Running Zork Games on XP, Vista, Linux, & Mac OS X
Back in 2004, I wrote a guide for getting the game Zork Grand Inquisitor running on Windows XP. The game didn’t work well without the guide because it was originally designed for Windows 98. I’ve been a fan of the Zork series for almost 10 years now. After receiving a message from another Zork fan in regards to that guide I wrote, I decided that it was time to look into the games again. With a few changes, the more modern games in the series are supported under Windows XP and possibly Vista. That’s when I had an idea. With Wine, DOSBox and Frotz, it should be possible to run any Zork game on Linux and Mac OS X too. With that, it becomes feasible to run any game in the Zork series on any major operating system. That’s a big task. I began a project to work on making that idea a reality. I’m not alone though. I’m receiving some help and hosting from DAT, the maintainer of the only Zork website still active, The Zork Library.
The guides are currently at http://www.kevinbecker.net/zorkguides and will soon be hosted on http://www.thezorklibrary.com as well. The project is a work in progress and needs help on the configurations I can’t test myself, mainly Mac OS X and Vista. Help with writing the guides and testing them, as well as comments and questions would be greatly appreciated!
about 2 years ago
I can confirm that Frotz works on Mac OS. It’s directly available through the fink package manager, or can be downloaded and compiled.
about 2 years ago
Thanks for the info. I don’t have a Mac, so I can’t test it myself, but I’ll make a note of it on the guide index page soon. Feel free to write a guide yourself, even just modifying the one for frotz that I provide if you like.
about 2 years ago
Your XP guide for Zork: GI works perfectly for Vista as well – I really can’t thank you enough, I played this game as a child and getting it working on my current machine is a dream come true.
about 2 years ago
thank you so much for doing this, but i am still having trouble saving the changes on the ZIX file on step c of the manual method.
i un-ticked the read only box, and all my settings allow it, so why cant i change it?
and i dont really understand how the automatic way works!
is there any way i can make it work?
about 2 years ago
The XP way doesn’t quite work for me. It runs the program without the possibility of starting a new game, and if i do anything it shuts down.
about 1 year ago
I got a problem my Zork Nemesis CDs are very old..and i cant find the nem_man.exe on my CD1 plz contact me
Icq 296831517
or e-mail
about 1 year ago
After looking into the issue more, I have found that nem_man.exe isn’t really necessary. You can proceed without it.
about 1 year ago
Mac osx guide that worked for me (using leopard on a macbook)
http://www.silentcorner.com/archive/2004/01/31/play-zork-on-mac-os-x/
about 1 year ago
Thanks so much for this guide…it got the game working on my Vista-running laptop. Unfortunately, it crashes when I try to restore saved games. Has anyone else had/managed to fix this problem?
about 1 year ago
Hi,
I have Windows Vista 64bit. The game freezes when I use the zix file with the information that I copied off your sight. Using the zix file off of an older pc I had, I was able to get to the screen where it asks for the cd, but I already had the cd in the drive, so I’m not sure what was wrong there.
Kevin
about 1 year ago
Hi, I followed your instruction using the manual way, i created those folders, created the nemesis.zix file, copied the whole modified text into it , and so on. All I see is a black screen!?!
Please help me!!!!!!!!!! thx
about 10 months ago
Sorry for the delay in responding everyone. I’ll try to get to all the comments.
@Tickle: Thanks for the kind words. Glad I could help!
@marisa: It sounds like you installed to C:\Program Files and aren’t running as administrator in Vista. Either run from an administrator account or right-click on Zork Nemesis and select “Run as Administrator”.
@Tom: I don’t understand your problem. Can you give me more details?
@Maurice: Thanks for the info!
@Meghan: It sounds like you have the same issue as marisa. Check my answer to her above. I’ll be incorporating all this info into my next revision of the guides.
@Kevin: I haven’t tested my guides of 64-bit Windows, so I can’t say for sure if the game works there. Try right-clicking on properties on Zork Nemesis and going to the Compatibility tab. There you can try a few different compatibility modes. Also, try running as administrator like I recommended to marisa and Meghan.
@Marc I haven’t heard of this issue before. It may be a video card driver issue. Can you give me more info about your computer and operating system?
about 7 months ago
Kevin first let me say thanks for making it possibe to play Zork: GI. Now for my issue, I installed the game and your patch manually. I folled the directions exactly, but I cant restore my saved game. I have read all of the post on this site and have seen that Meghan has the same problem. Perhaps she installed the game in Program Files but perhaps not because I made sure not to and am still having this problem. Please help. Thanks
about 7 months ago
@Phillip: Responded to via e-mail to begin troubleshooting.
about 3 months ago
Thank you so much for your ScummVM installation guide. I followed your directions and was delighted to find the white house on my screen again. But then I had a problem. I got all the way to Boos Miller, and was unable to get more than a single toast from him. After that he just sits silent or offers me more rye, no matter how many glasses I take. (Yes, I can successfully restore the game.)