Cool, very interesting! Thanks for linking that. There was a time that I was very much into Infocom's games on my Apple IIe. I remember going to places like Software Etc, Walden Books, B. Dalton Booksellers, and Egghead Software to check out and buy their unique boxes with cool documentation and touchy feelies inside. I also remember buying their hint books (InvisiClues) that came with a yellow marker that would reveal answers to puzzles at your discretion. Still one of the most brilliant hint book strategies ever.

"According to Gordon, while Zork checks the player's item count to determine if they're carrying too much, it also uses a random roll just to mess with the player. The roll used a number between 0 and 100, forcing players to keep trying to pick things up until it finally worked"

😳 And I thought Sierra Adventures were hard...

clueless1 wrote:

I also remember buying their hint books (InvisiClues) that came with a yellow marker that would reveal answers to puzzles at your discretion. Still one of the most brilliant hint book strategies ever.

The version of Zork that I played in the late 80s had a feature like that built into the game. As I remember it had topics for every part of the game and would give a very subtle clue at first, then you could elect to get an increasingly explicit one. It went through several stages like this, until finally it just told you exactly what to do.
It's the only game I've seen that system used, but it was very good as long as the player has self restraint.