Zork as a Computer Investigative Mind Set

Zork is a very popular text adventure game of the 70's and 80's, which challenged players to explore their surroundings and solve puzzles/problems to advance and complete the game. Unlike today's graphics intensive games, in text adventure games everything you need to know is not thrown onto the screen in high-resolution detail, rather the player has to choose from the provided commands to explore the in-game environment and solve the puzzles encountered. This need to explore the environment and examine situations and associated items for clues to solve-problems encourages players to develop problem solving skills that translate well to computer investigations. This paper draws similarities between text adventure games and computer investigations and discusses some of the basic principles and approaches needed for both.