Language as a joystick is back from the ’80s, but are our imaginations up for it?

The text-based role-playing game Zork, a mythologically powerful bundle of Apple IIe joy from my childhood that was filled with interactive fiction, is now available for your Kindle or other device via the simple Web site of PortableQuest.com.

I credit games like Zork with strengthening my imagination, providing me a much-needed escape, teaching me how to type (poorly), and bequeathing me endless hours of joyous frustration as I sought the correct combination of actions to move a story forward. A particularly confounding monkey grinder comes to mind.

Are our imaginations, grown lazy after years of being fed increasingly sophisticated graphics and constructed visual universes, still up for the duty of creating an engaging fictional landscape? Or has my thumb and a button forever replaced the thrill that writing “go north” somehow managed to create in me as I traveled through slowly unlocking paragraphs? Guess I’ll find out. Playing now.

Discovery path!: Here < The Escapist < Gizmodo < Wired.co.uk < @planetsurfer

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