Commander Keen 6 (1991)

Name:Commander Keen in Aliens Ate my Babysitter!
Number:235
Year:1991
Publisher:FormGen
Developer:Id Software
Genre:Side-Scroller
Difficulty:4/5
Time:3 hours 50 minutes
Won:Yes (104W/73L)

Hey, wait a minute, this wasn't released in December 1992, you might ask, having just come off Keen 5. It wasn't. It isn't even about Mortimer...it's about his sister, who babysits Keen. Isn't he a bit too old to be babysat? Naturally, Mortimer's sister had been kidnapped by aliens with a taste for the flesh of children. Ah, the things we accept in children's media without battling an eyelash even if it'd be grotesque anyway else. 

Keen decides to park before the river crossing.

This time around, Commander Genius has issues with playing the game, so instead I'll be playing it in regular DOS. The game is surprisingly spartan in its set-up, no F1 menu in the version I played, in stark contrast to previous entries. Just straight to the overworld then. Which has a lot of teleports, like the first trilogy. As this was intended to be the third part of the Goodbye Galaxy set, there are seemingly no real changes between the two control-wise. So I'll refrain from repeating them, and point out you can see what I've said of past Keen titles with the labels at the bottom. Though it did take a bit to refamiliarize myself with the game's controls. Apparently it was longer than I thought. The first level, despite being the typical opener, gave me some trouble.

One observation about enemies is that they seem to be alert to the player's presence a lot more than usual. Whether this is just me being more on point or if the game's AI is noticeably improved is the question. Regardless, we get these enemies:

Adorable little Blooglets.

• Blooglet, at this point, your typical "doesn't actually hurt Keen, but instead pushes him around" type of enemy. It's very fast and surprisingly hard to dodge, so taking them out is a better strategy than it would be in previous games. This is actually a very important strategy, because guess what? Sometimes they have keys.

Blooguard, trying to protect a Bloog from vicious galactic threat Keen.

• Bloog, the basic run around and kill Keen by touch enemy. Pretty big, pretty slow. Has a deceptively large hitbox, I suspect there may be some issues with that. As in, the hitbox is the whole sprite when there should be considerable transparency there.
• Blooguards, like the Bloogs, these guys kill Keen and are dumb and big. Unlike the regular kind, they take three shots to knock out and they have a club capable of stunning Keen for a moment, which they use randomly.

A Babobba, not pooping, but instead sleeping with his blankey.

• Babobba, small and lethal. Well, in theory. If you don't try to jump over it, it's easy to take out. They drop little...uh...radioactive turds which Keen shouldn't touch. Frequently, fall asleep, which makes it even easier to take them out.

A Gik, sinister or cute and cuddly? You decide!

• Gik, my first encounter with this resulted in my death. It's like those rock enemies from 4, except they chase after you and jump without delay. It's less of a jumping arc and more of a lunge, very little vertical air, more horizontal, turning into a slide.

Flect, just wandering around below me, smarter enemies do that.

• Flect, it has a mirror which reflects your shots back at you. They're unstunnable and push you, so this is the real trouble they provide.

Nospike, such a depressed looking creature...until it attacks you anyway.

• Nospike, it has a spike on its head and it charges after you. Takes a few shots, but not actually as deadly as it seems. Earlier Keen games had more deadly charging enemies.

Also visible here, this game's one-up, the Queen Vita.

• Ceilick, hides in the ceiling as a small tongue, shoots out when Keen gets within a certain distance, then pops out so you can shoot it. Not actually as tricky as it could be on their own, but with other hazards or enemies can frequently get you.

 

Very intimidating, unfortunately he can't touch me anymore than a random Bloog can.

• Fleex, very intimidating looking, but sadly not very difficult to fight. They're basically the Blooguards without the advantage of the stun attack. They even have a little move where they stop for a moment to look around.

 

Sometimes the most unassuming of foes are the most deadly.

• Orbatrix, very annoying little buggers. They're floating orbs, can't be killed, and turn into hypersonic balls if you get close. The only strategy seems to be to shoot and pray that it won't start bouncing around.

 

The Blorbs are even see-through!

• Blorb, your shots go through them and they kill Keen on touch. Not that bad, because they're slow and dumb, bouncing off walls in a consistent diagonal pattern. Less enemies and more a moving hazard.
• Bipship, little guys piloting flying saucers that shoot at you. They don't actually fly over things, they're more like your basic enemy that shoots at you. Which in Keen terms actually makes them quite mundane. They do explode spectacularly and drop little guys that you can cruelly stomp on. And here I thought Keen didn't like killing aliens...

There were also two more that the Keen wiki describes as monsters. A Grabbiter, which is actually what you need the later mentioned sandwich for to get past it on the overworld. Then Bobba, a bigger, immortal version of the Babobba. Which is only around on hard, I played medium.

And here are the notable to me levels:

• Guard Post One, the first level you can reach after the opener. If you go up, there's a Bloog and two Blooguards, and I don't have the ammo for them. Down is a large maze. It's a stark reminder of just how tricky these guys can be to avoid. Oddly, in comparison to the Goodbye Galaxy games, it's not the environment that's being trick, it's the enemies. The Babobbas are basically just there, but the combo of Blooglets and Bloogs is tripping me up. I'm burning through more shots than I normally would, but I'm still coming out ahead.

The walls have eyes.

• Second Dome of Darkness, where I get killed right away by a Gik, and I see no way to avoid it by going through the door. Much like a level of SWAT, just going through the front door will get me killed, so I just climb upwards. All the way to the top is a Bloog I have no way of shooting, but there's a passage above another...which leads down to a spike pit. Ouch, guess I have to get past the Gik. They're not that tricky to get past. Once inside, it's quite the maze of dodging Bloogs. It's actually a bit inspired beyond that.
• First Dome of Darkness, these can be tackled in any other. The real challenge here is going through a massive treasure room full of so many lovely traps. The real goal is to get to the top, where a grappling hook is, allowing you to go back and take a path you couldn't previously go through.

Welcome to the Machine, Keen.

• Bloogfoods Inc, you know, I don't think I've covered a commercial title with a food factory before, despite how seemingly common it is. (Obviously there was Keen Meets the Meats, but not commercial) It's a maze of industry traps and manages some cleverness in the layout I haven't seen before. Unfortunately, the music track really reminds me of Isle of the Dead. But this level has a lot of key hunting, and sometimes the keys are not behind places I enjoy having to get them from. Like a series of these flame jets which requires close to pixel perfect timing. The path to the final key is full of situations you just have no chance of avoiding and have to get lucky on to win. This still leaves a big room with a good half dozen switches you have no idea what they do until you need them flipped. All for a giant sandwich.
• Bloogdome, which the game implies is a bad idea to enter. There's even a giant stop sign there. Outside of the first appearance of the Nospike, there's nothing too concerning going on here. It's a lot less difficult to pass and more just, aha, you had no idea going this way would result in your death or loss of progress. It's not actually that tricky beside that, it's all in optional areas.

Sometimes it seems like Romero's rules only came about because he realized how bad it could be when he broke them.

• Bloogton Manufacturing, oh, nice, Blooguard right away. It's one of those levels. I can't help but feel like ID is running out of ideas. "Okay, have them go under the Ceilick, over the floating mines and the acid puddle to get the key." This isn't actually what you have to do, instead, you have to get another key, slowly go up the whole level, using that key to unlock a door, then pulling a whole bunch of switches, finding out that the key you ignored is the key you need, and then eventually discover that a switch activates a floating platform. All the way up, all the way down, then up again. There is at least, a one up for your trouble, if you're willing to risk death again.

 

It's a long way to the top and not that far down.

• Bloogton Tower, what is with these enemies at the start? This one starts off with two keys to the left of the start, the trick is that Keen can't reach one of them just yet. On this level, I discover that the Blooglets can have keys. It's not a very good level besides, since the first half consists of a lot of going back and forth on elevators. And we can't forget the second half, which is going back down to get the keys you missed, assuming you didn't miss any switches up above.
• Bloogville, hey this one looks deceptively easy, just some nice shiny side points. There are a lot of Celicks and Giks on this level. This isn't like other levels where you can just dodge the suckers, no, you have to proactively deal with a lot of them. Despite this, there is some cleverness in it all. I found the using a switch to get to a ledge a neat trick, feels like something that would be in a mod rather than a mainline game.

Keen, experiencing true terror.

• Bloog Aeronautics and Space Administration, well, that's amusing. The level itself feels like a pun on this, because the Giks are constantly getting in your way. Less annoying than Bloogville, but still a constant presence. What was more annoying is that to win, you need to go through a massive tunnel on a floating platform, going straight through it just leads to Keen's death. This isn't even halfway. What I'd describe as pure cruelty is that the game expects you to shoot a Fleex in a space it barely has enough room to not kill you straight off.

If you squint, maybe you can see Marvin the Martian.

• Bloogbase Management District, very Looney Tunes space feel to this one. I dig it. The music also has shades of Doom, probably unintentionally. This level has a lot of wall turrets. Energy dart guns? Despite some oddities, it's not too special, because at this point shooting the regular Bloogs is very old hat.
• Blooglab Space Station, the secret level, reached by going behind the Bloog Control Center. It feels like the fun kind of secret level, though this is slightly ruined by how the level puts Flects in places that are strategically designed to trip you up. It's mostly about dodging Blorbs, who sometimes slow up the game and sometimes not.
• Bloogbae Recreational District, ah, how an unfortunate typo can make things sound weirder in retrospect. (Not that anyone seems to use bae anymore, but this would have been hilarious a few years ago) Very good level, Bipships appear a lot here. They're a very fun enemy to fight and the level gets a lot of use out of them here. I also like the idea the last part has of pulling switches near dangerous enemies to slowly raise bridges to get higher. Feel very second-to-last level.

Just an ordinary day climbing over eyeballs.

• Bloog Control Center, black background, yep, this is a proper last level. There's a switch next to you, with mines below. A platform approaches...and it's time for Let's Make a Deal, pick a door, Commander! After you realize that the Blooglet above you has a key and travel over the acid puddles to reach him. Oh, and there's an identical room with a yellow Blooglet and key. Oh, and the blue key is below the door to this set of doors. The red key, thankfully, is just in a Blooglet on your way to the end of the level. Otherwise, it's fairly straightforward with only one last annoying bit to go. And there's Molly, behind four doors.

I have some questions about Mortimer's home life...

Molly, then tells Keen that it was her brother, Mortimer, who sold her off to the Bloogs and then told them where to find the Sandwich I gave the Grabbiter. Apparently, he plans on blowing up the universe, which is of no consequence to her, because she's more concerned that Keen gets back before his folks get home. Next time, Keen and Mortimer battle for the universe!

Weapons:
The same as last time. 1/10

Enemies:
There's some good ideas here, like the Blorb, but a lot of it just feels like shoot the big guy, or thing you can't deal with, run away. The usage makes up for a slightly samey enemy selection though. 6/10

Non-Enemies:
None.

Levels:
I have mixed feelings here, some were very good, but others felt like they had a lot of padding added. Which is a valid concern in a commercial product and in a game that even with them, felt like I just sped past it. But checking that isn't that unusual, but still the feeling remains. 7/10

Player Agency:
Same as the last time, except now he doesn't seem to surf on moving platforms. Oh, well. 7/10

Interactivity:
A few bits and bobs here and there. 1/10

Atmosphere:
We've gone from reaching out to an unknown world in the first trilogy, to the mysticism of Keen 4, the machine of 5, to an entirely alien planet here. It's nice, but I feel it's lacking in truly establishing itself as an alien world. 6/10

Graphics:
Still very much in the category of I can't believe it's not VGA. Environments are still stunning, but enemy design seems...slightly missing in some respects. Like they weren't quite fleshed out in time. 7/10

Story:
Mortimer is proving more resilient than Wolverine. 1/10

Sound/Music:
Sound is still solid, but there's still only 6 minutes of music. It's fine, it's varied, but it's 6 minutes of music. A few tracks are very nice, but some are just sort of there. 3/10

That's 39, one below Keen 5 and the same as Keen 4. That feels fitting, much like Keen 4 a few things kept nagging at me. In either event, neither score is too shabby.

This is, for most people, the end of the Keen series. However, while the conclusion never happened officially, there are two attempts at having the conclusive battle between Keen and Mortimer. The lesser known Game Boy Color game and the unofficial The Universe is Toast trilogy, which attempt to finish what the boys at ID never got to do. While neither is going to do what ID likely would have done, since they were moving into VGA at the time, I'm sure there'll be a pretty good attempt at making it work.

Next up from ID, of course, is Wolfenstein 3D, which I'll go through again despite not entirely wanting to. Much like more Keen, that's in the future. For now, expect another forgotten FPS, this time from the handheld king of FPS titles, the Game Boy, or more ZZT.

Codename Mat (1984)

Name:Codename Mat
Number:234
Year:1984
Publisher:Amsoft
Developer:Derek Brewster
Genre:Space Simulation
Difficulty:4/5
Time:2 hours 40 minutes
Won:No (103W/73L)

For several decades, the Myons have waged a war against the solar system, causing the Earth's forces to become depleted. In a last ditch effort to win the war, a new ship class has been designed to function as both a battle cruiser and a command center and a genetically engineered genius to pilot the flagship. But the Myons themselves have launched a final attack to stop the Earth from building them, and now you, as the teenaged Mat, have to fly the USS Centurion and lead Earth's forces against them.

So starts the manual of Codename Mat, a game with a story and setting so derivative that it's knocking off stuff that hasn't even been made yet. Not only do we have Not Cylons, they have Tie Fighters, and a Death Star-like ship. You fire photon torpedoes, just torpedoes which aren't limited like you would expect from Star Trek games. Oh, and you have to go through a Stargate to reach other planets from where you're at. (yes, I know Stargate didn't actually invent Stargates, it's just a funny coincidence in a game like this) But like many games of this era, story was an after thought to blasting scores of aliens...or robots, to kingdom come.

Space...the final frontier.

The game has three difficulty settings, which determine the size of the Myon fleet. Starting with a practice mode, only one planet has a fleet surrounding it, ending with a full-scale invasion. I couldn't even beat practice mode, so that shows how badly a full invasion is going to go. There are two modes, commander and pilot, which determine whether or not you get friendly forces.

At first play, this game is not very user friendly. With a joystick, you can aim and shoot, so you have to do other things with the keyboard. The game is incredibly obtuse to pick up and play, but there IS a logic to it. The first few times, I was just turning around, getting crushed by random asteroids as the system around me got attacked. Even with just a reference sheet of commands, you are so screwed starting this up, you need a thorough look at the manual even knowing this is trying to be a complex space game.

The obvious bits are easy to sum up. Joystick moves, the button fires. It works well considering the vintage. Often games in 3D space at this time just didn't work very well. This does, stars move with a swiftness they should. You get two shots on-screen, represented by two photon tubes. You can get hit and you can lose one, which will cost you. Because aiming is tricky, the AI is good, far better than it should be for a game like this in an era such as this. They duck and weave like...well, like I do trying to escape. Being able to fire two helps correct for your mistakes.

You control speed via the number buttons, 1 is a small decrease in speed, 2 small increase, 3 stops, 4 is 30 and 5 is 100. Which is a bit low, feels like we could have used more variations. You can easily outrun enemies at 100, so lower speeds are better for dogfights. I found out the hard way that going around at full speed all the time makes dogfights long and tedious to deal with. Starting off I really should have taken advantage of the ability to adjust speed more.

At this point, I started to decipher the bizarre GUI. V is velocity or speed, e is energy. At this point things are not so obvious. R is range, which at about 17000 turns infinite. This is not actually infinite, just the game's excuse for saying it's above it's ability to register. See, the two weird symbols to the left of R are your direction, just two axis, because true 3D is hard and annoying. The one with lines at the top and bottom is the vertical axis. They turn into infinite at about 100 degrees. SH is shields, N is object number. Wait, object number? Why would the player need to know that? TR is related to the tracking computer. I just realized I never used that, and never felt like I was missing out for not having it.

This brings me to the views the game has. You can look in front and back, but unlike some games, you can shoot in both directions. You even get reversed turning when you shoot from the back. It feels very cool in action and to hit something behind you. Considering how tricky it can be to hit something in front of you, I dig having a section option.

Then there are special views. First, a long range scanner which is difficult to decipher. There's no point of reference, like everything in this game, so it can be hard to read it vertically. I think that up is front, but I could be wrong.

Big objects are friendly bases, yellow dots are hostile forces, the big square is my guy and the four dots are Stargates, red for further from Earth, blue for closer to.

Then we have the sector screen, where you track where friendly planets and enemy ships are, and where you warp to. This only shows the current sector, to get to the others, you need to find a Stargate.
 

There's supposed to be a yellow diamond in the middle of the screen, but I guess it flashes in such a way I didn't notice.

Warping is tricky to get down. You need to center the screen on the portal there, which the game tries to prevent by moving you away, but it's not clear how long until you reach your destination. Get it wrong and you can be shot clear across the map. I dislike this, I don't mind being wrong but I dislike being wrong without proper feedback. Whether you make it or not feels like the whim of the computer.

 

Another case in point, seems this moon has already suffered some damage.

You restore the ship's state by getting close to a planet. It's tricky, because you need to be a specific amount of degrees nearby and between 400 and 500 points away. You basically have to give it a little throttle, and hope you don't accidentally crash into the planet. The game suggests you actually destroy planets so that the Myons don't, since they get two fighters and a base star for doing so. I feel like it's wiser to just cut them off before they can surround a planet.

I thought I took a good screenshot of one of these babies, but apparently the fighters are just as invisible to the screenshotting eye.

So, combat. Aiming is very responsible, as I mentioned, but there's a disconnect between the aiming and the hitting. I'm not really sure at what point I can hit these ships and at what point the crosshair is aiming at. This is most pronounced with the fighters. Their size does not seem connected to the places I can hit them. There's a big chunk of it that seems like it can't be hit, and the fighters duck and weave enough that I can't get a consistent target on it. Other ships, oddly are easier targets, their design guides you more towards center mass. The fighters and Base Stars go towards you automatically, but the cruisers don't until you get within 3000 points. Expect to chase them a lot.

A cruiser, the least obvious of the enemy ships.

The overarching conflict continues on though. You're on a loose timer, if enemy ships surround one of the bases in a sector with 4 squadrons, which are the planet and its moons, they'll destroy it, and get those two fighters and a base star. So, you cannot afford to be in a dogfight like that, going on for an eternity. Fortunately, squadrons don't ever join up, so just clear out the weaker ones first and you can buy yourself some time. You're not dead until you get killed or Earth gets blown up, but this is one of those games where you'll be lucky to see the "real" end condition either way, rather than just death in a dogfight.

A Base Star, hiding behind it's shot.

Eventually, I manage to get it right, though how I'm not sure, just got used to the worse aspects. I clear out everything around Saturn and now I have to go through the Stargate picking off the stranglers. There's a lot of chasing here, going after ships, as the cruisers, which oddly look like X-Wings, require you to go after them to take them out. Going through a warp, going to ships, going to planets and then going through Stargates. I eventually lose, but only barely thanks to getting shot while my shields were damaged.
 

That's just pilot mode though, what about commander mode? Do I have a shot at saving Earth if you have control over a fleet of my own? Communication is done with the T command, this allows you to send a message. First, you type in the fleet you are sending it to, then the direction. Which are compass directions. It doesn't make sense, but at least I don't struggle to understand which is north and which is east. What is tricky is figuring out what fleets are on-screen. Because at first it seems like these aren't just the Saturn fleets, but no, they are just the Saturn fleets.

Movement is simple, but bear in mind that unless you send a command telling them to stop, they'll continue moving around. They'll even stop heading towards where you want if you don't tell them to ignore enemies on the way. For the most part, I don't see much need to have them move around. They start near a base almost always, so they're where I want them to begin with. Their long-term survival is rare, as they usually die at a rate of 1-to-1 with enemy ships. They're helpful, but sort of just command and forget.

The overarching strategy seems to be to just guard the areas around a base and make sure the enemy can't have four or more at once around one location. Friendly ships just give you a little more legroom at the start. I imagine in a full game you would be trying to stay ahead of the enemy forces, so that while they would be taking out a lot of the earlier systems, you would stop their efforts deeper in. In theory, it could result in a weird stalemate where you don't have the energy to go back to where they are, but they don't have enough ships to take out a planet. The way the game describes itself, they're supposed to always be heading towards Earth, so maybe that isn't a factor.

Eventually, with the aid of save states, I won a practice game. Past a certain point, the tediousness of the game becomes really clear. Yes, it's fun as a space combat game, but there's a lot of tedious flying through space. Going to places or ships, chasing after cruisers and constantly warping to the same places so you don't run out of energy. I can't really imagine getting through a game of this, since the practice game is an hour long. That is going to be one long journey. With that, let's get to the rating.

Weapons:
Two shots on-screen with the possibility of getting each tube damaged. It's kind of clever in some ways, but because it can be unclear where you're aiming, I think it kind of balances out. 1/10

Enemies:
Three kinds of enemies, with slightly different strategies for taking out. I note that in the practice game, the Base Star doesn't seem to have a shield the manual says it should. I don't know if this is a strange change for the easier mode or if they just forgot to put it in. 2/10

Non-Enemies:
They're never on-screen, but they're a helpful force, usually taking out enemies at a 1-to-1 rate, providing a bit of help starting out. It's nice being able to give them orders too, and not have it be some confusing mess. 2/10

Levels:
Fleet placement seems randomized, but bases have consistent sections. Way too much flying around nothing for comfort. 1/10

Player Agency:
Very smooth for a joystick game, with welcome keyboard commands for, well, the stuff a joystick shouldn't be expected to do. Being able to attack from the rear is very helpful, something more space games should have. There should have been more variation in your speed and the GUI is so confusing I only truly figured it out near the end of my playtime. 6/10

Interactivity:
Being able to shoot a friendly base doesn't really count.

Atmosphere:
It certainly succeeds at presenting a space atmosphere, but not quite at providing a hopeless battle the manual suggests. 2/10

Graphics:
Very crude, the variation in size is nice, but nothing is appealing to look at. 1/10

Story:
None, in-game.

Sound/Music:
There's some subtle sound effects, including detailed engine roar. It's limited, but very nice, shooting, getting hit, all the major actions the game has. 3/10

That's a respectable 18.

Checking reviews, opinions range on everything, people both praise and criticize each aspect. I feel like there's not much I haven't covered in some way already. It's positive though, since it managed to make it to every magazine around then, including for the ZX Spectrum port I didn't play. I neglected to mention that you can't save except as an implication in the whole "a game takes a hour" thing. Less troublesome when there are emulators with save states, but that's always a form of cheating, even if I tend to use them whenever I can.

Next time, I think we'll finally get back to Commander Keen and see the series have its official conclusion. At least as far as it matters for most people.

ZZT's Revenge: Crypt and Smiley Guy

This one starts off in an unusual way, the player, in his many journeys, has come across a small town plagued by an evil located to the east of the starting location. Very few people remain, as most have either left or gone insane. The unusual bit is that it acknowledges that the hero has done this many times. It's a ZZT expansion, why wouldn't you?

I never tried to reach past the guy in the church, but why bother?

So to start with, we get supplies in the upper right, the thing in the center is just a weird store, 1 gem for 5 ammo or a torch. Then we have...wait, a gem spawner? I'm unprepared for such generosity...wait, why do I need infinite gems? Alas, you need to grab each one as it spawns, they're not spitting out of that hole. Dude on the left tells me that west is the Asylum, where the crazy villagers are. The church will sell me a healing salve, 10 health for fifteen gems. The guy in the south just wants me to save his two sons.

This is a dark room, so reminder that I'm using a cheat to get this screenshot, but I'm not experiencing it this way.

Let's start by going west. It's dark, the door is locked and I'm not alone. The guy here wants 5 gems to let me past, so waiting out some money later, and I'm in. Now what? That teleport goes down, there's another guy blocking south, and the guy is also blocking south. Which seems to be a trap anyway and...oh, the second guy shot himself. How like my luck, to be playing ZZT to be getting away from the darkness of Dracula Hakushaku for a couple of days only to have darkness assert itself again.

This leads me to a zoo. Simple enough, then more exposition. The architect of the building was committed, though it seems he wasn't too sane to begin with. Since the power was ran by a mouse wheel, and since the inmate who thought he was a rat died, nobody's been using it. Inmates have been vanishing in greater numbers, from something with bright eyes. There's nothing else to do but go through the teleporter in this section.

This teleports to the lower left section. A weird puzzle occurs, one of the walls pushes you back into the teleporter, then back to the left edge, guy south. Guy doesn't do anything, he's just flavor. You're just supposed to go north. I take the second down, leading to another inmate, who is surrounded by a centipede. Carefully taking it out, he says that the Guardians of the crypt require great sacrifices. Guess I was wise to come here first. That's basically it here, there's a maze with single centipedes, and then reaching that last guy in the upper right. She just mutters about invisible ones.

Don't shoot the red things or you'll get a ton of homing bullets back.

Now I've been sufficiently warned about the dangers, I gather up some gems for ammo to replenish my stores and...go for the arcade. At first, it seems like some bizarre puzzle, but I didn't notice that I can just take a backdoor path to the centipede spawner. Free ammo and 10 gems, very generous. Suspiciously generous, what's going to happen when I reach the crypt?

How overdramatic.

First, I need to get past this path. Get hit by those arrows, they jump out when you're vertical to them, and you restart at the start of this screen. Yes, there is a secret path to the treasure, unfortunately it's on the other side and isn't a path back. So going back to town is...inconvenient. There's no secret otherwise, just rush past the shrine of death.

Because of the whole flashing sharks do, you can't see them here. Something I missed the first time through.

Now we come to the entrance of the crypt, where there's an invisible wall blocking my path. Oh, and sharks are roaming in the water. What you're supposed to do is head towards that symbol, the Guardian I was warned about. You're given five options, but only give 100 gems removes the wall. Time to grind out some gems then. This took almost as long as reaching this point to begin with. I pay and there's still an invisible wall maze before reaching the door.

This leads to a nexus of doors. I wonder what the first game to do the whole Yume Nikki nexus thing was? The door behind me has closed itself, not that there was much point when it was a tricky trip back. Glad I did this the way I did. Six doors, the blue one links to itself. Six ways to win. Six holy roads to hell. Well, let's start from the top, I'm sure the bottom one is supposed to be special. And it's a maze of doors. Find the right sequence and you get out.

The area with all the bears had those shootable tiles pop up on it at some point, guessing when I pressed the switch next to the top spawner.

To here, in the bottom left, it's dark, as per usual. I get some free stuff for surviving this far and oh, I hear a spawner. It's probably not a gem spawner this time. There's a door to my north, so the key is on the side path down here. The gems turn into cougars, because of course they do. Fortunately I have nothing to worry about here, and I get more torches and ammo, along with the key. Up top, it's a one-way trip back down, hope you have some ammo for those centipedes. The bombs are just there so you can find the false wall, otherwise it's fairly simple.

The yellow door leads to...actually this is clever. At first it seems like a classic risk for reward situation, but those torches are actually both guiding you to the exit and protecting you from a second set of lasers to the right. Past that, the spinners are easy to get past. That scroll is a rotting skeleton, it has a note telling me that a single "b.-." can defeat the High Emporer. [sic] Probably a bomb.

This leads to the spawners I've been hearing. One for ruffians, and one for cougars. I don't figure it out until after disabling both of them, but there's a switch you can use to get to the spawnees. There's nothing that can be reached from here, one of the walls near the lasers has turned into a green key and I can reach that central area full of bears.

After clearing that out, I end up in the lower right. A shopkeeper is there, he sells a wooden mallet, a t-shirt with Bob on it, torches and a healing potion. No ammo, hope I don't need that. Well, I buy some torches and then more health. I think I have enough torches. It turns out I really do have enough, firstly, because there's a maze through the walls, which is less charming than it sounds. Secondly, the guy in the upper right is the Emporer.

After talking to him, you get what feels like a dozen options, none of which sound like they'll work in my favor. Each wrong answer gets you a graphic and juvenile description of your death, which I eventually end by picking the right answer of bonking him on the head. Oh, a single bonk. The sliders turn into gems and I go through after getting them.

We get the usual victory celebrations, grand party, key to the town, from the baron, and this rather nice little visual display. I must admit, outside of the final screen this one was quite clever, but on the short side. Let's see Smiley Guy next.

Unmentioned, somewhat disgusting.

Oh, biomechanical, cool. I mean, ZZT, so probably underwhelming, but I like the idea in theory. It'll be weird though, because there are no ZZT levelsets that aren't weird.

Considering there are a dozen enemies in this game, I wonder why swamp flies are so special.

Informative text. I guess ZZT mods could be standalone, seeing as I never played the original levelsets until I first blogged about it. There's a fairly robust in-game hint system now, each screen seems to have these hints.

Here, those dots are swamp flies. At first I think I have to just go through, but then, aha, there are side paths. Despite being weird, the flies still die to bullets, so doing that, then taking out the spawner and I can go to that cabin safely. Bog there wants to talk to me.

This could have been explained in the intro text.

He's just telling me what I already know, go Dr. Z is doing something weird, go and stop him. The weird bit is the puzzle here, that object next to the key is actually just a score booster. The actual next step is to get out via a secret passage on the left.

I'm glad there's a sign here, I couldn't tell otherwise.

The lab. That's supposed to be a giant spider on the left. Charming. How am I getting in? Shoot the eyes, then you can get the key. That purple one is just going to have to wait, inside I go.

I guess the thing in the middle must be the tongue, or a laser cannon.

That guy on the left is a postman seemingly to get merch for this levelset, since it includes a real address. I didn't spot this at first, but we're in a guy's mouth. Seems like it isn't underwhelming after all. Since up is to the head, that means I need to go down. Those aren't pushers, those are teeth, which hurt when you go between them. Or touch them at all, because ZZT doesn't descriminate. I'm really not sure how you're supposed to be able to get past this one safely, because these things movement is just too random to safely get past. I cheated a little for health.

In retrospect, it was extremely obvious as to what to do on this screen.

The heart. Those centipedes are actually white bloodcells and change between two icons. They still die just the same. That's sort of all I can do here now, because I don't know what those arrows do. Down leads to the lower plumbing, a maze, which links back up two ways and has another path further down. Going down results in a part of the building that has been closed. I'll leave you to guess what it would have been. There's a party balloon I can't inflate down there.

The way this body links up with itself is kind of weird.

There's another section to the lower plumbing, which leads here eventually. Those lines are toxic worms, touch them, they awaken and chase after you. Go for the blue key, they all awaken and chase after you. The green J on the left is the king worm, you can talk to him, which does nothing. Shoot him, and all the worms awaken. You can't shoot the worms, either. Way you're supposed to do is shoot the barrel object next to the king. That kills all of them. West leads to deep throat, surprised they didn't do a more vulgar joke earlier, which is another maze, except there's a key in one of the rooms.

One of the paths through is to the lungs. This is something that helps with the balloon, it's just a big air pump. Back through the maze to the jaws, this time without having to deal with the teeth, and I go right to the neck. Here there's a sentient booger who wants me to get him a sneeze bomb. Charming. Further east is a store that requires ten gems to leave.

At this point, I get very tired with how much back and forth I'm expected to do. Another exit down from the lower plumbing is a long corridor, which is dark, which leads to another cyan key. Three rooms down, with lasers. At this point I just break down and start using the ZAP cheat to make it less tedious to move around. I find out that in order to get to the final area, I need to get five keys, the two cyan keys are one for the purple key outside and one for the door inside. I'm almost about to get them all until I find out that I need to go back to the swamp to get the pepper to get the red one, and just cheat through.

I'd probably think this was more clever if it wasn't such a grind to get here.

And it's another maze. Go through a bunch of doors until you reach the end. I'm getting very annoyed by this one, since it ran out of ideas at the shop. There are weird enemies which sometimes appear and hurt you badly, but eh.

The game explains why Dr. Z is inside, Bog trapped him there, but why is there a head inside his head?

This leads to the boss, who is the guy inside the head inside the body. A thousand homing shots chase after me when I enter. What you're supposed to do is just go back to the white door. This leads to the mental void. Just walk back through the door and you teleport past the lasers and you have to chase Dr. Z into the ear. It's annoying and longer than it needs to be, and then you win. No grand final screen, just text telling you where the rest of the special points items are. I'm just glad it's over.

Next time, we see the weird space action game Codename Mat.

This Session: 3 hours 00 minutes

Total Time: 11 hours 20 minutes

ZZT's Revenge: Fantasy

The title is actually in-game, for some reason.

"An adventure that I won't soon forget!!!" Seems like if it was you could have picked a better name that Fantasy. As I enter the game, there's a little area and a scroll informing me of my objectives. Find four purple keys, use them to open a specific door. Look for hidden areas with health bonuses. There's a Magic Dragon around and watch out for dangerous situations. Save often, which feels like it should be the motto of this game.

Nothing screams fantasy like two pyramids.

Oh, hang on, this screen is actually a series of puzzles. The first one is deceptively simple, just push that block in and then walk out, and you can pass. It's the second one that trips me up. The second has you push the lowest horizontal block, go up to push the block out of the way, then push the second vertical block up. Then push the horizontal block you did before, then get out of the way. You should know by now how you deal with spawners. Yellow area is just an invisible wall maze with a gotcha moment on the key. Then red is puzzling. Until I realize I'm just pushing blocks out of the way of the pushers.

After this series of challenges to prove my worth, I'm spit out onto a river with a...health club and a tanning salon. That scroll tells me that the boat I'm about to go on is meant to calm my nerves before entering dangerous territory. Just touch the arrow, watch it go, listen to the PC Speaker music and enjoy the view. Do watch out for those piranhas at the end, they bite. The boat ride is a bit glitchy, one of the arrows keeps getting loose and allowing me to go behind it. It also disappears at the end of the screen.

Oh, the piranhas can shoot at me and I have to swim at the end. Or walking masquerading as swimming owing to the engine. I can shoot back, but eh, there's not much point. I can see one of those purple keys off to the right. I wonder if that's a map hint or just teasing? I need to find some place that's one east of here?

There's plenty of ammo around, and gems are only useful for health and a few purchases, so the stuff in the middle left you need to get past a short-ranged spinning gun to get is mostly useless.

If it is, it doesn't link from here. We have three doors on the left, then a door south. The key is in the middle, relying on those teleporters. I think I'm going color blind looking at this game. At least this board, but I've never been fond of the weirdness with the door and key colors, it always comes off as a little broken. Despite the chaotic design of this level, reaching the key is relatively straight forward. The entrance to the teleporter maze is on the left, which allows you to get to the spawner quickly, there's a bomb there for convenient and an invulnerability potion for everything you can't shoot. That exclamation mark next to the key? That opens the right wall. Huh. The other odd things are a green thing in the middle, kills you, and that scroll is a multiple choice quiz. It's just asking who wrote "I think, therefore, I am". Score an easy 2 gems.

The Lostman's Tours requires payment to enter the brown door, and the white doors lead to each other, so I decide to go east first. After clearing out the rest of the monsters I get this area. What even is that at the bottom? Just ammo storage. This mass of worms nearly kills me, especially taking out the spawners, between that and the wall of guns I need to make a safe passage across. No north yet, don't have the key, but the path east is possible. For now it just isn't possible to safely complete, so let's see what's south of the last area.

Ah, good, another spawner, with these 4 gems I now have 2 health where I once had 8. South is a one way trip to a dragon's castle, though the good news is that those worms are stuck in that room. The area with the bears is just a shooting gallery. What about that masher? The scroll warns me about it. It just makes getting past it tricky if you aren't quick. The other scroll is another quote and 2 health, while the dollar sign past the ruffians is just some nice money. Nothing to help me get past the guns. Guess it's time to go on that cave tour.

We have to tell people how exciting it is!

Another trap, of course. Maybe I should have played the Best of first. Professor Lostman went into these caves with his friend, and sadly his friend became lost after an earthquake. Now I have to find him before I can leave. Still, this is easier than the other paths for now. The purple thing is unkillable and there's an invisible wall in front of that door in the middle, but once you interact with the red guy, the path north opens. Except that...wait, I can't do this yet, I imagine that in order to get out I need to grab the purple key, which I can't yet.

ZZT levels should love places you can only get out of once...

So I go here, east of the mass of worms that nearly killed me. It is managable to get across, assuming you move the blocks out of the way of the pusher and in front of the first guns. It's just a matter of timing for the rest. The first time through is simple enough, but then the guns turn into ruffians, which actually makes things easier. I have far more ammo than health right now, and enemies are actually killed by those laser beams, so it works out better for me.

No, there's no mass of yellow keys later I can abuse to get further here, what you see is what you get.

The yellow key opens this section. I know this concept, it's almost the exact same level as one of the base game levels. Only a lot harder thanks to this lock starting the section off. It's difficult, the trick is to move the blocks in such a way that blocks off the lower right one from closing off a needed gap through. The doors are relatively straight-forward, except that the ? mark hides another yellow key. The doors between the exit signs are purple, not yellow. That leaves the door to the blue key. Which took me a moment to figure out, you need two yellow keys to get enough area to clear a path.

Purple key two is directly left of this screen, it's the one I saw coming in. The spinning guns are placed in a gotcha way, and not ending the gotchas are gems that turn into tigers. Fortunately there's just enough space so that you can manage both. Guess this means I'm halfway through? Now let's do the cave tour.

Going back to the caves, I end up here. There are invisible walls on each side of those number things, except for where the purple thing is. That's how you open the path back south. The lines next to the patience sign are a series of moving walls, you just need to slowly get past them. The ? turns into the key, and you can just get back out via that teleporter, the wall opens up once you're on that side. The weird red door on the left opens up the passage through the red teleport, but the blue guy steals your money. Otherwise it's fairly simple.

Now for the final section, to the dragon. Seems simple...assuming some secret passages...except that hang on, there's no cyan key and only two red keys, but three red doors. What gives? Are those doors something important? Yes...and no. Three of them just lead back to the east blue door, but then the one with the ruffians...

Taken from before I cleared it out, obviously.

Teleports us back to the room I got the last purple key from. Controls move the robot there in that area that captures the eye. It's not that tricky, just time consuming, because you need to shoot a lot of shootable walls and then push the red key all the way over towards those regular spinners. Then I can meet the dragon. Puff the Magic Dragon...who just turns into a cyan key, opening up the teleporter room. Which is actually a puzzle of sorts, you need to find the right door to get the last purple key, then another door which leads out.

That's the end? Well, that one was nice, but feels a bit underwhelming as an end. The ü tells me to touch the wall to open it, and then I can check the scroll. It's a very surprising scroll, in which the author tries to get you to convert to Christianity and talks about what a horrible life he's had. Odd? Yes. Ineffective at converting people? Yes, though someone playing ZZT mods probably does need something more in his life. That said, I do find this amusing, since here you have something in an official Epic product Epic wouldn't want to admit to today. Anyway, next time it's the also vaguely named Crypt, which will probably not end on such a weird note. Probably.

This Session: 3 hours 30 minutes

Total Time: 6 hours 20 minutes