Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz - 1981

Infocom, various PC platforms

Released more than a year after its predecessor, much of Zork IIs background mirrors that of Zork I. A large portion of the game was built out of locations and puzzles found in the original PDP-10 Zork but the game is interspersed with new sections, most notably the climax - the Wizard of Frobozz himself.

Once again, I am playing an emulated instance of the IBM PC port found here. I've had a few things spoilt: the baseball maze, some of the bank, and the riddle. Again, I will be trying to play through the game with an open mind and I will be mapping in Trizbort.

Starting Out

by Pier Giovanni Binotti, 1983

I start out in a familiar space: the barrow I was left in at the final scene of Zork I. I am gifted the Elvish sword and the lantern, which appears to somehow have fresh batteries. As I move south, I am struck by the increased length of the room descriptions:

You are standing at the southern end of a narrow tunnel where it opens
into a wide cavern. The cavern is dimly illuminated by phosphorescent
mosses clinging to its high ceiling. A deep ravine winds through the
cavern, with a small stream at the bottom. The walls of the ravine are
steep and crumbly. A foot bridge crosses the ravine to the south.

This is a stark shift from many of the purely functional descriptions in Zork I. In fact, the whole starting region seems to be purely decorative. Given the layout, I assume that the chasm I have found is a southern continuation of the chasm from the previous game. This improved narrative gives me a good sense that I am travelling downwards as I continue south.

I find the garden next and am jolted back into the ongoing illogical layout of the Great Underground Empire. I hoover up several items from the gazebo and I spot the unicorn. I completely miss the key item in the unicorn's possession. From the garden, I travel west and I am treated to one of the core elements of Zork II: the carousel room.

You are in a large circular room whose high ceiling is lost in gloom. Eight
identical passages leave the room.
A loud whirring sound comes from all around, and you feel
sort of disoriented in here.

The carousel room doesn't let you choose the exit you leave from, instead it picks randomly for you. I complete a first draft of the centre of my map by leaving and returning this room repeatedly and exploring a few of the branches. I am pleased to see that the length of the room descriptions stays roughly the same.

The Infamous Puzzles

by David Lebling, 1978

Any online conversation of Zork II inevitably returns to discussion around two of its main puzzles: the Bank of Zork and the diamond maze. Due to the wealth of information about them, I cannot use my playthrough as an unbiased example of their reputed unfair difficulty, but I can at least try to work out how I might improve them.

I find the diamond puzzle first. This is a baseball puzzle, which requires a little basic knowledge to solve. The player is hinted at this by a wooden club:

A long wooden club lies on the ground near the diamond-shaped window.
The club is curiously burned at the thick end.
The words "Babe Flathead" are burned into the wood.

Without completely spoiling the puzzle, I think my improvement would be to have the "home plate" room (DIAMOND-4) signposted. The diamonds on the floor give hints around your progress, but navigating to the correct starting location is where I think players could use some guidance.

Having solved the diamond maze, I am rewarded with... nothing. A new room opens up that I clearly cannot progress through yet.

This is a large rectangular room. The east and west walls were used
for storing safety deposit boxes, but all have been carefully removed
by evil persons. To the east, west, and south of the room are large
doorways. The northern "wall" of the room is a shimmering curtain of
light. In the center of the room is a large stone cube, about 10 feet
on a side. Engraved on the side of the cube is some lettering.

The Bank of Zork has a real knack for getting people angry online. On the surface, I like the narrative experience of raiding a deserted and previously ransacked bank for missed loot. Unfortunately, I believe the puzzle itself — the light curtain and the vault — commits two sins. The correct actions to type out require guessing the correct verb (one cannot GO NORTH, but instead must type ENTER LIGHT or something similar) and the central conceit that the light takes you to different destinations based on your previous movement is poorly explained.

I think that simply allowing the player to type the normal directions would have gone a long way towards resolving the complaints.

Pillaging the bank gives me a couple of items that are obviously treasures, although I have not yet worked out what I might need them for. Zork II is clearly a game with less obvious objectives.

A Dragon, A Princess and a Hot Air Balloon

by David Ardito and Steve Meretzky, 1981

Next, I tidy up the remaining areas in the northern and eastern reaches of the map. The dragon is... a bit silly. It's a reversal of the combat expectations, but I don't really think the narrative sits right with me. I'm expected to believe that the dragon has never seen ice but his lair is only three moves away from the glacier! I fail at this interaction twice. The first failure was due to misunderstanding how angry the dragon was an striking him one too many times. The second, the wizard cast ferment on me and, drunk, I tried to sneak past the dragon. No one survives trying to sneak past the dragon.

The dragon doubles back and charges into the room, maddened by your
attempt to sneak past him. His eyes glow with a white heat of anger.
Worse for you, his mouth opens and a great gout of flame puffs out
and consumes you on the spot.

Dealing with the dragon gives access to another treasure and reveals the princess. I'm not sure where she is the princess of given the dilapidation of the Great Underground Empire. I completely mess up what I am meant to do here. Three times I get to the garden and find a rose within the gazebo, but nothing else. I eventually work out that she is opening up a shortcut and is therefore beating me there each time. I (finally) get a key for my troubles.

In an unexpected echo of Zork I, my favourite segment of the game involves a vehicle. I believe the volcano region might be the best part of the trilogy so far. Each of the actions I have to take seems fair and each of my mistakes leads to an obvious improvement to my actions. Highlights included:

Drifting up out of the volcano and crashing into a mountain.

Getting out of the balloon and having it float away leaving me stranded.

Closing off the fire, getting out the balloon and still having it leave me stranded.

Working out how to tie the balloon down but running out of fuel and crash landing due to spending extra turns mapping.

Incidentally, I believe I found a bug. Crash landing the balloon while there is treasure inside seems to leave that treasure permanently inaccessible.

Mopping Up

by Pier Giovanni Binotti, 1983

The last obvious direction I have to explore is southeast. There is a riddle — which I am disappointed to find is not solved like most riddles by saying "TIME" — and a slightly awkward puzzle around a magical lift. I work out quite quickly where I am, but I don't really understand the justification for quite why the lift works the way it does. Even worse, how on earth do I empty the bucket of water while I am still standing in it?!

o  b  o
r         z
f  M A G I C  z
c   W E L L  y
o         n
m  p  a

The Alice-in-Wonderland-inspired puzzle isn't bad but seems to include some redundancy. I eat each of the cakes once to see what they do (there's some entertaining messages here) and then solve the puzzle while completely missing the fact that you can reveal the effect of each cake safely in a different way.

Last of all, I briefly interact with a new robot friend and finally stop the carousel room from spinning. The instructions I am able to give here really show off the ZIL parser: "TELL ROBOT TO PRESS SQUARE BUTTON" is a completely logical and readable command that would not have been possible in competing games.

The Finale

by David Ardito and Steve Meretzky, 1981

The final act of Zork II has me invade the personal chambers of the wizard himself. I find a trophy room (which contains a treasure the wizard successfully filched from me), a thematically appropriate workshop with an adjoining pentagram chamber (!!!), an aquarium (???), and the wizards bedroom. It takes me longer to realise than I would like to admit, but I eventually notice that I have missed one of the required crystal spheres — palantirs within the code in a nod to Tolkien. After a quick visit to my robot friend, I return and manage to summon the demon.

"This I do gladly, oh fool!" cackles the demon gleefully. He stretches
out an enormous hand towards the wand and taking it like a toothpick (this
is a large demon), points it at himself. "Free!" he commands, and the
demon and his wand vanish forever.

He demands all of my treasures, I give him a couple of incorrect commands and, after finally getting my hands on the wand, I come to the crushing realisation that I am not finishing Zork II with the maximum number of points. A player is given two points for each treasure given to the demon and those that the wizard stole are not possible to retrieve until after this interaction.

The wand has so many functions that I am disappointed there is so little game left. All of the spells start with the letter "F" — presumably because it was made by FrobozzCo — and there are more than I expect. I'm beginning to get the impression that much of the effort that went into building Zork II was spent on the wand and the wizard. This is a shame because so little of either are required to actually finish the game.

The last few steps fly by. I deal with Cerberus — another ancient Greek reference to go with Hades, Poseidon's trident, and the Cyclops from Zork I — and enter the crypt. I finish Zork II with 398 points out of a possible 400 and a sour taste in my mouth.

Closing Thoughts

I was initially relieved that I had finished Zork II. As I played it almost immediately after finishing its predecessor, I found that it sagged a little. While the wizard and the wand represented some much improved complexity to the gameplay formula, I felt that the more complicated puzzles suffered from poor direction and this coloured my experience.

Looking back, I am impressed at the number of different actions I can take with the wand, but the overall design suffered by giving it to me so late in the game. It is obvious from the source code that a lot of work went into the magic (and by extension, the wizard). It feels wasted that I don't get to experience more of it.

I find myself wanting to jump ahead to later Infocom games to see where this continued evolution leads.

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Verdict:

Skippable due to questionable puzzles unless you are heavily invested in the sparse story Zork offers.

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My completed map for Zork II. Dark rooms have a wedge at the top right. Right click and view in a new tab to see in full size.

Memorable Content

Locations:

the Bank of Zork (for good and for ill),
the "palantir" rooms,
and the volcano.

Creatures:

The wizard,
and the demon.

Items:

All the treasures,
the magic wand, and the exploding cake.

Other:

The spells, but particularly ferment.

Part of the Zork Series

Games:

Zork I, Zork II, Zork III

Tabletop Zork II Treasure Roller: Roll 1d10 and consult the following:

1 - Flathead Portrait A semi-valuable work of art.

2 - Pearl Necklance Hundreds of large pearls on a string.

3 - Fancy Violin A masterwork musical instrument.

4 - Big Ruby Worth a hefty sum.

5 - Golden Dragon A solid gold statuette. Worth quite a lot.

6 - Gold Key Pretty, and opens a random lock.

7 - Stack of Bills A sizeable pile of paper currency.

8 - Priceless Zorkmid A valuable collectors item. In Frobs We Trust.

9 - Flathead Stamp Only worth anything to a particular collector.*

10 - Gaudy Crown Valuable, but tasteless.

*Potential story hook: the only person interested in the stamp is quite happy to commit crimes to get hold of it.

-------------------------
/       Gold Zorkmid       \\
/   T e n  T h o u s a n d   \\
/         Z O R K M I D S      \\
/                                \\
/        !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!        \\
/         !!!!!         !!!!!         \\
!           !!!  ^^  ^^  !!!           !
!           !!!  OO  OO  !!!           !
! In Frobs  !!!    <<    !!!  We Trust !
!            !! (______) !!            !
    !             !          !             !    
!             !__________!             !
\\                                     /
\\     -- Lord Dimwit Flathead --    /
\\     -- Beloved of Zorkers --    /
\\                              /
\\       * 722 G.U.E. *       /
\\                          /
--------------------------

This is a beautiful octagonal coin bearing the
legends "Ten Thousand Zorkmids" and
"In Frobs We Trust".

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A thank you to The Digital Antiquarian, for an entertaining, detailed insight into Zork, Infocom and interactive fiction as a whole.

An additional thank you to Zarf Updates for a neat collection of Zork maps.