A contemporaneous computer game guide describes mapping as ‘extremely important in Zork I’ and recommends that the player carefully map progress, both with pen and paper while playing and – in game – using dropped objects to mark their way.

The latter tactic is complicated by the presence of a dangerous thief dogging the player’s steps and picking up the treasures for themselves. The 1984 edition of Zork I includes a number of schematic maps to specific areas of the game, such as ‘the Secret Catacombs’, in the manual, but also includes ‘an incredible map not sold at any gas station known to Mankind’. This is the colour map of the surface-level environment of the world of Zork. Although the writing indicating the various regions is of an unknown, mysterious tongue, fans will be able to identify the Flathead Mountains, the Great Sea, and the Eastlands.

Zork’s schematic surface map, with its cryptic runes and fantasy topography, gives players a glimpse of the wider world beyond the game’s gloomy and labyrinthine underground. Though mostly navigated via typed commands, mapping was crucial to play, and the included illustrations became icons of early digital cartography.

Ex Carta

A pioneering 1970s text adventure, Zork I immersed players in the Great Underground Empire through typed commands and exploration. The accompanying surface map offers an evocative glimpse of the wider world beyond the game’s gloomy tunnels and caverns. Zork’s cult status endures, and its early maps reveal the roots of both digital fantasy gaming and interactive fiction.

Zork I is a text-based computer game – or interactive fiction – developed in 1977–78 by a team of MIT students, inspired by both Dungeons & Dragons and a desire to stretch their coding skills. It was the first title in a trilogy comprising the original game, released in three parts due to the technical constraints of home computing at the time. There are no graphics: the player negotiates the ‘Great Underground Empire’ using typed prompts in response to descriptions of the environment in which they find themselves.

It built upon the earlier Adventure (aka Colossal Cave Adventure) by overcoming some of its technical limitations, creating a richer parser capable of understanding more complex commands, including adjectives and prepositions as well as nouns and verbs. Their work led to several innovations in interactive fiction and natural language processing.

The success of the game led to the establishment of Infocom as a pioneer of interactive fiction titles in the 1980s video game industry, until its acquisition by Activision in 1986. Zork is essentially a treasure hunt: the player has to navigate and survive a network of passageways and encounters with various monsters, and solve challenging puzzles, in order to locate and retrieve 20 treasures. It was both successful and hugely influential. Early fans who battled the cyclops, the vampire bat, and the ‘grues’ included a young Bill Gates and the game's many computer-programmer in-jokes reflect both the culture from which it emerged and that of its first players. Allusions to Zork can be found across contemporary media – from Ready Player One to Call of Duty: Black Ops – cementing its status as a touchstone of digital nostalgia and early geek culture. Its iconic phrases, such as ‘It is pitch dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue,’ have entered the pop culture lexicon.

A contemporaneous computer game guide describes mapping as ‘extremely important in Zork I’ and recommends that the player carefully map progress, both with pen and paper while playing and – in game – using dropped objects to mark their way.

The latter tactic is complicated by the presence of a dangerous thief dogging the player’s steps and picking up the treasures for themselves. The 1984 edition of Zork I includes a number of schematic maps to specific areas of the game, such as ‘the Secret Catacombs’, in the manual, but also includes ‘an incredible map not sold at any gas station known to Mankind’. This is the colour map of the surface-level environment of the world of Zork. Although the writing indicating the various regions is of an unknown, mysterious tongue, fans will be able to identify the Flathead Mountains, the Great Sea, and the Eastlands.

Zork’s schematic surface map, with its cryptic runes and fantasy topography, gives players a glimpse of the wider world beyond the game’s gloomy and labyrinthine underground. Though mostly navigated via typed commands, mapping was crucial to play, and the included illustrations became icons of early digital cartography.

Map of the World of Zork