Visible Zorker search feature
Thursday, August 20, 2026
Comments: (live)
Tagged: if, interactive fiction, zork, enchanter, infocom, visible zorker, patreon, zarf
Apparently today is the worst possible day to post about Zork the text adventure? See articles about Duskbloods if you don't follow FromSoftware news, which, to be clear, I don't. Spoiler: everybody's hot for a playable goon named "Zork".
But I shall defy the Trending News gods! I have deployed a new Visible Zorker feature: a search box in the Source pane.
The source pane of Zork 1, showing a search for "axe".
You can search for the name of any object, routine, global variable, or constant. The search will also find printable strings containing your search term.
Clicking on a search result will jump to where that symbol is defined. Note that it doesn't find every location where the symbol is used. It's not really a full-text source search. But it's handy for poking around and seeing how things work -- which is what the Visible Zorker is all about.
Naturally, the search box is available on all current and future Visible Zorker pages.
The source pane of Starcross, showing a search for "spider".
In other news, Visible Enchanter is now in progress. It will be available to Patreon supporters on September 1st. I've also posted (with no paywall) my scans of the Enchanter folio package.
This is not the copy I played when I was young. I snarfed this package off Ebay. Actually, two packages; the Infotator I found came with a mix of Enchanter and Sorcerer feelies. I wound up with two spell lists. That turns out to be a win, because one of them was stained by the degrading "red wax" (plastic) seal. Adds to the air of authenticity, I say.
I'll see you in September with the open-source release of The Visible Witness.
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