Comment by CamperBob2
1 day ago
Actually the Zorks weren't deterministic, especially Zork II. The Wizard could F you over pretty badly if he appeared at an inopportune time.
1 day ago
Actually the Zorks weren't deterministic, especially Zork II. The Wizard could F you over pretty badly if he appeared at an inopportune time.
I feel like you are being pedantic. There are very few parts of Zork that are not static to the game. Yes the thief shows up randomly but that’s not the main point of the game.
It is not the least bit pedantic. Games were meaner back then. If you're on a time (turn)-limited section of the game, or in a vulnerable spot like the volcano, random encounters with the wizard could render the game unwinnable without dying, which would completely wreck a benchmark. Same for the thief in Zork 1. If he randomly steals your light source, you're done for.
Can't recall anything like that in Zork 3, admittedly.
Was that using an RNG? Or is the entire game deterministic?
It used an RNG. The usual practice back then was to spin a counter while waiting for keypresses, so that might affect the question when dealing with an external harness, I suppose.