Call the Exterminator

WARNING! This article contains spoilers. Avert your eyes!

Despite our best honing efforts, some pretty funny bugs have made it out into the marketplace. Here's a run-down of some of the most embarrassing and hilarious bugs on record. Note of caution: If you haven't finished a particular game, we'd advise against reading the associated paragraph.

ZORK I

There is an obscure container bug that is probably in every single version of the game. A while back, we were wondering what would happen if you have two large containers, and you tried putting them inside each other. So, we went into Zork I, put the coffin inside the raft, and then said PUT RAFT IN COFFIN. They both disappeared!

Zork I, being our oldest game, contains some classic InfoBugs in its early version. Shaking any nonempty open container may cause a crash. You "bump your head on the river" if you try to enter it. And saying GO <SOMETHING>, such as GO ROPE, may send you into a totally bizarre location.

ZORK II

One of the funniest bugs ever discovered was that you could "talk" to various objects in Zork II, such as the aquarium. A command like AQUARIUM, WEST would elicit the response, "The aquarium leaves the room." One player led the aquarium halfway across the dungeon in search of the solution to a problem.

ZORK III

Possibly the most embarrassing bug ever released occurs at the very end of the earliest version of this game. If you are carrying the sword in Prison Cell number four when the Dungeon Master pushes the button on the Parapet, the game crashes. This happens because the sword's routine checks adjoining rooms to know whether to glow, and the relocated Prison Cell had two different NORTH exits. The reason none of the testers ever found this bug was because they all used the sword to block the beam of light, and therefore never brought it as far as the Prison Cell!

A really fun bug occurs when you enter the dungeon, drop one of the seven items necessary for admission, and then knock on the dungeon door FROM THE INSIDE! The Dungeon Master will tell you you're not ready and send you back to the Button Room, but also follow you! You can then lead him all over the game, and even strand him in the Zork I area, if you're clever.

In an early version of the game, you could carry a light source across the lake inside the chest, thus avoiding using the viewing table to get the grue repellent, and consequently finishing the game with only 6 of the 7 points. Since this bug was fixed, we’ve had people call up, saying "but my friend says the way to get to the Key Room is to bring a light source across the lake inside the chest"!

STARCROSS

Speaking of talking to inanimate objects, this bug is rampant in early versions of Starcross. A simple (though totally unintended) solution to the red rod problem is to say NEST, DROP ROD. The game replies "Dropped." Ouch. Along the same lines, one player was trying to turn the beam of energy off in the Laboratory, and said BEAM, OUT. The game's response: "The beam leaves the room."

Try this one: go to the top of the tree and say THROW HANDS. If you have an early version, Starcross replies "The pair of hands sails away, drifting in a long arc towards the ground."

DEADLINE

Well, there's the first floor bathroom door that was difficult to open. If you said OPEN DOOR, you were asked "Which door do you mean, the door or the south closet door."

A bug that (thankfully) only a few people have managed to duplicate is the strange case of the two Dunbars —- the corpse lying upstairs in the bedroom, and the live Dunbar wandering around as though nothing strange has happened!

Finally, here's a personal favorite. Sit down on a piece of furniture, such as the couch or a bed. Then say (something like) BAXTER, TELL ME ABOUT MARSHALL ROBNER. Deadline replies "You can't see any me here." This one was recently voted Bug of the Year by the New England Playtesters Association (NEPA).

YOU CAN DO IT

Stretch your imagination a bit and try to find some spectacular bugs of your own. The finest bugs begin in the human mind! Here's an example -- what would happen if you said AGAIN on the first move of the game?

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