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