jsm (04/08/83)
Randomness is not a problem at all in zork. There is no randomness. zork
is a completely non-random state machine type game. How you do against
the troll or thief depends only on what you have done previously, not on any
random numbers. I discovered this (I'm sure others have also) when I started
getting bored by having to go through all the preliminaries before getting
to an area that I was still trying to solve. I therefore developed "journey"
files which I ran with the input redirected (i.e. zork <journey). These
journey files would save the game at the end so that I could then restart
the game interactively and continue from there. Once I found a sequence that
would kill the troll or thief, that sequence always worked. If the thief
showed up at an inopportune time, I would just slightly change the order
of things I did previously and then he would not show up. Even the round
room is not random.
I only submitted this article in order to clear up the misunderstanding
about randomness in zork. I am not arguing that zork could be played on
by a computer. There have been many good points brought up pro and con, and
I am not about to get into a debate on the subject. However, if anyone
still doubts that zork is not random, I will be glad to mail him/her
copies of my journey files that they could use so that they could "see it
with their own eyes".
John S. Marvin
decvax!mcnc!ncsu!uvacs!jsm