Zorkmid (coin from Infocom's Zork)

[Sorvan]

I've been a fan of Infocom's text adventure games and packaging since the '80s and while I have a number of the games they produced (and the stuff that came with them), I never did get a Zorkmid that came in the packaging of The Zork Trilogy. In fact I've never actually even seen one, but thanks to pages like The Zorkmid Project I've found pictures and and other information about them. Armed with this, I've decided to try and make my own.

My idea is to use a laser cutter/etcher to make the coin in acrylic, make a mould of this and then cast it. One of my friends has been playing around with metal casting in his back yard, so I'm hoping we can actually make this with real metal.

Step one is to create the artwork:

I made the vector artwork of all the art on the surface, but haven't yet done anything about the pitted surface behind the art on the coin. I thought I could do that on a second pass of the laser. The tab at the top will be the beginning of the pouring channel.

This project probably won't proceed terribly quickly (I don't think I'll be able to use the laser for at least 1 1/2 weeks), but hopefully it'll take less time than the (at this point) over 9 years that I've been working on my TARDIS (as documented on the TARDIS Builders webiste).

Colin

 

[a438980]

Ooooooh, I haven't thought of the Zork series in years, but now I want to play some of those old games again to see what items I could create. Maybe even something from the Tex Murphy and old Sierra and Lucasarts games.
Can't to see how this turns out.

 

[Sorvan]

I had a little time so I decided to whip up something for the pitted surface.

I modified a bitmap that looked reasonable and masked out where I don't want the texture to appear.

Colin

 

[Wes R]

I love stuff like this a gaming collector. The freebies that used to come with games that were both a collectible and a security device to prevent copying are still some of the best. I remember my cousin giving me zork and planet fall on old 5.5" floppies for a compaq "portable" computer that weighed 30lbs.

 

[Sorvan]

I got a membership at the makerspace this month and started playing with the laser cutter/etcher with a piece of 3mm acrylic that I got for free. Since the acrylic is clear, it really doesn't photograph well so I sprayed some orange paint on it - and it still doesn't photograph that great.

I don't really like the background texture so I have to work on that some more, and I also need to adjust the depth of the laser etching since there are spots where it etched all the way through the acrylic.

Hopefully I'll have time in the next few days to work on this some more.

Colin

 

[Jintosh]

Except for the holes, it's looking Great !

 

[Sorvan]

The background is getting better - no holes in this one:

I put some darker paint in the crevices so it would photograph a bit better.

I've got a friend who's been playing around with melting metals in his backyard. He's on board with trying to cast these in bronze, so it's time to figure out lost wax casting.

Colin

 

[Wes R]

Looks good and it looks like a hand made coin, a lot of them look too perfect when you get them as an extra in a game. I checked out the project website you linked to, I'm amazed activision gave them the blessing actually, it's good to see so many folks into the goodies from old games.

 

[Jintosh]

Looking forward to the Bronze casting.

 

[lgreen4981]

I have one of the original coins. I am looking for information on where to post it for sale