return to zork – Obsolete Gamer

The William Volk Show

This week we were honored to talk with William Volk. You can read about some of his many accomplishments in the interview we did a few years back. We began our conversation with a brief history of how he got into gaming and his work at Avalon Hi, Activation and his current work at PlayScreen. Our conversation covered a wide array of topics from mobile gaming, the video game violence debate and how technology and games can help with learning and improving education.

Classic Windows Games Computer Games

Dan Epp

Zork: Grand Inquisitor

Zork: Grand Inquisitor received good reviews (PC Gamer Magazine gave it an Editor’s Choice award and scored it at 88% in its May, 1988 issue, while GameSpot scored it as a 8.0 “Great”). The biggest fault that reviewers agreed upon was that it seemed too short, and a longer visit in this archetypical gamer universe was wished for. Now that’s a complaint any developer would like to hear! It was released for both Windowsand Macintosh platforms, and played the same on either one. Also, a DVD version was released in 1998, which also included the full version of Zork: Nemesis as an added bonus.

Interviews

J.A. Laraque

The Interview: William D. Volk

I could see true greatness in the creativity of Rand and Robyn Miller (Cyan). The User Interface was just breakthrough. I was also a bit pissed at the delay of CD-I and wanted to send a message about that. Activision was recovering from the video game crash and wanted something that was ground breaking. Finally Stewart Alsop suggested that the Manhole would be an ideal CD-ROM title. He was right. ~William D. Volk

Celebrity gamers

J.A. Laraque

Gamer Profile: William D. Volk

I liked Choplifter (1981) on the Apple II because it had simple engaging play and you actually started to empathize with the little people on the ground. You WANTED to rescue them. ~William D. Volk