Revisiting Zork Nemesis

A Million More Words About This Game Than You Thought Possible

When writing about my relationship with my father, I had mentioned that one of our potential chances to bond over video games involved Zork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands. Over the holidays, GOG.com had a pretty awesome sale on their entire catalog, so I decided to pick it up. What's interesting about the game is its weird status as the black sheep of the 3D Zork games. From what I could gather while browsing the abundant internet, the main complaint lodged by fans of the source material was that it lacked the humor of the other games and was too dark. I essentially played this game in a bubble. I was vaguely aware of the Zork text adventures, which I could never wrap my brain around, and then my dad came home one day with Zork Nemesis. It is the only Zork game I've played intently and finished thus far in my life, and I loved it, so my internet findings came as a bit of a shock.

I'm currently in a bit of a gaming limbo right now, having nothing major that I have to or need to play. The last big game I finished was Far Cry 3, and I felt like I needed to play some shorter games that didn't involve sprawling sandboxes. After Syndicate, a brief foray into SimCity 4, and finishing the Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty DLC for Borderlands 2, I developed a sudden desire to play Zork Nemesis again.

OMG, I really want to play Zork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands today.
— Gil Almogi (@gilmeansjoy) January 19, 2013

So I did, and I just finished it last night. I do have to admit that it brought back all my nostalgic feelings about the game, and I enjoyed every minute still. However, this time around was different in that I noticed cracks in the story I never really pondered before. To be honest, I'm not entirely not sure why I've never picked up on them before, but I think this was the first time that I really tried to piece together all the bits of the narrative. I also set some rules for myself. One thing about playing puzzle adventure games like this or Myst is that you basically never forget how to solve the puzzles and/or you still have your printer sheets covered in notes. I didn't want to breeze through the game (you can solve Myst in under 5 minutes, by the way), so I set these rules for myself:

1. I will explore every inch of each area and read all material I come across.
2. I will not go to solve a puzzle unless I have actually discovered the solution.
3. Even if I do find a solution, I will continue exploring until there's really little else to do but solve the puzzle.
4. The previous rule does not preclude me from solving stand-alone puzzles that don't require external clues.

I had a few reasons for these rules. First, I cannot properly analyze the game if I breeze through it darting from solution to solution until I'm done. The developers created a world I was intended to absorb for better or worse, so I was going to absorb it. Additionally, I wanted to use the puzzles as the barriers they're supposed to be. I can't change the fact that I know where each puzzle's solution is located, so the least I can do is just visit every area and explore each branching path until I actually arrive at the solution's location. I really wanted to test how far I can get in each place before the game basically tells me I can't proceed any further.

Warning: Dead baby jokes.

Now that I'm done, let's explore my great Zork Nemesis findings.
The following sections will contain spoilers. If you do plan on playing the game, finish it first.