Classic text adventure Zork is going open source, but I'm side-eyeing Microsoft's announcement about it hard

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/classic-text-adventure-zork-is-going-open-source-but-im-side-eyeing-microsofts-announcement-about-it-hard/

Microsoft also points out that the license related only to the source code, and "does not include commercial packaging or marketing materials".

It's a welcome move. However, Microsoft's announcement about making Zork open-source sure has the whiff of AI-generated writing about it. The article is riddled with saccharine, dreamy phrasing and AI-favoured sentence structures. "When Zork arrived, it didn't just ask players to win; it asked them to imagine" is a classic bit of AI-generated hokum, and similar phrases occur multiple times through the text.

100 points · 6 comments · view on lemmy.world

6 Comments

lambda@programming.dev · 24 pts · 256d (2 replies)

Pretty cool. They are probably hoping someone can figure out how to compile it. The readme states that it can't be compiled..

tonytins@pawb.social · 17 pts · 256d

The repository had been lying dormant for roughly six years.

SlurpingPus@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 256d

Well, the game uses portable bytecode for the ‘Z-machine’ interpreter, and there are dozens of third-party interpreters for it. You can run these games on your phone, no need to compile them.

smeg@feddit.uk · 12 pts · 256d
[ removed ]
False@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 256d (1 reply)

The press release isn't really the important part here.

EarMaster@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 255d

It sounds like a few sixty year old engineer(s) got some managers to sign off the release of the source code and decided to do the most out of the lack of resources they had available. I have no problem with them using AI to write a press release. No one is going to read it anyways in a few weeks of time - but the release is there forever (within reasonable limits).

jordanlund@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 256d

You have been eaten by a Grue.