This isn’t the first z-machine interpreter ^[1] for Apple’s mobile operating system, but Activision’s just-released “Lost Treasures of Infocom” for iOS is the first official way to play many of Infocom’s classic text adventures on your iPhone or iPad.  The app is available ^[2] for free from the App Store and comes with Zork I: The Great Underground Empire included at no extra charge.  To play the other 26 titles Activision is including, you’ll have to fork over $2.99 for each additional five-game theme collection (or get them all for $9.99), as in-app purchases, so “free” in this case is perhaps somewhat dubious.

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“LTOI” also comes with InvisiClues and maps (each a $0.99 in-app purchase), game manuals, photos of the original game packaging and in-box “feelies” for each title; and promises, “new interface enhancements” which presumably make playing text adventures easier in a touchscreen environment.

If you’re considering checking it out, keep in mind this isn’t the complete back-catalog of Infocom titles.  Missing are Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Bureaucracy, Shogun, Nord and Bert, Beyond Zork, Zork Zero, Sherlock: Riddle of the Crown Jewels, Arthur, and Journey.