Frotz and Infinite Space: A Nod to Zork in Sector Prime

Frotz and Infinite Space: A Nod to Zork in Sector Prime

Older gamers will recognize that one of the possible randomly generated names for a blue main sequence star in the Infinite Space trilogy of sci-fi roguelikes is Frotz. This word is derived from a textual command of the same name from the Zork series of adventure games developed by Infocom, where typing it would cause an object to glow and emit light - an essential tool in dark spaces. In turn, Zork's FROTZ command was taken from a slang term used in MIT that meant with "to play with".

A fictional star system named after a text command from an old adventure game series, in which said command is in turn taken from a slang term at MIT... But why?

When you think about the origins of FROTZ, the reason why Digital Eel chose it as a possible name for a blue giant becomes clear. FROTZ causes objects to glow when used, and since blue stars have a higher absolute brightness value (i.e. their actual brightness) compared to most other stars, it makes perfect sense that the devs would name a blue giant star system after it. That said, not all randomly generated maps contain a system with the name FROTZ, but such systems do appear from time to time.

So the next time you wonder why the randomly generated star systems in the Infinite Space trilogy often have such weird names, consider this fact: many of them are pop culture references of some sort, and some of those are even references to other video games from many years ago.