ZORK(6) — Unix Programmer’s Manual

NAME

zork − the game of dungeon

SYNOPSIS

/usr/games/zork

DESCRIPTION

Dungeon is a computer fantasy simulation based on Adventure and on Dungeons & Dragons, originally written by Lebling, Blank, and Anderson of MIT. In it you explore a dungeon made up of various rooms, caves, rivers, and so on. The object of the game is to collect as much treasure as possible and stow it safely in the trophy case (and, of course, to stay alive.)

Figuring out the rules is part of the game, but if you are stuck, you should start off with “open mailbox”, “take leaflet”, and then “read leaflet”. Additional useful commands that are not documented include:

quit(to end the game)

!cmd(the usual shell escape convention)

>(to save a game)

<(to restore a game)

FILES

/usr/games/lib/d\(**

BUGS

We don’t have the source, only a pdp-11 binary that has been severely munged to get it to work on V7 Unix. (The original binary was for RSX-11, which was patched for V6, and then patched for V7.)