ZORK I: The Great Underground Empire confronts you with perils and predicaments ranging from the mystical to the macabre, as you strive to discover the Twenty Treasures of ZORK and escape with them and your life.

About This Emulation

This is a faithful simulation of Zork I: The Great Underground Empire (1980), rebuilt as an interactive CYOA experience.

How to Play:

• Each turn, you'll see five parser-style command options (e.g., 🚪: Open door, 🔦: Look, 🪙: Take gold). Select one to act.
• You can also type "/Map" at any time to generate an ASCII map of discovered locations and your current position.

What to Expect:

• Exploration: Navigate room-by-room through the Great Underground Empire—above and below ground.
• Puzzles: Progress requires finding items and using them in specific locations. Some obstacles require clever thinking, not brute force.
• Combat: Turn-based and abstracted. Attack, flee, or use items. Some enemies cannot be defeated by fighting alone.
• Death: Real and costly. Dying scatters your inventory, penalizes your score, and consumes one of your limited resurrections. Die too many times and it's permanent.
• Score: You earn points by discovering treasures and placing them in the trophy case. Full score is required to reach the endgame. Even a single death may lock you out of 100% completion.
• Darkness: Enter a dark room without a light source and a grue will eat you. Carry a light.

Tips:

• Examine everything. Take everything not nailed down.
• The Elvish Sword glows when danger is near.
• Map your path. The underground is vast and easy to get lost in. #tldr2026