Return to Zork

Return to Zork is a graphic adventure game and the first in the Zork series to abandon text parsing for a point-and-click interface. Set centuries after the previous games, you play a sweepstakes winner who receives an all-expenses-paid holiday to the Valley of the Sparrows in the Great Underground Empire. Upon arrival, you discover the region has fallen under a sinister influence: buildings have vanished, murderous vultures infest the land, and survivors are plagued by nightmares of a dark entity calling itself Morphius. Gameplay takes place from a first-person perspective using the MADE engine, similar to Myst which it predates by several months. A menu on the left offers multiple interaction options. The game features live-action full-motion video sequences. Multiple solutions exist for many puzzles, and it is possible to kill civilian NPCs.

DOS

Released September 15, 1993, by Activision under the Infocom label, marking Infocom's final Zork game. Designed by Doug Barnett, programmed by Joseph T. Chow, music by Nathan Wang. The DOS version was available on twenty-four 3.5-inch floppy disks or a single CD-ROM. Minimum requirements include an Intel 386 CPU, 1 MB RAM, DOS 5.0, VGA graphics, and support for Sound Blaster, AdLib, and Roland MT-32. The CD-ROM version required 4 MB RAM and 42 MB hard drive space. The game proved a commercial success with one million units sold by the end of 1995. Famous for the line "Want some Rye? 'Course you do!", it received mixed reviews praising presentation and story but criticizing the live-action acting.