and some sections of the area map are randomly reorganized, each time a new game is played.
Role-playing game
A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...
-like elements are also present in the combat, including the concept of
hit points
Health is an attribute in a video game or tabletop game that determines the maximum amount of damage or loss of stamina that a character or object can take before dying or losing consciousness. In role-playing games, this typically takes the for ...
and character statistics. Infocom had used these concepts before only in a rather limited way in ''
Zork I
''Zork'' is a text-based adventure game first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. The original developers and others, as the company Infocom, expanded and ...
'' and ''
III
III or iii may refer to:
Companies
* Information International, Inc., a computer technology company
* Innovative Interfaces, Inc., a library-software company
* 3i, formerly Investors in Industry, a British investment company
Other uses
* Ins ...
''.
Like Infocom's other games, ''Beyond Zork'' is platform independent and runs on a virtual computer architecture called the
Z-machine
The Z-machine is a virtual machine that was developed by Joel Berez and Marc Blank in 1979 and used by Infocom for its text adventure games. Infocom compiled game code to files containing Z-machine instructions (called story files or Z-code ...
. There were 4 versions of the game released in 1987, all using version 5 of the Z-machine. The game has 144 rooms and 77 objects, with a vocabulary of 1569 words and a total of 32778 opcodes.
Reception
A review in ''
Computer Gaming World
''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...
'' was pleased with some of ''Beyond Zorks features, particularly the ability to define
macros and bind them to the function keys. The randomness of the game was described as frustrating, particularly as maps and item properties randomize upon restoring a previous game save. The review concluded by describing ''Beyond Zork'' as "a curious hybrid... mostly tough Infocom adventure with a patina of role-playing elements."
In 1993 the magazine stated that the game's "merging of CRPG with adventure does not mix as well as it should".
The game was reviewed in 1988 in ''
Dragon
A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...
'' #132 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 5 stars.
''
Compute!
''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', was an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET c ...
'' stated that the game's combination of text adventure and RPG "introduces the next stage in interactive fiction". It concluded, "''Beyond Zork'' reaffirms Infocom's position as king of the text adventures".
''
Antic
Alphanumeric Television Interface Controller (ANTIC) is an LSI ASIC dedicated to generating 2D computer graphics to be shown on a television screen or computer display. Under the direction of Jay Miner, the chip was designed in 1977-1978 by ...
'' stated that "this
hack-and-slash
Hack and slash, also known as hack and slay (H&S or HnS) or slash 'em up, refers to a type of gameplay that emphasizes combat with melee-based weapons (such as swords or blades). They may also feature projectile-based weapons as well (such as ...
approach is not what we have come to expect from Infocom". While approving of
Undo
Undo is an interaction technique which is implemented in many computer programs. It erases the last change done to the document, reverting it to an older state. In some more advanced programs, such as graphic processing, undo will negate the las ...
and other user interface improvements, the magazine disliked the loss of "exactly what Infocom writers do best—lots of descriptive text with a loving eye for detail that adds a sense of realism to good adventures". The reviewer concluded, "if adding these bells and whistles cuts into the heart of your product, is the trade-off worth it?"
References
External links
*
*
''Beyond Zork'' overview and information (archived)*
ttp://infoscripts.tripod.com/beyondzo.htm Partial transcripts of ''Beyond Zork''The Infocom Bugs List entry on ''Beyond Zork''*
{{Infocom games
1980s interactive fiction
1987 video games
Adventure games
Amiga games
Apple II games
Apple IIGS games
Atari ST games
Classic Mac OS games
Commodore 128 games
DOS games
Fantasy video games
Games commercially released with DOSBox
Video games developed in the United States
Video games featuring protagonists of selectable gender
Zork