I played it first on my shiny new Apple //c, back in April 1984. (Hey! Our logo graphic is an Apple //c!) I’ve fiddled about with it in years since on various other platforms, but it was the //c upon which I actually spent some time with it. The first game I purchased for that, my first Apple, actually. Zork I from Infocom. One of the most famous works of interactive fiction (or “IF” for sceners). A detailed text adventure with graphics provided by your imagination.

Sadly, I never solved the game. I played a good bit and we traded underground maps back in middle-school, I recall. But I never got around to solving it. My personal favorite of Infocoms gems was Brian Moriarty’s Wishbringer. Great fun solving that, later, on my Amiga 1000 (I was an early Amigoid). It was one of the few games available for the Amiga at the time, ironically. (I actually, recently purchased a full, boxed version of Wishbringer – just to get the whole package, in anticipation of replaying it on a modern Z-Machine interpreter with my wife as a form of TV alternative, but we haven’t gotten around to it yet.) But that’s Wishbringer…and this article is about Zork I.

The point of this post, which I am about to draw to a close, is a certain Gamasutra article entitled “The History of Zork” which crossed my radar in the form of an item in A2Central‘s RSS feed. Give it a read. IF is one of the best protrusions of gaming.

And in related news, Jason Scott, creator of BBS: The Documentary is hard at work on Get Lamp, a text adventure documentary film which will should wrap up in August of this year. Don’t miss it.

I’d been looking for it for eight years, and I finally got it. A MYST Channelwood Poster.

If you don’t know what MYST is, God help you. Channelwood is one of the “ages” of MYST. My ex-girlfriend and I solved MYST in a 17 hour session stretched across two days back in 1994. I consider that MYST experience to be the most immersive gaming experience of my life.

I first saw the Channelwood Poster on a dated (dead) Cyan store page. It perfectly captured the MYST experience in roughly 24×36-inch form. But it was no longer for sale. A year later I saw it on eBay and bid. High. I got outbid. It went for over $300. I encountered only one other, again on eBay, and got outbid – again, it went for over $300.

Over the years I’ve posted on various gaming forums looking for this poster and a couple months ago someone suggested I email a certain particularly kindhearted woman who is more or less the “office mom” of Cyan Worlds. After discovering her name, I guessed her email address and off went my query. She responded and, as it turns out, they had THREE left in the Cyan Worlds dungeon. I pleaded with her to sell it to me and she said she’d check with Rand Miller, co-creator of MYST. On that same day I sent this kind soul a dozen yellow spring tulips from a local Mead, Washington florist to underscore my begging. As it turns out, Rand Miller noticed them on her desk and asked her about them. She explained what it was all about and he agreed to give me one of the last Channelwood Posters for a donation to the Cyan party fund of an undisclosed amount. The kicker? Rand signed the poster to me! I happily obliged and days later the poster, in excellent condition, arrived at my home.

To prevent a flood of random emails sent to Cyan Worlds, I will tell you that I have been told that the two remaining copies of this strongly sought after poster are going to be sold (likely for substantial sums) at a special, upcoming Cyan Worlds event. So…please do not pester this wonderful woman whom I leave nameless.

I hope you enjoyed my tale. This is unquestionably the gem among my poster collection.

I am currently replaying MYST on my Sony PSP, here 13 years later. Good stuff.