DESCRIPTION

Zork III: The Dungeon Master is the final game in Infocom's Zork text adventure game trilogy. Part of Infocom's attempt to convert their original PDP-10 mainframe Zork game into commercial products, this game includes puzzles and locations from Zork that could not be included in Zork I or Zork II due to computer memory limitations.

Zork III improves on its predecessors in several ways. The game's prose is more verbose than in the previous Zork games, resulting in a game world brought more vividly to life. The game's inclusion of a plot gives you motivation for your adventure beyond simply looting everything in sight. Finally, more non-player characters have been included to make the game world feel more alive.

The game continues your adventures from the end of Zork II. You've looted the Great Underground Empire, and you've beaten the Wizard of Frobozz at his own game. Now you stand at the bottom of a seemingly endless staircase. You've been given a challenge by the Dungeon Master: "Seek me when you feel yourself worthy!"

Zork III's puzzles contain a varied mix of mechanical, inventory, and non-player character based problems. Most of them are well designed and logical, though a few require you to die several times in order to get the clues necessary to solve them. The game does have a flaw in the form of a certain randomized event near the beginning of the game that can put the game into an un-winnable state. If you're caught by this event you won't know you're in an un-winnable state until nearly the end of the game, forcing you to start completely over (hint: cross the aqueduct before the earthquake hits). Despite this flaw, Zork III: The Dungeon Master is still a thoroughly enjoyable text adventure puzzle in its own right, and serves as the worthy conclusion to the Zork trilogy. ~ Kyle Knight, All Game Guide