Zyll
by IBM
(IBM plastic case)
All of the old-school fantasy games have cryptic four-letter names that
start with "Z": Zyll, Zork... Well, two of 'em anyway.
Jim Leonard of MobyGames called this
one "a MUD before MUDs existed." It's an all-text RPG (even going so far
as to include three classes of character to choose from), it's real-time,
it allows two people to play at once (cooperatively or competitively), and
it's highly randomized for replay value: Objects and monsters are placed
differently in every game, much like the sample adventures in Delton T.
Horn's excellent book Golden Flutes and Great Escapes.
The screen is divided into ASCII-border windows, and play is driven by
single keystrokes rather than a parser (a necessity for the two-player
simultaneous option), but there are lots of long text descriptions.
And besides, it says right there on the package, "A Text Adventure Game",
so who are we to argue?
Zyll comes packaged in IBM's clear plastic case with an inlay, like the
first King's Quest
and some PCjr carts I've seen. Definitely snag this one if you can find it.
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