I'll be the first to admit: I have no idea if this is going to actually go anywhere. But for the past few years I've had an idea and it's always seemed like a fun one. And it would definitely be a challenge to pull off. But things have changed since my forays into programming (with the C language, in 1995) and I'm thinking that this might really be possible so, we're going to find out.
A while back a crazy notion hit me: to play Zork on my iPhone and iPad. Yes that Zork: the 1977 text-only role-playing game. A game that kept countless insomniacs awake long into the night as they explored the Great Underground Empire in all its riches, its horror, and occasional hilarity. There were no graphics at all involved with Zork: like most any good story it played out primarily in one's imagination, with only the on-screen descriptions awaiting your command for the parser to further the tale.
Envision that on the screen of an i-device or something running Android.
It's too wild an idea not to do. The absurdity of it: a modern mobile appliance, with all its portable power and potential - thousands upon thousands of times the combined computing capability that put the space shuttle into orbit on all those missions - running a text adventure. The text adventure, mind you. The game that in one way or another has boasted the core technology of every role-playing game on every device in the past half-century. It would be at once a step forward and a loooong leap backward, to do that.
Well, like I said, it's too perverse not to try to pull off.
A few months ago Microsoft published the original source code for the first three Zork games. Yes, it's open source now. Meaning that it can be played and finagled with to one's heart's content. It's noteworthy that these are the first three of the original Zork games. When the game was first created circa 1977 it was much too big for the personal computers then just starting to hit the market. So Zork was split into three games. This source code is for the full experience.
For the past few weeks I have been in the process of taking the source code and running it through ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and some other artificial intelligence systems. Pouring in the raw code and producing something that should, theoretically, be compilable into an app for iPad and iPhone. It hasn't been easy, not for the least of which reasons being that I don't have a Mac or other desktop computer powerful enough to test the finished product on. And so far as I can tell I've only been recreating the game's engine. The associated geography, items, monsters etc. are still waiting to be implemented.
But what has been produced so far, well... it looks an awful lot better than the discombobulated code that I was generating for that Computer Science 101 class at Elon three decades ago. I've some confidence in it. A lot of people who know better about such things than I swear that AI has become pretty competent about creating source code. Which, I still consider "cheating" in vast part. But maybe AI in this case is a pretty sensible tool toward creating a piece of software. I don't know. What I do know though is that so far I've a few pages worth of code ported to the language and syntax of i-devices. And maybe that will sooner than later be something letting players discover a place first explored by their parents and grandparents.
So, that's my project. We'll see if it comes to any fruition. That is if a grue doesn't devour me first...
