One thing to keep in mind is at the right point in history, Zork and Star Trek might have been among the only games available on the computer one had access to.

One thing to keep in mind is at the right point in history, Zork and Star Trek might have been among the only games available on the computer one had access to. Both were available on the DEC mainframe we had free access to at my local community college in the early 80's while in school. I can't remember if we had Space War on those, but the limited selection and novelty made everything about the games fascinating. Even later on C64/Atari 1040 when I tried some of the later Infocom games the convoluted logic needed for some of the puzzles turned me off for more accessible games, though Kings Quest and related series seems to be the graphical version of the puzzle logic of some of the Infocom games.