Zork Guides Website Updates
About 7 months ago, I posted a new website related to running Zork games on modern operating systems. Over these last 7 months, I’ve been compiling feedback to the guides and working on making the website a better tool for users. The first of those changes are complete and there’s more to come.
One promising lead is that ScummVM has a work-in-progress port of the MADE engine, so Return to Zork can be played. It’s currently only available in their daily SVN builds, but once the engine is more stable, I’ll write up a guide for it. Because of the consistency of ScummVM cross-platform and the ease of use of the software, this guide will be appropriate for Windows XP/Vista, Linux and OS X without much difference between each version. A second development is the continued growth of Wine. Recently a patch was created that addresses one of the big bugs that get in the way of playing Zork Nemesis and Zork Grand Inquisitor on Linux and OS X. That patch isn’t in the main wine codebase yet, but once it is, I’ll revisit writing a guide for Zork Nemesis and Zork Grand Inquisitor on Linux. Mac OS X continues to be a problem because I can’t test on that system, but I have researched a few options that may allow for the games to be played on OS X and placed those links in the table of configurations on the website.
Lastly, I want to bring up a real piece of news in the Zork universe, probably the first real piece of news in a decade. Activision announced Wednesday that they’re working on a new Zork game called Legends of Zork. It will be a multiplayer adventure played through a web browser and will target iPhone so it will likely be JavaScript-based. More info can be found at Gamasutra and Forumopolis.
Recently, I followed the instructions on how to play Zork Nemesis on my XP machine. To my great joy it worked … almost. When in the monastery, you can click on the rope to get into Malveaux’s room all day and all night, you never get to go there. So, you will never be able to finish the game!
I checked the init file to make sure I didn’t make a mistake there and checked the copy of Disc 2 to ensure the correct number of files are present. So, sadly, playing this on my XP machine is a bust!
Sorry about the long delay in replying. I haven’t played a full playthrough of ZN recently but this sounds like some issues I’ve heard about recently due to the game being played on fast new systems. I’ll look into the issue further and put up some info in my guides soon.
I just bought an old copy of Zork: Nemesis for three bucks and tried to install it myself. That didn’t exactly pan out. Thanks for your clear, easy to follow instructions! It seems to be working perfectly!