Multizork: recalling the classic video game of the 80s

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Icculus has launched MultiZork, a project for the classic 1980 Zork video game to have multiplayer mode. You already know that some video games from past decades come back and are still very much alive. There are a multitude of fans of retro gaming, and someone (Ryan "Icculus" Gordon) had the fantastic idea to create this project.

Ryan is a gamer with a great passion for Zork, a game that uses its own programming language and a CPU implemented by its own software to be able to run on almost any computer. It would only need a Z-Machine emulator for its operation, something that was of great help in which PCs were not a standard.

Well, for fun, Icculus wrote Mojozork, a version of Z-Machine enough to be able to implement Zork 1 and other Infocom games in a C file. Although saying it seems easy, the truth is that it took quite a few steps to be able to run Zork and make it work well, in addition to doing it in multiplayer mode. The result is that MultiZork allows multiple people to play Zork to complete it.

In case you don't know the famous Zork, The truth is that it was a video game from the 80s that would change everything. This interactive fiction franchise was developed by the Infocom company. The first installment was called Zork 1: The Great Underground Empire. Although the project was intended for DEC PDP-10 machines, they would be adapted for various platforms and systems, and several prequels would be released.

This title on which MultiZork is based established everything a benchmark in the genre. The narrative quality and breadth were truly unusual for that time. And, although it is based on adventures in text mode, the truth is that it is still highly valued by some gamers.

You can see more information about the project on your site Patreon or in the GitHub.


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