Ethan Mollick demos GPT-6 Astra turning Zork into a 3D action game

On September 5, UPenn professor Ethan Mollick demonstrated having GPT-6 Astra transform the 1977 text adventure Zork into a complete first-person 3D action game, open-sourced and widely shared as a model capability showcase.

Confirmed

• The model preserved Zork's original plot and puzzles while adding combat encounters
• All characters and environments were built directly with Three.js; the game is playable in the browser and open-sourced
• Mollick played through roughly 80% himself, confirming all 60 rooms were fully built and the puzzles solvable; when a user noted the AI got original details wrong (the house should sit in open land, the forest farther away), the AI promptly fixed it, and Mollick argued problems found can be fixed
• He also open-sourced an AI-recreated playable text version of Zork, explaining the AI made many judgment calls to keep the classic fun, including keeping the Grue
• He attributed the game's success over typical vibe-coded projects to methodology: using open-source Zork as the base supplies what AI is weakest at—coherent long-form narrative, puzzle design and prose—while letting AI focus on its strengths
• When users joked about the AI community timeline of Zork-to-3D, Fortnite-to-text, and Space Invaders-in-a-spreadsheet, Mollick replied that Astra had already done it—he had recreated Zork-as-3D in VBA inside a spreadsheet

Unconfirmed

• Posts differ on the model version, mostly GPT-6 Astra with one mentioning GPT-5.6 Astra; the original posting is authoritative

Why it matters

• The demo shows frontier models completing complex software engineering (game logic migration plus 3D scene generation) from a single instruction, verified playable by the author rather than just a video
• From browser Three.js to spreadsheet VBA, the same model works across environments; the "use classics to fill AI gaps" approach offers a reusable methodology for AI-generated games, amplifying the demo's reach

2026-09-05 ~ 2026-09-06 · 9 related posts

• GPT-5.6 Astra turns 1977 text adventure Zork into a full 3D action game in Three.js — emollick · 2026-09-05
• [source] Ethan Mollick turns 1977's Zork into a full 3D action game with GPT-6 Astra — emollick · 2026-09-05
• GPT-6 Astra rebuilds 1977 text adventure Zork as a playable 3D game, open sourced — emollick · 2026-09-05
• [source] Ethan Mollick rebuilt Zork with AI — open source, prompts included — emollick · 2026-09-05
• Ethan Mollick shows Astra recreating Zork as 3D in VBA as meme timeline spins — emollick · 2026-09-05
• Mollick: Zork's Open-Source Base Fills AI's Gaps in Vibe-Coded Games — emollick · 2026-09-05
• [source] Ethan Mollick's AI-built Zork: all 60 rooms fully built, puzzles solvable — emollick · 2026-09-06
• Ethan Mollick plays 80% of an AI-rebuilt Zork: all 60 rooms and puzzles solvable — emollick · 2026-09-06

1 near-duplicate retellings: illscience