History VideoGame / ReturnToZork

* TheAlcoholic: Boos. No, not Booze. Boos. Yes, you read that right.
* AndIMustScream: When Morpheus [[TakenForGranite turns people to stone]] they stay conscious. [[spoiler:The old guy calling you through Tele-Orb is one of such victims. Fortunately for him, he's a telepath.]]

* ChessWithDeath: [[spoiler: The final battle against Morpheus is a game of ''Survivor'', which is somewhat similar to checkers or chess.]]

* FinalExamBoss: About 1/4 of the way into the game, you play "Survivor" with Moodock, the one-armed man in the inn. You play Canuk, who can move to any square. He plays the wizard Trembyle, who has to move like a knight in chess, and makes a square into a "pit" every time he moves off of it. Canuk's objective is to stop Trembyle from moving, while Trembyle's is to make every square but two into pits. [[spoiler:At the end of the game, you play Survivor again, except this time it's against Morpheus, and the roles are reversed.]]
* GuideDangIt: A trend of Zork games and adventure games in general. Perhaps the worst of these is learning that the wizard Trembyle can opt to pass a turn in Survivor, learned by talking to an NPC you had probably forgotten about by the time you need to learn it. [[spoiler:This is crucial to winning the final game of Survivor against Morpheus. Good luck trying to win the game without passing your turn every once in a while.[[labelnote:*]]It ''is'' possible, and can be done relatively easily as long as you remember to never make a move that will only have one possible following move, but it's difficult[[/labelnote]]]]
* HeelFaceTurn: Rebecca Snoot punches you in the face and gives you a riddle to solve. She will KILL YOU if you get the riddle wrong, but if you get it right she becomes the nicest lady ever and allows you to steal anything you want from her house. Understandably, she's threatening to kill you because ''[[WhatTheHellPlayer you broke into her house]]''. [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption You bastard]].

* NonStandardGameOver: Downplayed. Opening both doors of the incinerator kills the player in regular fashion, but the EvilLaugh that normally plays during death sequences is skipped. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], in that, while most other means of death ([[EatenAlive eaten by a grue, ]][[BalefulPolymorph turned into a duck, ]]drowning, [[TakenForGranite petrified, ]][[DisproportionateRetribution murdered by a psychotic teacher, ]] and depression, [[TheManyDeathsOfYou to name a few]]) allow for some amount of time for [[BigBad Morpheus]] to gloat (and the adventurer to still hear him), the explosion would kill the player instantly.

* SadistTeacher: Failing a pop quiz with Ms. Peepers is punishable by death. A pop quiz on [[DisproportionateRetribution the names of the days of the week]]. While it is somewhat justified, as this was a form of CopyProtection, it still makes Ms. Peepers very unnerving, especially since she shows absolutely no other signs of her sadistic behavior.

* ShoutOut: If you look in a certain area in the bottled ship, you can find a skeleton dressed up like [[TheSecretOfMonkeyIsland Guybrush Threepwood]]. Examining the skeleton gives you the message, "Looks like his ten minutes are up."[[note]]This is a reference to Guybrush's ability to hold his breath for ten minutes, and not a second more.[[/note]]
* TakenForGranite: Several of the [=NPCs=] you meet in the game end up turned to stone by Morpheus. [[spoiler:And if you fail the final game with Morpheus, you meet the same fate.]]

** Kill someone with your knife or sword. When this happens, [[spoiler: a special character will appear on screen and take items from your inventory as punishment, which of course renders the game a dead end as everything has a use]].
** Take the bra box from Pugney before he says you can have it. [[spoiler: See the example above for what happens when you do that.]]
** Lose important items in the incinerator.

** Feed the rotten meat to the vultures without drugging them first.
** [[spoiler: Turn Canuk back into a duck]] before you get the disc piece from the bottle and have him read from the joke book. Or, after you do that, [[spoiler:turn him back into a human anyway. Though that qualifies as TooDumbToLive, since you have no reason to change him back.]]
* VideogameCrueltyPotential: Unlike pretty much every other Creator/{{Infocom}} adventure game (or most other adventure games in general), killing non-hostile [=NPCs=] is neither impossible or immediately punished by death. As a result you can stab to death almost every single NPC in the game. A vigilante guardian spirit will show up and destroy your inventory, rendering the game unwinnable (doubly so if you still needed the dead NPC to do something), but you're still allowed to wander around and do stuff.

''Return to Zork'' was the first graphical game in the ''VideoGame/{{Zork}}'' series. The player character is a sweepstakes winner who won a trip to the Valley of the Sparrows, which turns out to be a rather depressing place. The PC enters the West Shanbar and hears from the townspeople that the East Shanbar mysteriously disappeared. As in many video games, the PC has to be the one to check it out, and ends up on a magical quest to stop the evil Morpheus from taking over. This game differed from past ''Zork'' games as it incorporated full-motion video featuring a number of well-known actors ranging from Jason Hervey of ''TheWonderYears'', to Sam Jones, who played the title role in the 1980 ''Film/FlashGordon'' movie, to A.J. Langer who went on to co-star in ''MySoCalledLife''.

** [[spoiler: Turn Canuk back into a duck]] before you get the disc piece from the bottle. Or, after you do that, [[spoiler:turn him back into a human anyway. Though that qualifies as TooDumbToLive, since you have no reason to change him back.]]

** VideogameCrueltyPunishment: Don't even _threaten_ Canuk or Witch Itah. [[BalefulPolymorph They don't take kindly to it.]]

* HeelFaceTurn: Rebecca Snoot punches you in the face and gives you a riddle to solve. She will KILL YOU if you get the riddle wrong, but if you get it right she becomes the nicest lady ever and allows you to steal anything you want from her house.
** Understandably, she's threatening to kill you because ''[[WhatTheHellPlayer you broke into her house]]''. [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption You bastard]].

* InnOfNoReturn: You will die in Molly's hotel unless you find a way to keep your bedroom illuminated when you go to sleep. For some reason, sleeping with the lights on simply isn't an option.

* SadistTeacher: Failing a pop quiz with Ms. Peepers is punishable by death. A pop quiz on [[DisproportionateRetribution the names of the days of the week]].

** Take the bra box from Pugney before he says you can have it.

* GuideDangIt: A trend of Zork games and adventure games in general. Perhaps the worst of these is learning that the wizard Trembyle can opt to pass a turn in Survivor, learned by talking to an NPC you had probably forgotten about by the time you need to learn it. [[spoiler:This is crucial to winning the final game of Survivor against Morpheus. Good luck trying to win the game without passing your turn every once in a while.]]

* GuideDangIt: A trend of Zork games and adventure games in general.

* InnOfNoReturn: You will die in Molly's hotel unless you find a way to keep your bedroom illuminated when you go to sleep.

* SadistTeacher: Failing a pop quiz with Ms. Peepers is punishable by death.

** [[spoiler: Turn Canuk back into a duck]] before you get the disc piece from the bottle.

* FinalExamBoss: About 1/4 of the way into the game, you play "Survivor" with Moodock, the one-armed man in the inn. You play Canuck, who can move to any square. He plays the wizard Tremboyle, who has to move like a knight in chess, and makes a square into a "pit" every time he moves off of it. Canuck's objective is to stop Tremboyle from moving, while Tremboyle's is to make every square but two into pits. [[spoiler:At the end of the game, you play Survivor again, except this time it's against Morpheus, and the roles are reversed.]]

** Understandably, she's threatening to kill you because ''[[WhatTheHellPlayer you broke into her house and then walked in on her after a shower]]''. [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption You bastard]].
*** Actually, she was brushing her teeth.

* TakenForGranite: Several of the [=NPCs=] you meet in the game end upn turned to stone by Morpheus. [[spoiler:And if you fail the final game with Morpheus, you meet the same fate.]]

** Kill someone with your knife or sword. When this happens, [[spoiler: a special character will appear on screen and take items from your inventory as punishment]], which of course renders the game a dead end as everything has a use.

* VideogameCrueltyPotential: Unlike pretty much every other Infocom adventure game (or most other adventure games in general), killing non-hostile [=NPCs=] is neither impossible or immediately punished by death. As a result you can stab to death almost every single NPC in the game. A vigilante guardian spirit will show up and destroy your inventory, rendering the game unwinnable (doubly so if you still needed the dead NPC to do something), but you're still allowed to wander around and do stuff.

* TheManyDeathsOfYou: See the description under "HighOctaneNightmareFuel" on this page.

* MayorOfAGhostTown: The mayor of West Shanbar who has no idea what happened to the east side of town.

* InnOfNoReturn: You will die in Molly's hotel unless you find a way to keep the lights on.

* {{Padding}}: The swamp maze. Oh ''god'' the swamp maze...that thing turned off more computers than the big blackout. It's not a grid maze, you have to use the walking stick on ''every screen'' to see if it's safe. TheLostWoods you can at least get by with a guide...this? You will just be ''annoyed'', showing that old-school difficulty is [[TropesAreTools not always a good thing.]].

* HoYay: Moodock and Canuk have this. Moodock speaks ''very'' favorably of Canuk and when Molly [Moodock's wife] says, "I don't mean to be malicious but that guy really gave me the creeps. I didn't even know who I was a'talking to when he was around. He was a real nut case," instead of taking his wife's concerns seriously, Moodock tells you to just ignore her. Somewhat bad advice, considering that [[spoiler: Canuk is a villainous character who tries to turn you into a duck, causing you to lose the game]].

* DrinkingGame: "Want some rye, course ya do!" The trick is to get Boos drunker than you are so you can get his keys and go to East Shanbar. The problem is he's so good at drinking he can take four to your ''one''. Fortunately there's a convenient [[ThatPoorPlant method]] of DiscreetDrinkDisposal you can use to outlast him.
* DiscreetDrinkDisposal: [[spoiler:Part of the secret to winning the drinking game against Boos. Toast him, pour out the rye into the plant, then "drink" the empty cup.]]

* DrinkingGame: "Want some rye, course ya do!" The trick is to get Boos drunker than you are so you can get his keys and go to East Shanbar. The problem is he's so good at drinking he can take four to your ''one''.

* FreewareGames: This game is now easily available for download onto DOS Box.

''Return to Zork'' was the first graphical game in the ''{{Zork}}'' series. The player character is a sweepstakes winner who won a trip to the Valley of the Sparrows, which turns out to be a rather depressing place. The PC enters the West Shanbar and hears from the townspeople that the East Shanbar mysteriously disappeared. As in many video games, the PC has to be the one to check it out, and ends up on a magical quest to stop the evil Morpheus from taking over. This game differed from past ''Zork'' games as it incorporated full-motion video featuring a number of well-known actors ranging from Jason Hervey of ''TheWonderYears'', to Sam Jones, who played the title role in the 1980 ''Film/FlashGordon'' movie, to A.J. Langer who went on to co-star in ''MySoCalledLife''.