Legends of Zork

I’m old enough to remember text adventures.  Back then, we were a one-computer household, and where I lived that was considered upper-crust.  My father kept the computer in the master bedroom to the left of the window beside the bed.  On the computer’s front was a small, cylandrical keyboard lock that I could pick with two or three miniature flathead screwdrivers.  If I remember correct, those keyboads were called AT.  I remember they had an interface the gauge of a diminuative cigar.

I really didn’t hear of Legends of Zork before its release, so I never had a chance to make it into something it would never become.  Yes, I don’t like the license used so freely.  Yes, it’s not my license to squib over.  When I found LoZ, I made a free character, then threw a few dollars toward it because I like supporting commercial and donate-based endeavors.  (Can I tell myself that it helps the economy?)  LoZ has been fun, albeit simple.  It occupies my time whenever I’m doing something else, such as dishwashing or frequenting the commode.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m conscious of LoZ’s finite lifespan — at least with its ability to entertain me.  I see no incentives to stay long-term, unless Jolt matures its mechanics to be more engaging.  While I usually piggyback reading and such with mundane tasks, LoZ seems a lighthearted way to rest myself emotionally and intellectually.  Can’t work all the time, as I often hear.  Sometimes immediate, banal gratification is all right for me.

But what interests me most is this concept of a game playing itself.  As mentioned above, almost all interaction — except attribute distribution and item or skill purchasing — plays automatically.  Sure, you click the map to dictate where you’ll adventure, but afterwards you simply click explore and the game does the rest, providing you with its results.  More interesting is that party adventuring happens offline.  You earmark action points for group exploration, go to sleep (in real life), and when you wake an email informs you of its results.  For example, last night my group won four monster encounters within the Kobold-infested Mines of Ackgar; we walked away with four minor treasures to sell.  Unfortunately we were defeated thirteen times, which proves my suspicion that action points may be better allocated for personal use.

How much interactivity does a game require?  How engaging is it for a player to have his character act independent of himself?  Certain simulations hinge themselves on the player setting the environment then watching actors react within that world, but LoZ allows no such authority.  It’s passivity could be read as elementary game design, though as its designers claim, LoZ fills a void: casual dungeon-crawling for those cramped of free-time.  How much more interesting is this than, say, watching a movie in ASCII.  Once the novelty wears off, will LoZ still exist?

I like the idea of self-playing games.  RPS’s article links me to Progress Quest, which I assume is a partial parody of the RPG genre.  Sounds like something I should try.  In-game characters born yet independent of us seem fascinating, perhaps even voyeuristic in its exploratory nature.  Almost like watching a child grow and become quasi-functional within the real world.  Do you, reader, have another example I could explore?  (Yes, I know of Kingdom of Loathing.)  How interesting would you find a game that allows character creation, but only offered your participation retrospectively — something like the textual recap of past actions?   

Though I’m not much educated in simulation games, a few come to mind: The Sims, Spore, to an extent Black and White.  These offer an interaction partially detached from the emotional, immediate context of the game.  It’s third-person objective, in many ways.  How would it translate into third-person limited?  Are these even applicable terms for game interactivity?

Postscript: While this is tangent to the above direction, many LoZ players have collaborated to make sense of the in-game Fannuci card mechanic.  It’s a rather lengthy yet entertaining post concerning how a community self-organizes and solves a puzzle.