I know. Funny coincidence. Fantastic update, IMO. I have been aware of 3rd party means of accessing app folders for a while now (that is how I put all my C64Forever ROMs into the C64 app, for example) so I don't miss the clumsy iTunes file sharing in the slightest.

@cheeseslice73:

I think that the games limited understanding of the words I typed in was a big part of the frustration. It's been a long time and I may be remembering this wrong, but I don't think the manual told you the words anywhere except for a few examples of how to walk in different directions. It only knew a few a few words and you had to guess what most of them were.

Another frustration I had can be seen in one of the screenshots here. The player is telling the game which way his character should walk and his first two guesses are wrong. Without any visuals, this game was a lot of blind guessing in the dark that I didn't have the patience for when I was a teenager.

I will probably pick this up when it goes on sale and give it another try. Right now, I''ve still got a lot of other good games that I haven't played yet.

It didn't. The interface is part of the appeal of a text adventure, but it's also one of it's curses. It's something that's been explored as part of many more recent IF games. The theory is that, by providing you with a parser technically the game can respond to ANY input. It can't of course, but the illusion is a powerful one. And potentially a frustrating one.

Learning what it can and can't accept is almost part of the game genre. (They won't all accept the same vocabulary, but they usually will accept the same command conventions, like "i" being short for inventory) It's like all those little button prompts in other games that you learn to take forgranted in other genres. If you aren't a first person shooter player, then simply navigating in an FPS is a challenge.

The thing is, when I was growing up, computerwise, I had a Sinclair Spectrum, Generally speaking, those were terrible at arcade games - if you wanted a game with any type of depth, it pretty much HAD to be a text adventure. In many ways, I miss those wordy games of my youth.

The other thing is, most of them were BASTARD hard. They were pretty much expected to be solved communally, though that's something that has come down with more modern IF games, too.

Nice to see some of the really old classics hit the store. I was a real Infocom fan back in the 8bit personal computer days. Since I still have my Masterpieces of Infocom CD that I purchased back in the mid 90's, I won't be grabbing this one, but I'm glad to see it added as there are many other older games that I would love to have the opportunity to purchase. It's nice to see GOG delving back farther into gaming history.

IF? On iphone? I think (I tried it on a PDA) the text is too hard and slow to type using touch on-screen keyboard. For IF you'd better have hardware keyboards.

Awesome, we are going to be coding a Zork clone in game programming and now I can try the actual game. :)

It's not that bad, remember things like i, x, g, are shortcuts for Inventory, Examine, and Again. Not including the cardinal directions. And iFrotz even has a word completion popup too.

It's handy for when you're waiting somewhere, besides, it stores your saves on Dropbox so you don't need to play the WHOLE game on the iPhone, you can pick up where you left off.

So maybe the gameplay in these games is supposed to be a lot like trying to learn command line Unix all by yourself with no documentation?

Suddenly it all makes sense.

Remember how old and primitive these games were. They're probably older than you. If you want to try something more advanced, try a newer game.

Or start here: http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/Starters

I would say it's nothing like learning UINIX commands. The Infocom parser was quite advanced, but natural. Maybe you are remembering a game from a different company? Here are some examples of commands from the Zork manual, almost all are normal english commands:
> WALK NORTH
> DOWN
> NE
> GO SOUTH
> U
> TAKE BOX
> PICK UP THE WOODEN BOX
> DROP IT
> PUSH THE BUTTON
> OPEN THE WOODEN DOOR
> EXAMINE THE SCUBA GEAR
> LOOK BEHIND THE STATUE
> LOOK UNDER THE ROCK
> LOOK INSIDE THE BUBBLING CAULDRON
> KILL THE BEAR WITH THE GUN
> SHOOT BEAR WITH LARGE RIFLE

Yes, text adventures have their own vocabulary and conventions, but it doesn't take long to figure out the basic commands: LOOK, GO NORTH, PICK UP, DROP, etc. It takes some experimenting to figure out which things can be manipulated; LOOKing in a room doesn't always list every item that could be manipulated. That varied with the difficulty of the game and the types of puzzles. Obvious exits were always listed when you first enter a room, or when you type LOOK.

People are mentioning the shortcuts (i for inventory, x for examine) put those are completely optional. Infocom games prided themselves on allowing for natural english commands (once you learn the basic VERB NOUN format).

Oh, there's almost ALWAYS documentation. Pirate copies just didn't include any.

I do have the cd with all the Infocom games on it and I have fond memories of them. It was wonderful to use your inmagination. Today most people would not like this type of play being they would like to see a graphical image of who they are playing and the area around them. I also have the zork remake that brought graphics to the first Zork but never played it. Thank GOG!

I have never heard of that. Is it free? Do you have a link?

>climb down the chimney
Only Santa Claus climbs down chimneys!

These games are still so much fun. But why isn't Stationfall, the sequel to planetfall included?

I have a Japanese copy of Saturn Zork around here.

I can't understand Japanese, but I don't care. It needed to be bought just because it was the wrongest thing I've ever seen.

Seriously, an American Text Adventure translated into Japanese on a home console. Also, the Saturn had a keyboard but Saturn Zork doesn't work with it.