It's more remake spam from me: today, the "G.U.E. on 9 Zorkmids a Day" leaflet originally bundled with Zork 2.
This was a fun one to work on, with an interesting layout, loads of lovely illustrations and the usual quirky and amusing writing.
As usual, PDF and PNG downloads are available on Google Drive, or via my website gnusto.au
Share it, remix it, do whatever. A credit is always nice. Enjoy!
Just a quick one: with the recovery of now-dormant "The Zork Library" fansite now very robust, I've gone ahead and mirrored it on my own website. You can check it out at gnusto.au/projects/tzlmirror
Some files that were too large for my (free) hosting having been moved off-site to my Google Drive, but the links should still point to the right place.
Please feel free to have a poke around and note anything that seems busted in the comments. Expect broken download links from time-to-time, but most or all images should now be intact, especially in the Encyclopedia.
It was recently brought to my attention that The Zork Library, a fansite dating back decades (and probably the premiere Zork fansite, period) hasn't yet returned to active service after some downtime. With the Zork fanbase aging and interest waning, it's entirely possible the site isn't coming back this time.
So I thought I'd look at the viability of recovering the site from the snapshots made by The Internet Archive/The Wayback Machine. What I've managed to get via a variety of methods is around 4,400 files.
EDIT: Thanks to the incredible foresight of user QuailRider43, it now looks as if the Encyclopedia section is complete! With the addition of their 2018 backup, we've gone from just over 1000 images and misc supplemental files to well over 4000, which is likely to be the entire set. Huge thanks to QuailRider43 for helping to ensure this incredible fandom resource is preserved!
TZL_recovery_v3.zip
You'll want to run it in a Python local web server for everything to display correctly.
This is by no means the entire site. The main attraction is the incredibly exhaustive Encyclopedia Frobozzica, from which many images are still missing; maybe even most images. As best I can tell, a lot of images were simply never cached by The Internet Archive. However, it does appear that most or all of the actual pages have been recovered. The other major victim is the custom version of the Hotel New Zork mini-site, which is missing most of its content. There's other sources for this mini-site, but the TZL version was heavily customised to do away with its overly complex original design.
I've also had to use some automated processes to repair the links in the HTML files, which were modified when the site was cached. I've done some light testing and it seems to be working correctly, but I'm sure there's issues I've not found.
Here's the most important thing: I'm not good at this. Before attempting this recovery, I'd never tried any of this before. I'm working it out as I go along, so it's very likely I'm making mistakes or just entirely doing it wrong. There may be more to recover that I wasn't able to get, so if you know how to do this stuff, I'd love to hear from you! Drop me a message in the comments or send me a DM.
Almost forgot to share these. Prior to the more familiar black-and-white maps we all know, the Zork Users Group released a set of illustrated maps. Structurally they're identical (which was great news, as I'd already recreated the actual map part) but with tons of great hand-drawn illustrations added.
These were recreated in much the same way as my earlier maps. At the download link there's a clean, vector-based PDF version, as well as versions with colour and texture applied to match the originals.
Google Drive downloads are HERE, or you can find them on my website, Gnusto.au
Hey all.
I've managed to secure myself a set of Zork 1-3 Grey Box releases for the Atari 800. They're shipping from overseas, so it'll be a little while before I actually get my hands on them.
For those of you who own Grey Box releases, here's my question: are the combined feelie/manual items:
...actually attached inside the front flap of the game box? I've realised that the images on the ebay auction never actually showed the FrobozzCo Annual Report, and I'm wondering if that's because it's not included, or simply because the seller didn't take a photo of the inside flap on that particular game. Other listings do make it appear like the booklets are physically stuck in.
Thanks in advance!
In working on Zork projects recently, I've had to do a lot of font identification for various logos and graphics. I figured it might be useful to share what I've learned.
All of the examples in this image are recreations I've made using the fonts mentioned below them (with the exception of the Personal Software Zork 1 logo, which was hand-traced).
If you have any further insight into any of these, I'd love to hear about it!
Have you ever wondered what that all those cool ye olde markings were on the cover/disc/box for Zork Nemesis? I have, because that's the kind of thing I wonder about. So I went looking.
Turns out it's a piece called "Luna Ejus Eccentricum Demonstrans" (The Moon Showing Its Eccentric), a 17th-century engraving by Dutch-German cartographer Andreas Cellarius. It was published as part of his celestial atlas, "Harmonia Macrocosmica" in 1660. And it's quite beautiful.
For a closer look, you can go HERE or HERE.
Now we can all say we learned something today! Unless you already knew. Sorry to those people.
Have you ever wanted to know what the moon phase was on the 26th of Oracle in 883 GUE? Or upon which day in Augur St Bovus's Day falls? Do mysteries like "Why is there a negative-5th of Jelly?" keep you up at night?
Well, you've been able to find the answers to these questions ever since Zork Zero released with the Flathead Calendar nearly 40 years ago. But now you can find them in slightly higher quality!
Google Drive download link is below, as well as on my website, gnusto.au. If you spot any mistakes, please let me know!
Almost forgot to share these. All three Enchanter Trilogy game logos (plus Wishbringer) remade in vector format. Three versions each of the Enchanter logos are available; the fully detailed box-art version (top) the simplified disk label version (bottom) and an in-between variant of my own.
Downloads are available via the Google Drive link below, in PNG, EPS or PDF formats. If you want to use them for a project, go for it. A credit would be nice, but no obligation.
Possibly a long-shot, but I'm wondering if anyone might be able to identify this Futura-like font.
The examples are from a 1982 piece of merchandise for the Zork game series. The font seems very similar to a range of Futura variants - the one I've used for comparison here is Futura PT.
There's a number of minor differences though, some of which I've marked in the image above. Additionally, the general shapes often seem subtly different; letters in the original often appear slightly wider, for example.
It's entirely possible that this variant was a lost knock-off that has no modern digital equivalent, but I though I'd roll the dice anyway. Any help would be appreciated!
Today I was thinking about how we interact with interactive fiction. Physical keyboard or on-screen keyboards have always been the dominant methods, for obvious reasons. But could something else work?
I spent an hour or two today toying with how a controller-centric UI for a text adventure might work. What I ultimately arrived at was a system in two halves: a quick mode where buttons were simply shortcuts to certain commands (the d-pad maps to compass directions, for example) and a complex mode where radial menus allow the user to choose their words, whether pre-established or derived from the game state (inventory or scene objects, for example).
I've included a link to a simple concept video I put together to illustrate how the complex mode might function. I need to stress though, this is just an idea executed through motion graphics. I'm playing with a concept right now, not building anything real. If you're really, really interested, I've written more on my idea here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cYtvybYFfQUwNTnb8GU3SkyBwgN7wX0R56ce4npEimk/edit?usp=sharing
I'd love to hear what the community thinks, though. Does this look like a comfortable way to play interactive fiction? Have you seen an idea like this executed before? What pitfalls do you see with an approach like this? Are there many, many good reasons why this isn't a thing?
Just a simple one today. It's the logo for Enchanter, remade. The letters are derived directly from the original artwork, while the additional circles and lines are remade to keep them clean and distinct.
Three versions included; top is the simplest, used on the game floppy disks among other places. Middle is the simple version, which may not actually exist. I based it off how the logo looks on the cover of the Avon novel, but I've only ever seen low-res images of it. Bottom is the original version, seen on the game's box art.
DOWNLOADS HERE (png/pdf/eps): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Vxy44JRGnjU4rYcdJaIBB5wRkSJ5Xwsp?usp=sharing
As usual, use them freely, and give me a credit if you're feeling generous.
Thanks to everyone for the great response to the Zork Game Book web viewer I posted recently! A few folks rightly suggested that there ought to be a traditional e-book option for these titles too, so here's that; all four books as EPUB files.
Downloads via Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1N0hTRSnjxaHwtrvu-2KfYxQAjsHkXSLf?usp=drive_link
There's a couple of caveats with these, so please read before proceeding.
These books have many full-page illustrations, and the only way most users (with the exception of those using devices that can show two-page spreads) will see them is to turn the pages manually. All instances of "Turn to page X" have hyperlinks that will jump you directly to the specified page, but using them will result in the full-page illustrations being entirely skipped over. So if you want to experience all the illustrations, get ready to flip some pages.
Users of Apple Books may encounter a bug where hyperlinks jump to the wrong page; specifically one page too far. Reddit user FNTKB brought this one to my attention, but we've had no luck in confirming the cause or finding a solution. If you're an EPUB/Apple Books expert and you've got any ideas, please let me know!
Be aware that larger font sizes on your viewer will result in material (both text and images) being pushed onto additional pages. Not a big deal, but you may notice pages without page numbers as a result of this; rest assured the hyperlinks will still work correctly.
Massive thanks to reddit user FNTKB, who provided invaluable assistance in both testing these books on additional platforms and rooting out bugs that I'd have certainly missed. The final files are greatly improved as a result of their patience and expertise.
Finally, while these have been tested and checked in every way I know how, I've learned that stuff will always go wrong in unexpected ways. If you uncover any issues, please let me know in the comments, along with what kind of viewer/device you were using, and I'll endeavor to provide updated files in the same Google Drive folder.
Next up, it's four classic 1980s Zork-flavoured "Choose Your Own Adventure" books (or rather, the much less catchy "What Do I Do Now?" if you want to get technical), reproduced as an interactive website. Sick of getting sore fingers from the laborious task of turning pages? Now you can click your way to victory!
This project actually started before the novel e-books, but ended up being a lot more complex and time-consuming. Like the e-books, all four of these books had to be screen-capped, cropped, cleaned and processed with OCR software, then tidied up, reformatted and eventually plugged into the web application. Additionally the illustrations had their own challenges; books one and two ought to look the nicest, as I actually purchased physical copies and produced new scans from which to extract them. Books three and four currently use lower-quality scans as their basis; I'll update them when and if I can get those books physically at a reasonable price. The front and back covers were also recreated using matching fonts and restored cover art.
This next bit might be unpopular; while a ton of human work went into this project, the actual coding of the web application was done using GenAI tools like Claude and Gemini. I've no web development background, so producing something like this by hand is totally outside of my skillset. Some of you may find this disappointing, and I'm hoping to produce some e-book versions as well that will sidestep the website entirely.
Please let me know if you spot any issues with any of the books, be they transcription errors or technical issues using the site. I would very much recommend using a desktop PC rather than a mobile device - I have no idea how badly borked these will be on mobile. And if you can think of any features that you think would benefit the user experience, I'm happy to hear those too. Enjoy!
That's right, it's another instalment of "Somehow, obscure Zork media returned"!
This time we're stepping out of the digital realm and into the world of official Zork (and Zork adjacent) prose. Presented here are four novels:
Thanks to the work of dedicated fans, these books have been available as scanned pages for many years in places like The Internet Archive. But with advances in OCR tools, it was now possible for me to convert these pages back into editable text with no compromise to accuracy.
With the hard part out of the way, all that was left was to tidy up the formatting and repackage them in the most widely-supported e-book format, EPUB, for folks to enjoy.
Download the Zork-Adjacent Books Here.
The caveat here is that while I've been as careful as possible, I've not actually read these books through in search of errors. The conversion process is shockingly accurate, so if there's any issues they're most likely my fault - if you spot anything, please let me know! I'll be glad to make updates and replace the files with improved versions.
