Return to Zork
Description official descriptions
You are standing behind the white house. There is something in the mailbox. A video message from a wizard informing you that you are the sweepstakes winner to the Valley of the Sparrows... right now, by magic flight. Upon arriving at this mysterious place however, not everything is as it should be. There's nobody to meet you and those who you do come across don't seem to have any knowledge about a sweepstakes. It looks like this is a private vacation and you'll need to find your own way through this land.
Return to Zork is a first-person adventure game using live actors and video sequences. The game is similar to Myst in interface; the player is also able to rotate the viewpoint to discover new areas and uncover items that can be used or picked up. Various characters will be met along the way and spoken to via a system of dialog choices. The game allows the player to experiment with items in various ways, including discharging them; however, this often leads to "dead ends", rendering it impossible to complete the game.
Spellings
- リターン・トゥ・ゾーク - Japanese spelling
- 决战大魔域 - Traditional Chinese spelling
- 죠크행성 - Korean spelling
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Credits (DOS version)
99 People (90 developers, 9 thanks) · View all
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[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 74% (based on 21 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.2 out of 5 (based on 93 ratings with 6 reviews)
The Encyclopedia Frobozzica manual is more entertaining than the game.
The Good
I had high hopes for this game when I bought it. Finally, after years since I had first played it on my ATARI 800XL, someone had come to remake Zork. I was excited.
The Introduction video blew me away... it references the original game nicely and features a great fly-by over terrain. And I'd have to say that some of the characters are quite memorable and humorous, every one of them a bit odd. The puzzles are challenging (though not always logical) and there's lots of different places to explore.
And the Encyclopedia Frobozzica that comes with the game contains everything you ever wanted to know about Zork and plenty you didn't. It also references various other Infocom games, such as Wishbringer.
The Bad
First of all, it just doesn't feel like Zork. For some reason, many of the goofy characters just don't seem like the madmen of the Underground Empire. Instead they seem like.. very confused individuals who have wandered into the game by accident. Maybe it's just me, but the dialog with a lot of the characters just seemed unrewarding and left me wondering why they didn't provide useful information. Sure sure, this adds challenge to the game, but it also added to the next point I'm about to make:
The world feels uncomfortably empty. There's a reason for this. The great Underground Empire has fallen, and there's not much living above it. But there just seems to be an absence of life overall in the world. The characters you do meet are few and far between... perhaps that's one of the reasons I was expecting them to be helpful. And Return to Zork's not that large a game, so there should be enough characters with what we have here to populate it... but it's always felt cold to me... with many ways to die. My god it was easy to die! Of course come to think of it, it was easy to die in the original Zork's anyway. And many of Infocom's other adventures. Still, I never liked it back then either...
It also felt that for the amount of information included in the Encyclopedia Frobozzica (which it turns out wasn't written by Activision), there would have been a lot more substance to Return to Zork. Instead, only a couple of tiny things are ever seen, and even the video display of Flood Control Dam #3 felt anticlimatic somehow. (I also remember complaining about the quality of the video... and remember, this was a new game at the time!)
The Bottom Line
I haven't experienced any of the other Zork games since this one, and the main reason is probably because I left here with a bad taste in my mouth. In the end.... I just got a whole lot more fun reading the Encyclopedia included with the game and felt that it alone promised more than the game portion actually delivered.
I should point out that when I bought Return to Zork, I hadn't experienced Myst (still haven't actually) or any other first-person game.... or at least any other cdrom/video first person game. This was breaking ground for me, and in the end... I just never quite got into it. Since then I've only played a couple more, including Sierra's Rama and it felt a lot more vibrant and rich than Return to Zork did.
DOS · by Shoddyan (15007) · 2005
One of the best adventure games
The Good
The graphics were very good for its time (1993.) I also liked the use of the FMV videos. Basically an all round good game.
The Bad
I didn't like the fact that it was too hard. You cannot finish this game without some kind of walkthrough or hint system, but thats all thats wrong with it.
The Bottom Line
I would get it if you like adventure games, and play the original zork text adventures. It helps if you do.
DOS · by James1 (240) · 2001
The Good
The first thing I remember about this game is the music. How fantastic are live recordings as background music? I only wish more games had decided to jump aboard this great development.
The Bad
Adventure games can sometimes be plagued by the 'used item' problem -- that is, if you use an item incorrectly, you're stuck. There is nothing more frustrating than realizing you need to restart a game because 2 hours ago, while trying to figure out a problem, you misused part of your inventory. Zork, unfortunately, exhibits this problem on numerous occasions.
Also, the game has 3 distinct maze areas which do nothing put aggravate the player in an attempt to make a longer game.
The Bottom Line
Quite a masterful working of the original Zork world with... well.. graphics. Some players may be upset to see another's vision of what only existed in their heads for so long.
DOS · by Game22 (35) · 2004
Trivia
1001 Video Games
Return to Zork appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
Bugs
The endgame has one of the most frustrating bugs ever in the history of adventure gaming. In order to reach the final confrontation with the main villain, you have to throw every single item in the game that isn't nailed down into a pit to raise a bridge. The problem is, due to various bugs, you'll sometimes end up not raising the bridge even after throwing everything into the pit, making it impossible to progress to the ending and resulting in you having to restart the game from the very beginning.
Because this game was made before the WorldWide Web allowed for the widespread distribution of patches to correct post-production bugs, this error was never addressed and anyone playing the game will just have to hope they're lucky and don't run into it.
Cut Content
The singing tree mentions some "friends" who have brought you to her. This is a reference to the Mushroom People, who were in the game's original screenplay and design but ultimately cut out of the final version. The tree's reference to them was accidentally left in.
Development
The creators of Return to Zork weren't familiar with the rest of the series, never having actually played any of the original text games.
Encyclopedia Frobozicca
Nino Ruffini, compiler of the Encyclopedia Frobozzica, merged the encyclopedia entries from Sorcerer and Zork Zero with text from some of the other Infocom games' box contents and a few of his own entries. The original version of the Encyclopedia was circulated around Delphi and the rest of the Internet until Activision came across it and asked Ruffini for permission to use it in RTZ so they wouldn't have to recompile everything themselves.
Floppy Version
The floppy version of this game came on an incredible 12 floppies! In order to play the game, you had to spend a fair amount of time installing it first by floppy swapping. It proved to be one more reason to get a CD-Rom drive for your computer.
Macintosh Version
In the Macintosh version of Return To Zork, many things that were not required for completing the game were eliminated. For example, in the original DOS version, showing the matches to the Lighthouse Keeper would trigger a response "Thank you, I never smoke cough". In the Macintosh version however, he simply has nothing to say about it.
MPEG Version
A special version of the game was released with re-encoded MPEG video for both DOS and the Macintosh in 1995. It was exclusively sold as OEM version. The Macintosh version came with the Apple MPEG Media System card and the DOS version came with the ReelMagic card.
Japanese PC Version
This version is fully dubbed and all game text are translated. The disc contains installers for DOS/V, PC-98 and FM Towns.
Korean and Chinese Versions PC Version
This version is fully dubbed but NO text is translated, not even in the menus. Chinese dialogue was recorded in Taiwan. This version was sold in both Taiwan and Mainland China (and possibly Hong Kong).
Planetfall Trailer
Return to Zork came with a trailer for Planetfall. Infocom/Activision was developing a graphic update of the the verenable favorite. Unfortunately, the game never saw the light of day.
References
The game's intro video begins with the text on a black screen "You are standing behind the white house. In one corner is a small window which is slightly ajar.". This text is copied from the first thing shown on the screen of the first Zork game. The video then shows you the house and rotates around it before finding the sweepstakes invitation in the mailbox (which is not what happens in the first Zork game).
Boos Myller's toast is an English translation of a Scots language toast dating from the 19th century. The traditional text is as follows, although there are some common variations:
Here's tae us!
Wha's like us?
Gey few,
an' they're a' deid!
(Mair's the pity!)
Information also provided by Alan Chan, molokaicreeper, Scott Monster, Techademus, Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe, WildKard and trembyle
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Related Sites +
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Design documents
Resources collected for The Zork Compendium. Includes design documents, letters, storyboards, scripts, maps and sketches used during the development of the game. -
Game Nostalgia
Provides extensive background info for Return to Zork, pictures of the cast and examples of voice-overs, full credits with shots and info about the design team, a demo of the game, specific details about the game, various goodies, all musical themes, shots of every location in the game, saved games, a list of reviews, including a "nostalgic "review and tech specs. -
Museum of Computer Adventure Game History
Contains scans of the manual and official BradyGames guide by Peter Spear. -
Playing Return to Zork Windows XP
Instructions by Inferno will tell you how -
ScummVM
supports Return to Zork under Windows, Linux, Macintosh and other platforms. -
The Infocom Bugs List
Consolidated list of bugs by Graeme Cree, originally appearing in XYZZY newsletters.
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Derrick 'Knight' Steele.
SEGA Saturn, PC-FX added by Corn Popper. Windows added by Dragom. PlayStation added by Kabushi. FM Towns, PC-98 added by Terok Nor. Macintosh added by Cyborg.
Additional contributors: Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe, Jeanne, Shoddyan, martin jurgens, ケヴィン, Macs Black, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack, trembyle, Colette Lambert.
Game added March 28, 2000. Last modified November 2, 2024.