Game idea - Zork Exile

Started by DeviantGent, Sun 17/05/2009 01:53:12

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DeviantGent

I felt that now would be a good time to take soundings on a two parter I've been brainstorming for some time. The Reality Underground has been an interesting concept that has sadly remained untouched for a while, outside of oblique references to it in Defender of RON and a full on (albeit sadly brief) exploration in Everything Begins with an M. As of now, we have a more or less blank canvas of tunnels, hidden rooms, passageways, caverns, chambers, tombs and crypts. I'd like to do a couple of shortish games that might ultimatly precipitate the Underground getting used more and more, and hopefully resulting in an ever expanding mapping out.

Anyway - the plot centres around Thakbor, who discovers a rather familiar looking house while lost in the middle of Reality Forest. Exploring the house, he comes across the entranceway to Reality's vast network of underground pasages, offering almost limtless possibilities for adventure and riches. But what starts out as one of his standard 'pick up anything shiny' jaunts soon becomes something far more noble as he and his companions find the house's occupier in the tunnels below - and learn of his exile from the Magical Inquisition of the Great Empire of Quendor...

The two parter (one on the surface, the other in the underground) will feature a number of Zork references with regards to spells, themes and story (the latter having links to certain events from Grand Inquisitor), but it's more a case of the classic Zork text adventure tone I'm trying to shoot for - that whole 'spirit of exploration' malarky that was so good about the original trilogy. It certainly won't be a case of dropping characters and locations from established games into RON, the focus will be solely on the RON underground as opposed to doing something hackneyed like taking characters and dumping them into the Zork universe. Plus I think it's about time that Thakbor had a good old fashioned quest type romp.

I've got a rough design doc for the first game, along with an outline of the backstory planned out. I'll probably be developing this idea a lot more in the coming days, so keep checking back. I leave with some artwork done by Mr Flibble of a landmark I'm sure we are all familiar with:

The Deviant Gent
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Kweepa

This sounds very interesting! I was particularly pleased with your explicit goal of non-hackneyedness.
I would hope it wouldn't be just a treasure hunt though; and I would avoid directly mentioning Zork in the title. Perhaps RotN: the Great Underground Empire or somesuch.

On another note, thanks for informing me that Everything Begins with an M was released in demo form! I see I have missed out on a few newer releases!
Still waiting for Purity of the Surf II

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