Due to the lack of a back story within the actual Zork game, I decided to purchase the novel 'The Zork Chronicles' by George Alec Effinger. The reason for this is I wanted to grasp the visual world of Zork through a more detailed narrative of the story. Within the game itself, Zork is quite simple with it's description of characters, environments and emotions within the story progression. I gathered, reading a book based around the events of the Zork Universe, it would open doors for me in terms of understanding what it actually entails. Within doing this I will have more ideas on where I can 're-imagine' concepts. I strongly believe having a firm knowledge of Zork will improve my reinvented idea :)
What interested me the most with this book as that the story read through as you were experiencing the actual game play of the first Zork. However, it was from a different character's perspective and not your own, in fact although you read the book as you explored in the game, the events differed as if there had been significant time changes/developments between the book and the game itself. For example, characters would find the 'White House' and interact with the 'Mail box' and took part in all the explorations from the game, but it differed with aesthetics and other details. From playing the game myself it was quite interesting to see how the whole story felt different through reading it in more depth than playing it.
The story itself is about a character named 'Glorian' who goes on a mission with a prince 'Mirakles' to help him rescue his mother from the depths of evil. Glorian is a famous character who is skilled within shape shifting, his efforts however often go unnoticed within the Zork Universe. He is often assigned to do certain missions based on his shape shifting abilities. Within his quest with Mirakles, he often changes into other beings to benefit him and his comrades against certain complications. In the story you meet many new characters and foes that are very well described to a better degree than the game, you begin to react to the character's personalities through their dialogue, skills and attributes. I often found myself quite compelled by the way the story was being told from the glorious parts, to the devastating, it was a very well written book.
The most important element with the Zork book for me was that it was far better than the narrative in the game. Although that is quite a harsh statement, as evidently the game itself was quite primitive and a lot older, it had time to mature over the years and was able to captivate writers to re-imagine the story, to bring it more depth and coherence. For once the narrative and environments felt solidly connected, I felt like I was there understanding the true world of Zork, what it actually was and what sort of beings/realms existed. Without purchasing this book, I would not have been able to get such a great understanding and honestly feel I have a better knowledge of the game, and in that will give me a serious benefit over my re-imagination project.
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