Beyond Zork
Developer(s)	Infocom
Publisher(s)	Infocom
Engine	Z-code version 5
Release date(s)	Release 47: September 15, 1987 Release 49: September 17, 1987 Release 51: September 23, 1987 Release 57: December 21, 1987
Genre(s)	Interactive fiction
Mode(s)	Single player
Platform(s)	Apple II, Apple IIGS, Atari ST, IBM PC, Commodore 128
Media	1 3½" floppy disk

Beyond Zork (full title: Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor) was an interactive fiction computer game written by Brian Moriarty and released by Infocom in 1987. It was one of the last games in Infocom's Zork series; or, rather, one of the last Zork games that many Infocom fans consider "official" (titles such as Zork: Nemesis and Zork Grand Inquisitor were created after Activision 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 RPG 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.

Feelies

Almost since the company's beginning, Infocom's games included "extras" (called feelies) in the packages, often serving a dual purpose of entertainment and copy protection. 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)

Notes

Beyond Zork bears many similarities to a simplified role playing game or Multi-User Dungeon, particularly in the implementations of character statistics and levels. The "attributes" that affected the character were endurance, strength, dexterity, intelligence, compassion, and luck. These attributes could be manually allocated by the player at the beginning of the game or randomly set by the computer. Additionally, there were several preset characters that could be used. The values of these attributes affected combat and other aspects of the game; the values could be changed by gaining experience levels, eating or drinking certain things, or wearing or using certain objects. (Humorously, repeated typing of profanities would lower the player's intelligence.)

Many locations, creatures and events encountered in other Zork games were referenced in Beyond Zork.

A short section of the game involves the magical land of Froon, "the setting for a series of beloved children's books by L. Frank Fzort, and later became a successful movie musical starring Judy Garlic." This is a not-very-subtle tribute to (or parody of) L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Beyond Zork was one of 20 Infocom games bundled in the 1991 compilation The Lost Treasures of Infocom published by Activision.

Technical details

The game's biggest enhancement is the addition of an onscreen map, 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. Some other features of Beyond Zork previously unseen in Infocom's games include a number of magic items whose initial locations and descriptions are randomly determined, and area maps in which the same set "rooms" appear in random configurations. The game also includes the rare feature of semi-randomized combat, which Infocom had used before only in Zork I and, to a limited extent, Zork III.

Like Infocom's other games, Beyond Zork is platform independent and runs on a virtual computer architecture called the Z-machine. 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.

Tagline

Hunt the Coconut of Quendor!

External links

• Beyond Zork at MobyGames
• 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 Infocom Bugs List entry on Beyond Zork
• The Dot Eaters page featuring a history of the Zork games and Infocom

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