Zork III Source Code Collection

About

This repository is a directory of Infocom's original ZIL source code for Zork III: The Dungeon Master (1982), including files both used and discarded during development. It was contributed anonymously as a snapshot of Infocom's development system at the time it shut down, so it's considered canonical but not necessarily the exact production file arrangement, and there's currently no known way to compile it into a final Z-machine program — the original tools to do so are lost.

Getting started

There's no ready-to-play executable included — this is raw ZIL source code, and the original tools used to compile it into a playable game are lost, so there is no known way to build it into a finished program.

History

The source was contributed anonymously as a snapshot of Infocom's internal TOPS-20 development system at the time the company shut down, reflecting the studio's practice of copying and adapting source from earlier games rather than starting each title from scratch.

Known issues & limitations

• compilation: No known way to compile the source code into a final Z-machine Interpreter Program (ZIP) file; original compilation tools are lost.

Additional notes

Purpose

The collection is intended for education, discussion, and historical research into how Infocom's games were made, not for playing directly.