Zork has the interesting distinction of being one, if not the first interactive fiction title available to personal computers. At the time, personal computing was in it's infancy. Most machines contained little to no memory, primitive displays and a wide array of processors and graphics architectures. The diversity of machines was immense. Eventually, the developers constructed a new concept: The virtual machine. In 1979, Joel Berez and Marc Blank began sketching out details of the new concept on a coffee table. The concept was revolutionary. They constructed a computer, titled the Z-Machine (Zork Machine), which never actually existed, and allowed for functions that a real machine could not. A game, or story as they called them, could vastly exceed the available memory of the machine running the game by only storing a small portion of the game in RAM. Large blocks of text could be streamed from a disk, normally a home computer would not be able to fit it inside memory. As an added side effect, this also allowed for developers to create a story once, and simply port the virtual computer to many different platforms.

Eventually, this led to the founding of the development studio Infocom. Infocom rapidly received notoriety for their Zork adventure title. Having made the intelligent move to distribute in book stores, where people would obviously have an interest in reading, Infocom began work on several other titles. In time, several other titles would be developed, including Zork II and III, an adventure game version of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and of course Beyond Zork. The interactive fiction world, up to that point, had been mostly puzzle solving and avoiding certain death by timing and trial-and-error. Beyond Zork, however, broke this mold.

By the time of time of Beyond Zork's inception, Infocom had run through several revisions of the Z-Machine, with each version containing improved feature sets and expanded memory. Beyond Zork ran on revision 5. This new revision allowed the interpreter a new allotment of features not before seen in a text adventure title. The first noticeable addition is for player statistics. Players are given the option to design a character (or pick one from a list), which blurred the lines between a traditional RPG and text adventures. In the design stage, players could supply a custom name and even defined statistics: Endurance, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Luck and Compassion. Each stat had it's own function and each could potentially alter the course of the entire game, affecting everything from combat to accessibility of areas.

Beyond the addition of character creation was Beyond Zork's improved user interface. Using the version 5 feature set, a miniature map displayed the player's position, potential exits and locations visited. A two window system allowed players to separate things like combat from the description of an area, reducing clutter and the need to reexamine their surroundings. Players could assign macros to function keys, reducing the need to repeatedly type common phrases. This is especially helpful for dealing with commands such as spells. The numerical keypad could be used to navigate the environment, making game play far less tedious than other interactive fiction titles of the time. Beyond Zork also featured an insane level of randomness. Areas were frequently generated on the fly, item names would change and spell words would be different with each play. Many players complained about this fact, especially in regard to the inconsistency of the environment, even when reloading a save from the same play through.

As far as the story goes, the game is rather lighthearted. The player is on a quest to find a coconut, which god-like creatures (based on the developers) accidentally fed to a ur-grue. Bad things are said to happen if you fail at your task, but no one really knows for sure what that something is. The game features several areas of play, some with a sense of humor, some taking a darker turn. The best area, of course, is the gray fields. The gray fields are a colorless farm with a wrecked farm-house described as, "The setting for a series of beloved children's books by L. Frank Fzort, and later became a successful movie musical starring Judy Garlic". The parody should be apparent to anyone.

This is by and large my favorite Infocom title. It may not be their best work, but it's certainly the one that I remember the most. Technologically speaking, it was the most advanced Z-Machine game I remember seeing. The game play is solid and it's a breeze to play. The RPG elements are well integrated without making the stats feel overly important, and initial character balancing almost never leaves you forced to restart. While not directly part of the Zork series, it provides an excellent story and is a great game for anyone who wants to experience an IF game.