One way in particular that the designers of Zork II chose to raise the difficulty level bears mention because it seems to have been deemed a failure as a game device, and rightly so: the reliance on random events. Two major elements of Zork II are random--the role of the Wizard and the function of the Carousel Room--and while each can be disabled over the course of the game, each makes the normal course of gameplay rather tiresome while active. An ill-timed Wizard appearance can actually render the game unwinnable at several points, making Zork II the only Infocom game I can think of (well, Zork I had randomized combat, true, but unforeseeable random events--meaning save-restore cannot be relied upon in the same way as with combat--are different) where one can lose the chance to finish a game through no fault of one's own. Usually, this happens because his spells disrupt a time-dependent sequence that only happens once (actually, I just discovered that becoming the object of a "float" spell in the volcano spells death, though an amusing death), but there is one spell which, if cast, instantly cuts off the possibility of winning, in a way that the player could not possibly be expected to guess. This is a cruel trick indeed, and later Infocom games eschew unfairness of this sort--but first-time players of Zork II should be warned that frequent saves are in order.
While the plot, as noted, seems at first to be an extension of the scavenger theme, it turns out to be something quite different; the treasures have a use that marks a change in emphasis of sorts for your character, from gathering booty to exploring the deeper recesses of the cave--and in that, perhaps, one might say that the plot thickens slightly over the course of the game. The paragraph at the end of the game suggests a larger mission, one that will come as a surprise to the merry treasure-hunter--and yet it makes some sense, in that it suggests that the valor tha player has demonstrated in getting that far points to a more important goal.
Magic is prevalent in Zork II, more so than in the original, appropriately so since it is a wizard's domain that you are exploring--and the progress of the game moves you from object and victim of the magic to its controller, to some extent at least, in that you outwit a variety of magical traps and learn to use some magic items to your own ends. The magic is haphazard--no hint of the more organized system of the Enchanter trilogy--but there is a real sense by the end that you, the unskilled but savvy adventurer, have beaten the wizard at his own game, and it helps deepen the admittedly thin sense of a plot. Magic is also played up for humor value, including the wizard's failed spells ("There is a loud crackling sound, and blue smoke rises from the wizard's sleeve. He sighs and disappears.") and such sidelights as the "fudge" spell. (Though I was hoping that there would be amusing applications of the power you gain toward the end of the game, and I didn't find many.)
Several of the puzzles are lifted from the original Dungeon mainframe game, though most of that had ended up in Zork I. (Though, at one point, you see, from a distance, a location that had existed in Dungeon but had dropped out of Zork I--slightly confusing to the uninitated.) One of the puzzles has a drastically different--and much more creative--solution than in the original Dungeon game, though it's more a "wonder what happens if I do this" solution than an "oh, I know, I should do this" solution. The quality of the puzzles is uneven: one requires some trial and error, amusing in its effects when you get it wrong but trial and error all the same. The Bank of Zork puzzle has drawn some criticism for being possible to solve without fully understanding, though the rationale behind it is elegant enough that it seems a minor problem--and another puzzle requires that one largely set aside one's knowledge of how liquids work (meaning that what I suspect was supposed to be among the easier puzzles stumped me completely when I first played the game). There is, of course, one notoriously bad puzzle toward the end--bad for its "guess-what-I'm-thinking" aspect and for its inaccessibility to the non-American--and for pretending to be a maze when not one. And the final puzzle is, I think, ridiculously hard--the required action is motivationless and the game gives not the slightest nudge in the right direction. Infocom rated Zork II "advanced," but their sense of how to make a game hard without making it unfair was as yet not fully developed.
Zork II feels much more polished than Zork I; the geography of the game is somewhat more coherent, there are fewer illogicalities, and the layout is less a series of puzzles than a set of locations that revolve--literally--around a central area. The writing--substantially better than that of Zork I--confirms that impression; there are virtually no rooms without a complete description, and at times the writer manages to paint quite a vivid picture. The tunnel at the beginning, while otherwise irrelevant, draws the reader in effectively and provides atmosphere and attention to detail that had been absent in the first game; it's as if the player has become less intent on treasure and more apt to notice the surroundings now and again. There are many locations worth picturing in one's own mind in the course of Zork II, this among them:
North End of Garden This is the northern end of a formal garden. Hedges hide the cavern walls, and if you don't look up, the illusion is of a cloudy day outside. The light comes from a large growth of glowing mosses on the roof of the cave. A break in the hedge is almost overgrown to the north. A carefully manicured path leads south. In the center of a rosebed is a small open structure, painted white. It appears to be a gazebo.And this:
Menhir Room This is a large room which was evidently used once as a quarry. Many large limestone chunks lie helter-skelter around the room. Some are rough-hewn and unworked, others smooth and well-finished. One side of the room appears to have been used to quarry building blocks, the other to produce menhirs (standing stones). Obvious passages lead north and south. One particularly large menhir, at least twenty feet tall and eight feet thick, is leaning against the wall blocking a dark opening leading southwest. On this side of the menhir is carved an ornate letter "F".Providing the salient details as the player looks around the room makes the experience more real and adds to the illusion of stumbling on a world rather than a series of puzzles; many of the most memorable images or scenes in the trilogy are in Zork II simply because the game authors gave the settings so much attention. (When I first played this--I was 7--I had dreams about the Bank of Zork.) Even the after-death sequence was intriguing, and points to mysteries that unravel as the game progresses. Part of the appeal of the writing in Zork II is that it genuinely felt like a series of caves, with geological detail noted and occasional references to a natural light source.
In summary, the appeal of playing Zork II lies less in the puzzles than in the game environment, and this installment is best enjoyed at a measured pace, with time to read room descriptions and visualize the scene. Notable for the way it changes the feel of the series, Zork II, despite its flaws, points to Infocom's developing skills.