Beyond Zork (full title:
Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor) was an
interactive fictionInteractive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...
computer game written by
Brian MoriartyBrian Moriarty is an American video game developer who authored three of the original Infocom interactive fiction titles, Wishbringer , Trinity and Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor ....
and released by
InfocomInfocom was a software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone...
in 1987. It was one of the last games in Infocom's
ZorkZork was one of the first interactive fiction computer games and an early descendant of Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written in 1977–1979 on a DEC PDP-10 computer by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, and implemented in the MDL programming language...
series; or, rather, one of the last Zork games that many Infocom fans consider "official" (titles such as
Zork: NemesisZork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands is a 1996 graphical adventure game developed by Zombie Studios and published/edited by Activision. It is the eleventh game in the Zork series, and the first such title not to appear under the Infocom label...
and
Zork Grand InquisitorZork: Grand Inquisitor is a graphical adventure game, developed by Activision and released in 1997 for the IBM compatible PC and Apple Macintosh . It builds upon the Zork and Enchanter series of interactive fiction computer games originally released by Infocom. The cast includes Erick Avari, Dirk...
were created after
ActivisionActivision, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles. Its first products were cartridges for the Atari 2600...
had dissolved Infocom as a company and kept the "brand name").
Beyond Zork (full title:
Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor) was an
interactive fictionInteractive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...
computer game written by
Brian MoriartyBrian Moriarty is an American video game developer who authored three of the original Infocom interactive fiction titles, Wishbringer , Trinity and Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor ....
and released by
InfocomInfocom was a software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone...
in 1987. It was one of the last games in Infocom's
ZorkZork was one of the first interactive fiction computer games and an early descendant of Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written in 1977–1979 on a DEC PDP-10 computer by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, and implemented in the MDL programming language...
series; or, rather, one of the last Zork games that many Infocom fans consider "official" (titles such as
Zork: NemesisZork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands is a 1996 graphical adventure game developed by Zombie Studios and published/edited by Activision. It is the eleventh game in the Zork series, and the first such title not to appear under the Infocom label...
and
Zork Grand InquisitorZork: Grand Inquisitor is a graphical adventure game, developed by Activision and released in 1997 for the IBM compatible PC and Apple Macintosh . It builds upon the Zork and Enchanter series of interactive fiction computer games originally released by Infocom. The cast includes Erick Avari, Dirk...
were created after
ActivisionActivision, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles. Its first products were cartridges for the Atari 2600...
had dissolved Infocom as a company and kept the "brand name"). It signified a notable departure from the standard format of Infocom's earlier games which relied purely on text and puzzle-solving: among other features,
Beyond Zork incorporated a crude on-screen map, the use of character statistics and levels, and
RPGA role-playing game is a game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines...
combat elements. It is Infocom's twenty-ninth game.
Plot
The player explores the Southlands of Quendor somewhat aimlessly at first. Soon, however, a task is bestowed by the Implementors, a group of godlike creatures jokingly based on Infocom's game designers. The Coconut of Quendor, an incredibly powerful artifact that embodies the whole of Magic, has fallen into the claws of an unspeakably foul beast: an Ur-grue. Rumoured to be the spirits of fallen Implementors, Ur-Grues can surround themselves in a sphere of darkness that only sunlight can pierce. The player must recover the Coconut from this monster's grasp or face the unthinkable consequences.
Ur-grue
Beyond Zork introduces the "Ur-grue", a being which game materials describe as the progenitor and ruler of the monstrous race of
gruesA grue is a fictional predator which dwells in the dark. The word grue was first used in modern times as a fictional predator from Jack Vance's Dying Earth universe...
—the term "Ur-grue" combines the German prefix ur- signifying "original" and "grue"—as well as the source of many other evil monsters. He is said to have originated as the shade of a "fallen Implementor". This is a reference to
SatanSatan is an embodiment of antagonism that originates from the Abrahamic religions, being traditionally considered an angel in Judeo-Christian belief, and a Jinn in Islamic belief...
, since
InfocomInfocom was a software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone...
frequently made
metafictionMetafiction is a type of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction, exposing the fictional illusion. It is the literary term describing fictional writing that self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in posing questions about the...
al references to the "Implementors" as the creator-
godsA deity is a postulated preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
of the
Zork setting, "Implementor" being the preferred in-house term for a game designer.
The Ur-Grue character in
Beyond Zork may be a reference to
Brian MoriartyBrian Moriarty is an American video game developer who authored three of the original Infocom interactive fiction titles, Wishbringer , Trinity and Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor ....
himself, the creator of the game, who is notably absent from the game's portrayal of an "Implementors' Luncheon", where each Implementor is recognizably based on a member of the Infocom staff. His persona as the progenitor of grues and creator of monsters may be linked to his role as the creator of the games' challenges, Infocom having long made joking references to grues' being the foremost example of the Implementors' capricious, sometimes nonsensical design decisions.
The Ur-grue is revealed to be the primary villain of the story. The player, sent to retrieve the Coconut of Quendor from the Implementors, arrives at the Implementors' Luncheon on the Ethereal Plane of Atrii only to find he has been followed by the Ur-grue in shadow form, who takes the opportunity to steal it for himself. The player must then venture into the Ur-grue's extensive underground lair and retrieve it.
The Ur-grue is shown to be a
dungeon masterIn the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, the Dungeon Master is the game organizer and participant in charge of creating the details and challenges of a given adventure, while maintaining a realistic continuity of events...
of sorts, controlling huge parts of the
Zork underground and having accumulated an enormous hoard of treasure, of which the Coconut is his crowning acquisition. He has not only an army of grues at his disposal but also bizarre creatures of evil such as Lucksuckers, spirits who attack the player by draining his good fortune (reducing his Luck stat). The Ur-grue himself is surrounded by a pool of magical darkness that is capable of overcoming and destroying all artificial light sources, and is therefore only vulnerable to pure sunlight—the player, therefore, can only best him by using a series of mirrors to transmit a beam of light at him from outside the dungeon.
After doing so, the Ur-grue's shadowy form is dissipated revealing what may be his true form, that of a broken, withered old man. It is implied that the Ur-grue cannot survive long in this form and must possess others' bodies, like a
demonIn religion, folklore, and mythology a demon is a supernatural being that is generally described as a malevolent spirit. In Christian terms demons are generally understood as fallen angels, formerly of God. A demon is frequently depicted as a force that may be conjured and insecurely controlled...
, in order to survive—he attempts to possess the player. If he succeeds, a negative ending is revealed where the possessed player-character finds and strangles baby grues until he finds one strong enough to hold the Ur-grue's essence, implying that the Ur-grue's usual shadowy form is an enhanced version of a grue's body.
If the player's Compassion stat is high enough—represented by having done enough good deeds throughout the game—the Ur-grue is shown to be unable to possess the player, his evil apparently unable to coexist in the same body with an extremely pure or virtuous spirit, and the Ur-grue's old man form fades away. Whether this means the Ur-grue was permanently destroyed in this encounter is unclear, as is the possibility of others of his kind existing somewhere in the world, although, being magical in nature, it seems unlikely any Ur-grues could survive in Quendor following the Great Change.
Feelies
Almost since the company's beginning, Infocom's games included "extras" (called
feelieInfocom used the term feelie to refer to the extra content included with the boxed versions of their interactive fiction computer games. Feelies differed from game to game and were of the same theme as the game they came packaged with...
s) in the packages, often serving a dual purpose of entertainment and
copy protectionCopy protection, also known as content protection, copy obstruction, copy prevention and copy restriction, is a technology for preventing the reproduction of copyrighted software, movies, music, and other media.- Terminology :...
.
Beyond Zork is no exception. The game package contained:
- A large fold-out map of the "Southland of Quendor"
- A small book titled The Lore and Legends of Quendor, a field guide of sorts to the flora and fauna of the area (several entries contained information necessary to defeat or incapacitate creatures in the game)
Technical details
The game's most noticeable enhancement relative to its Infocom predecessors is the addition of an onscreen map to the heads-up display, which shows the player's location in relation to the surrounding area. In addition, game navigation can be accomplished via mouse clicks on the map, if the
operating systemAn operating system is an interface between hardware and user which is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the resources of the computer that acts as a host for computing applications run on the machine. As a host, one of the purposes of an operating...
that the game is running on supports mouse input.
In addition, the game continued the
ZorkZork was one of the first interactive fiction computer games and an early descendant of Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written in 1977–1979 on a DEC PDP-10 computer by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, and implemented in the MDL programming language...
series' early use of
procedural generationProcedural generation is a widely used term in the production of media, indicating the possibility to create content on the fly rather than prior to distribution. This is often related to computer graphics applications and video game level design.-Overview:...
in videogaming. A number of magic items have initial locations and descriptions that are randomly determined, and some sections of the area map are randomly reorganized, each time a new game is played.
Role-playing gameA role-playing game is a game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines...
-like elements are also present in the combat, including the concept of hit points and character statistics. Infocom had used these concepts before only in a rather limited way in
Zork IZork: The Great Underground Empire - Part I, later known as Zork I, is an interactive fiction computer game written by Marc Blank, Dave Lebling, Bruce Daniels and Tim Anderson and published by Infocom in 1980. It was the first game in the popular Zork trilogy and was released for a wide range of...
and
IIIZork III: The Dungeon Master is an interactive fiction computer game written by Marc Blank, Dave Lebling, Bruce Daniels and Tim Anderson and published by Infocom in 1982. It was the third game in the popular Zork trilogy and was released for a wide range of computer systems...
.
Like Infocom's other games,
Beyond Zork is platform independent and runs on a virtual computer architecture called the
Z-machineThe Z-machine is a virtual machine that was developed by Joel Berez and Marc Blank in 1979 and used by Infocom for its text adventure games. Infocom compiled game code to files containing Z-machine instructions , and could therefore port all its text adventures to a new platform simply by writing a...
. There were 4 versions of the game released in 1987, all using version 5 of the Z-machine. The game has 144 rooms and 77 objects, with a vocabulary of 1569 words and a total of 32778 opcodes.
Reception
A review in
Computer Gaming WorldComputer Gaming World was founded in 1981 by Russell Sipe as a bimonthly publication. Early issues were typically 40-50 pages in length, written in a newsletter style, including submissions by game designers such as Joel Billings , Dan Bunten , and Chris Crawford...
was pleased with some of
Beyond Zorks features, particularly the ability to define macros and bind them to the function keys. The randomness of the game was described as frustrating, particularly as maps and item properties randomize upon restoring a previous game save. The review concluded by describing Beyond Zork
as "a curious hybrid... mostly tough Infocom adventure with a patina of role-playing elements."
The game was reviewed in 1988 in DragonDragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The final printed issue was...
#132 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 5 stars.
External links
Beyond Zork
overview and information
Beyond Zork
screenshots and review
Scans of the Beyond Zork
package, documentation and feelies
Partial transcripts of Beyond Zork
Infocom-if.org's entry on Beyond Zork
The Dot Eaters page featuring a history of the Zork games and Infocom