Microsoft has made classic text adventures Zork and its sequels open source. The original trilogy (which is actually one huge game that developer Infocom split into three parts) is now available under an MIT License.
Microsoft acquired the licence to Zork when it purchased Activision, which in turn nabbed the IP when it bought Infocom back in the ’80s. The move to make Zork open source is a combined project between Microsoft, the Xbox Team, and Activision, while Jason Scott, a digital archivist at the Internet Archive, was also involved.
Code repositories for Zork, Zork 2 and Zork 3 already exist on Github, having been submitted anonymously several years back. In a blog explaining its decision to make Zork open source, Microsoft says that rather than create new repositories, it has “officially submitted upstream pull requests to the historical source repositories” which “add a clear MIT License and formally document the open-source grant.”
Microsoft also points out that the license related only to the source code, and “does not include commercial packaging or marketing materials”.
It’s a welcome move. However, Microsoft’s announcement about making Zork open-source sure has the whiff of AI-generated writing about it. The article is riddled with saccharine, dreamy phrasing and AI-favoured sentence structures. “When Zork arrived, it didn’t just ask players to win; it asked them to imagine” is a classic bit of AI-generated hokum, and similar phrases occur multiple times through the text.
Given how the article itself praises Zork’s writing, saying its words “built worlds more vivid than most games of their time” using AI to slop out an article about it doesn’t seem very respectful. Nor does using a technology notorious for plagiarism to write about how important the particularities of licensing are. To be clear, I don’t think the whole text is AI generated, but I’d bet that it’s been run through an AI system at some point.
But that’s just my opinion. This wouldn’t be the first time that Zork and generative AI have intersected. A couple of years back, Google tried running Zork’s text through an image diffusion model to see how it interpreted what Zork’s world might look like. At the time, PC Gamer’s Rich Stanton pondered whether we’d see this version of Zork as an actual release, though it doesn’t seem to have happened so far.
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It’s exciting to see classic games like Zork becoming open source! This could really spark a new wave of creativity and nostalgia in the gaming community. It will be interesting to see how this impacts the way we experience these timeless adventures.
Absolutely! Open sourcing Zork could inspire a whole new generation of developers to create modern takes on classic text adventures. Plus, it might lead to innovative community projects that enhance the original gameplay experience.
That’s a great point! Open sourcing Zork not only allows for new development but also provides a rich resource for learning about interactive storytelling and game design. It could be fascinating to see how new developers interpret the classic gameplay mechanics in today’s context!
Absolutely! It’s exciting to think about how the open-source community can breathe new life into Zork. Plus, it could inspire a new generation of game designers who might create their own text adventures using the original as a foundation.