a release date set for fall of that year. It was developed on an enhanced version of the Zork Nemesis game engine. In something of a return to the series' roots, the game in rough form was written in Inform (a programming language for text adventures) before work started on the graphics, while Marc Blank, part of the original Zork team, was commissioned to create an original text adventure game, Zork: The Undiscovered Underground, to be included as a free promotion for Grand Inquisitor. The music for the game was composed by John Everett Beal and Mark Morgan, while the game's design was handled by Margaret Stohl. The Macintosh port was developed by MacPlay. Zork: Grand Inquisitor was one of the first computer games to include true closed captioning so that the hearing impaired could play without missing any of the sound effects and spoken dialog in the game. The original release included a feelie poster with a timeline of the history of Zork up until the events of the game, with pictures and short descriptions of major events, including the backstory of some of the characters; this encompasses all released Zork games except Return to Zork, which takes place 580 years after Zork: Grand Inquisitor. Reception According to Matt Barton of Gamasutra, "Zork: Grand Inquisitor did not sell as many copies as Activision hoped." The game received "average" reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings. GameSpot said, "Compact and unspectacular as it is, Zork: Grand Inquisitor is a model of adventure gaming as good entertainment. Many of the genre's conventions (FMV, item hunting, absurdist humor) get polished to a high sheen here. It is funny and reflexive without being geeky or pointlessly ironic. The third-string actors exploit their comic trademarks to good effect. Real attention is paid to the pacing of the whole affair, so there are no overly quiet dead zones of tedious activity. And the puzzles are fun to solve rather than gratuitous brain-teasing exercises." Adventure Classic Gaming said, "One of the more distinguished, entertaining games of the last several years, Zork Grand Inquisitor is light and amusing (and in some places, very funny). It strikes a good balance between its tone and subject matter. [...] Overall, Zork Grand Inquisitor is the best looking game among the next generation titles of the Zork series. While it is a very good adventure, it is not a very