Zork Scout

Scoutmaster Minute October 6, 2014 

How many of you are gamers? Wow, we’ve a lot of gamers here. How many of you have played retro text-based games like Zork? Good, so you’ll know what I’m talking about when I talk about the game. You know, in Zork when you start off the game? What do you do? (answers) Right, that’s right, you give some directional instruction “go north,“ for example, and the game gives you a description of where you are or what is in front of you and you make choices about what to do next. Like, the game might say to you, “You are in a dark forest, and in front of you is a troll.”  

You decide what to do next. What instruction might we type in? “Kill Troll?” Ok, and what is the game going to respond. “With what.” So you have to inventory to see what tools you have. Do you have something you can use to kill the troll? Sometimes you have to go back, because you missed an opportunity to collect a tool or a weapon. But the game offers you chances to collect tools and choices of where and when those tools are used. Scouting is a lot like Zork. In Scouts, you have choices. You decide what you’re working on. You can advance in rank at your own pace, and you choose what Merit Badges to work on when. And you have opportunities to collect the tools you need to advance further, just like in Zork. So, keep playing.