John Evans' Blog

Recently I’ve been playing Echo Bazaar. It’s a neat web-based game with a very evocative setting; in summary, Victorian London is dragged to Hell. (It also uses Twitter OAuth authentication, so you need a Twitter account to play…I think.)

Anyway, last night I had a dream where I was reading this text (as well as exploring the area mentioned). It was surprising how complete the text was in my dream (not FULLY complete, but the important parts were there). I feel like I was reading this from some alternate version of Echo Bazaar…some version featuring, not London, but a certain city with an island nearby.

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One might wonder how several thousand people on an island with so few routes on or off. Food is provided by Hunger’s blessing, in a swarm of black bees that bring forth an endless supply of honey. Chefs of the island, such as they are, most famously use black pepper to break up the monotony. There are rumors that the honey has subtle side effects on the mind and soul; the terms “sweet tooth” and “heavy eater” have a particular meaning on the Island.

So, there’s this game called Legends of Zork. Produced by Jolt Online, it’s a web-based game situated in the Zork world, with locations and artwork that evoke the Zork universe.

Recently Jolt had something called The Best Quest Contest. In summary, they solicited “quest” writeups from the playerbase and judged to see which were worthy of inclusion in the game. (In LoZ, a “quest” is a series of text scenes which include a few little puzzles.)

Long story short, I won! That is, my quest, “The DEAD Walk!” tied for second place. Today it was implemented in the game, so you can go forth and solve it! (If you’re at least level 25, of course…)

So, now my writing is part of an officially published game! Not only that, it’s part of the grand Zork legacy. 😀