“Why I Watch Zork Like It’s the Super Bowl”

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I’ve always liked watching video games more than playing them. Even as a kid, I’d sit next to someone running through a level or typing in commands and think, this is like watching a master chess match — or, to me, the digital version of an NFL game. Strategy. Timing. Pattern recognition. The drama of the unknown move.

When I watch early 80s games like Zork on an Apple II, I get the same feeling sports fans describe: total focus. But for me, it’s not about the scoreboard — it’s about watching a mind navigate a system. That little blinking cursor waiting for input holds more suspense than a buzzer-beater ever could.

It ties directly into how my neurodivergent brain finds satisfaction. It’s the same itch that gets scratched by reading, by ASMR, by vaporwave — that blend of logic, calm, and sensory nostalgia.

Now that I’m diving deep into cybersecurity and incident response, I see it all as connected. Whether you’re solving a breach, a puzzle, or a text adventure, it’s the same story: observe, hypothesize, test, adapt.

Some people watch football. I watch the blinking prompt of Zork. It’s all systems in motion — just different uniforms.

And right now, on a freezing November morning, I’m watching it on YouTube, on my TV, coffee in hand — feeling completely at home inside the hum of that old machine logic.


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