Marc Blank

Marc Blank is a prominent American game developer and software engineer best known for his pioneering work in interactive fiction and text adventure games. Here are some key details about his career and accomplishments:

Early Career and Zork

Marc Blank co-created one of the first commercially successful text adventure computer games, Zork, while attending medical school at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the late 1970s.1 He and a group of friends initially developed Zork on a PDP-10 mainframe computer at MIT.1

Infocom and Game Development

After graduating from medical school in 1979, Blank chose to continue working on Zork rather than pursuing a medical career.1 He co-founded Infocom to publish Zork and develop more text adventure games. At Infocom, Blank designed several influential games including:

Zork I, II, and III
Deadline
Enchanter
Border Zone
Journey: The Quest Begins1

Later Career

After Infocom, Blank's career included:

Co-founding Blank, Berlyn and Co. (later renamed Eidetic) in 1993
Developing productivity software for the Apple Newton
Creating games for PC and PlayStation, including Syphon Filter
Working at Sony after they acquired Eidetic in 2000
Developing ChatterEmail, an email client for Treo smartphones
Working at Palm Inc. after they acquired ChatterEmail
Holding positions at Google (Android group) and Amazon (Lab126)1

Recognition

In 2009, IGN named Marc Blank one of the top 100 game creators of all time.1 In 2013, Blank and his Infocom co-founder Dave Lebling received the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Pioneer Award for their groundbreaking work on Zork and contributions to interactive fiction.1 2

Marc Blank's LinkedIn username is indeed "zorkmid", reflecting his iconic role in creating the Zork series.3 He is currently based in Bend, Oregon, and continues to be respected for his technical software engineering skills, particularly in Android development.3