Frost 2: Ice (incomplete)

Author
Company
Released
Genres
Size
98.3 KB
Rating
3.25 / 5.00
(2 Reviews)
Board Count
40 / 42

Closer Look: Frost 2: Ice

Nadir's zenith, Preservation Through Piracy, a nearly unreleased gem capturing ZZT at its peak

Authored By: Dr. Dos
Published: Jan 27, 2019
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The dumbwaiter connects with the room Martina's being held in this time, and she sleeps right through Jubal breaking through the wall with his trusty mop.

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JUBAL: Hey, we found her! That was easy...

JUBAL: She's asleep...

ALFRED: Be careful, she could have another
ALFRED: one of those enchantments on her,
ALFRED: or something...

JUBAL: No, she's out cold though. I guess
JUBAL: they didn't bother with the fancy
JUBAL: stuff because it was so late, and
JUBAL: they didn't think we'd get out of
JUBAL: that basement.

ALFRED: Hm, she even sparkles while
ALFRED: asleep. Cute... but they chained
ALFRED: her up again, and I bet this damn
ALFRED: door's locked.

JUBAL: Hang on, I still have that glass
JUBAL: lockpick from earlier in my pocket.
JUBAL: There, I got it! How's the door?

ALFRED: There's no lock on it, you'll be
ALFRED: be relieved to know.

JUBAL: Well... give me a hand here, we
JUBAL: need to get her out and she's
JUBAL: pretty heavy as dead weight, know
JUBAL: what I mean? What with this shell
JUBAL: an' all...

ALFRED: Sure, hang on.

The second rescue mission goes a lot better. Xx and Xy just wanted to go to bed so no need for magical forcefields this time.

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Alfred and Jubal heft up Martina and make their way out of the room. The whole scene is properly animated with Alfred running up to the door to check on it, then helping carry Martina when the time comes.

XY (oov): Right, it's 6am... time to take
XY: out the... oh, crap.

XY: SISTER!!! THE TURTLE'S GONE!
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Iconic writing. (I do like that Nadir indicates XY is speaking despite not being in the shot at first.) He also cries for a bit, flickering between the two smiley face characters available.

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XX: ...
XX: Hello, what's this...

XY: What's what, sister?

XX: Brother, were you aware there was a
XX: dumb waiter running all the way
XX: through this house?

XY: Erm, I can't say I was.

XX: Curses. Those thugs must have broken
XX: free of their confines. I must keep
XX: in mind to be more specific with that
XX: little creep.

XY: Come on, we have to find them! They
XY: may still be in the vicinity!

XX: Right you are. I'll summon Tulili, you
XX: get the Ulgarant. We can't let her get

XY: away from us.

It's just about time for Checkov's Ulgarant to show up, and more Tulili as well. Our heroes are on the run now.

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We cut to the streets at sunrise, where Alfred and Jubal are still lugging Martina with XX and XY coming up behind them, and then up ahead two mysterious persons in the middle of the road?

But alas, the most important character here is the dark green char 1 in the top right corner.

Nadir
  •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •
Hi! im nadir :D

This is as far as I got before I stopped.
I stopped due to a combination of school-
related business and writer's block, which
is a lethal combination for any ZZT game.

There is no more game after this point. If
you want to know what happens next; in a
nutshell, Xx and Xy chase our heroes and
almost catch them with the aid of the
Ulgarant (Xy's familiar), but then Cedric
zooms in with his Volkswagen to save the
day. There then follows a further chase
where the Ulgarant tears after the getaway
into rush-hour traffic, busting many a
poor bastard's car along the way. They
eventually manage to lose him, and rendez-
vous at Alfred's house.

But I'm not going to program that. I'm
sure you'll cry yourself to sleep, knowing
what might have been.

Oh well. "Ulgarant" is a stupid name
anyway. I've renamed the guy since. Now
he is "Facebreaker" which is a much
funnier name. tee hee. Tulili has also
been renamed to "Piskin" which is also
better.

Man, I think I may have overdone the
dithering on this board. I removed all the
texture from the road because it was ugly,
and reminiscient of the shitfest that is
Final Fantasy ZZT, ugh

That's not everything, though... there's a
few more boards, both plot and art-related
that you might like to see. Do you want
to, or do you want to DIE

thank you may i have another

move out of your parntes house loner

  •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

This is almost the end. Nadir has arrived to give some closure and critique of his choice of names. (Ulgarant is better than Facebreaker and Tulili is better than Piskin, fight me Nadir.)

Final Fantasy Disc One by Chase Bramlage does indeed get a little difficult to look at, but I'm not seeing anything dreadful about the roads.

And lastly, the line to continue is a reference to a long since deleted review on Frost 1; Power. Fortunately the review is preserved in a future board in this game, so uh, that's something to look forward to.

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Nadir has to show up because the game hits a point in the story where that story was never coded, but there's still one final cutscene after the whole Ulgarant chase.

Visually it's a very nice board yet again, and very reminiscent of one of Nadir's boards from Evil Sorcerer's Party.

Not surprisingly, the characters move about a little in this cutscene. Also while most of the home's rooms are purposely obscured, Nadir did make sure to provide a ZZT bathroom.

A little later, at Alfred's apartment.

JUBAL: Y'know, Alf... it never ceases to
JUBAL: amaze me, just how painfully middle
JUBAL: class you are.

ALFRED: Look, either take something off
ALFRED: the shelf or sit down, yer makin'
ALFRED: me nervous.

CEDRIC: Yes, I agree with Alfred. Sit down
CEDRIC: already, Jubal. And affluence is
CEDRIC: no sin.

JUBAL: Yeah, it's still funny though when
JUBAL: the person in question likes to
JUBAL: pose as like Ghetto Mofo 40,000...

JUBAL: Alright... Magic Eye it is, then.

JUBAL: So, how is she?

ALFRED: Actually, I think she's waking up.

JUBAL: Well. I'm glad someone is, I feel
JUBAL: shattered after all that titting
JUBAL: about.

ALFRED: Don't look at me, I did offer you
ALFRED: a coffee. Speaking of which, how
ALFRED: was yours, old dude?

CEDRIC: Slightly oversweet, but for
CEDRIC: instant coffee, consistantly good.

ALFRED: ...okay. I guess it was the least
ALFRED: I could do after ya saved our
ALFRED: tails back there, man.

CEDRIC: Think nothing of it. My pleasure.

MARTINA: Mmf... nhh...

MARTINA: SACRED FUCKING MERIDIAN GET AWAY
MARTINA: FROM ME YOU MOTHERFUCKS

MARTINA: ...Oh. Sorry. Bad dream.

ALFRED: No shit...

MARTINA: Hang on, this isn't the laundry
MARTINA: room... have my wishes been
MARTINA: granted? Am I... free?

JUBAL: Yeah, I saved you like you said to,
JUBAL: and now you love me forever.

ALFRED: Hey, we both did! I helped :(

JUBAL: Fine... so, uh... Martina. How're
JUBAL: you feeling?

MARTINA: Bruises aside, physically.. fine.

JUBAL: Good... now, do you mind explaining
JUBAL: just what in the hell is going on?

CEDRIC: Jubal! Let her rest!

MARTINA: No, it's okay... I'll talk. I
MARTINA: suppose it'd be churlish not to.

JUBAL: Speaking of which, why are you
JUBAL: talking?

MARTINA: If you'll be so kind as to let me
MARTINA: continue, I'll explain all.

MARTINA: Now SHUT UP AND LISTEN

Alfred is revealed to actually be from a middle class upbringing, and is not in fact some street punk like Jubal. Martina apparently slept through all the fighting and chasing, but is ready to explain what's going on, finally, we'll learn something. Oh wait no we won't because this is the last dialog in the entire series.

Nadir
  •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •
#cycle 1
#end
:touch
Here's the scene I was just talking about,
where the group regain their bearings at
Alfred's house. This was supposed to, in
turn, segue into Martina's backstory, but
now it never will... *sob*

Also, I'm amused by my slightly younger
self having Jubal select a Magic Eye from
Alfred's shelf, since he's blind in one
eye. I can't remember if it was
intentional or not!
  •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

And Nadir's own commentary explains why Jubal's one eye looks different from the other. I can't imagine the magic eye thing was anything other than a clever joke because what an odd item to take off a shelf otherwise.

It's also now been so long since this game's been worked on that Nadir himself can't even remember things clearly.

frost2_539

I hope Alfred wasn't anybody's favorite character. Nadir's got dibs on commentary here since all I can say is "good art".

Nadir
  •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •
And later on... OMG ALFRED DIES!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't remember how I intended to bump
him off, but it involved the Berzerkaz
somehow. This was partially intended to
satirise the "arg! you killed blacky!"
school of Hollywood storytelling, where
the black sidekick dies thus motivating
the noble white guy. Actually, if they
were humans Jubal would be short and
ginger, which is not the first thing you
think of regarding Hollywood heroics.

That's Cedric in the background. He's
throwing some kind of dust on Alfred's
corpse as some sort of ritual.
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Nadir
  •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •
Here's Cedric about to face down the
Ulgarant, in a scene harking back to a
few boards ago... this isn't actually
finished, but you gotta love the mohawk.

He kind of resembles Grinner from the
ultra-violent Heavy Metal comic, Melting
Pot. God damn that comic kicked so much
ass.
  •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

My mental image for the Ulgarant was more like some big feral monster, not some badass lizard with a cybernetic arm. We also get a look at the process for Nadir's artwork, as the Ulgarant appears to have nothing but bright green for his coloring so far compared to the softer shading afforded by STK colors.

And thanks to the power of Google, you can see what Grinner looks like.

Oh yeah, it's a bit tough to tell, but Cedric has an ace of spades tucked into his top hat.

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Not everyone was a fan of Frost 1's emphasis on story over action. I do not remember this person at all.

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Saving screenshots of bad ZZT reviews was a popular pastime with z2's staff.

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Some otherwise unused art. This is Ice's equivalent to the unused art board in Power of Penny's best friend pre-exile, Melissa.

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Nadir was probably smart for never saying something like "The Frost Quadrilogy" or something to indicate just how dang long it was going to be. After two games we've met Silver and Cedric, with Ocean here and maybe maybe maybe Set is supposed to be Seven meaning at best we know of just over half of the important characters, and that's not even considering what Penny/Henna/Jubal/Alfred/Martina/Mist are supposed to have to do with anything.

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Next up is this world map for Ilititoa, and a bunch of literal worldbuilding. We learn the continents, orbits, and oceans. I can't believe we aren't told how long a day is.

It's also one of those maps that looks more like a tweaked Earth, or well part of it. Esia as Asia; Iloati formed from a lower Pacific ocean so that Japan, Indonesia, and the surrounding nations aren't islands; Jyndelm being the United States with most of Canada underwater. It's a bit smaller though what with Europe being underwater and I guess Sagania is both Africa and South America?

Also Kompres Ocean is almost certainly a reference to Kompressor, who was a big hit with the ZZT community.

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This board is really strange. For one thing the Nadir object isn't accessible, forcing me to crack open the editor later.

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It turns out to be a rather unusual choice for a title screen for the second file. There is (and was no) second file ever actually made, but as the file clocks in at over 320 kB, there was definitely a need for one. For reference, the largest ZZT file is still Fred! Episode 2: Ffreddiannia, coming in at 389.5 kB and frequently crashing ZZT on loading or quitting the file. The rule of thumb is to swap once you approach 300kB.

The Offspring thing is just an unusual choice to make the title screen of a game focus on, but whatever!

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Anathema - Hope
Feel free to sing along!
Nadir
  •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •
Hey, now this board is kind of cool. The
words are from a spoken-word part of the
Anathema album "Eternity". They just
seemed appropriate accompaniment to a
picture of Set (for it is he). Anathema
are a pretty good band, though their first
two albums are ultra-generic "sore throat"
goth-rock. Once the Pink Floyd influence
kicks in they start to become much more
interesting.

Next board is the last one, by the by.
  •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

This is our first time seeing Set as anything other than a smiley face. He's very ancient Egyptian styled and half his face is covered with some metal plating.

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Nadir
  •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •
Well, that's the end... this last board is
obviously meant to be reminiscient of the
final board of Frost 1. I don't remember
what was meant to be happening at this
point exactly, though. I also don't think
it matters. Anyway...

I hope you have enjoyed this short sojourn
through a bunch of unfinished crap and
vaguely embarrassing writing. Even if
you're one of the many who downloaded the
files from Dr. Dos, I do hope having some
sort of closure to the Frost ZZT project
has been good for you... now you no longer
have to awaken at 3am, bathed in sweat and
crying out Penny's name oh wait I've said
too much.

It's been a pleasure. Thanks for your
time. mail me at n‍a‍p‍a‍l‍m‍l‍a‍c‍h‍a‍t‍t‍e‍@‍g‍m‍a‍i‍l‍.‍c‍o‍m‍
if you have any comments! But don't
harrass me about finishing this, because
I won't dammit! Once I'm back in Britain
though I'm going to see how far I can get
making a comic about it, though. Watch
this space.

Also, there are music boards you can see.
MadTom made a bunch of music I never used,
which is a shame because it's awesome!
However, I did put Snowflake Overture in
in the recent ChickenWire rerelease! Make
a choice...

i hate myself and i want to die

i agree, take me to the spicy page

  •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Frost 2: Ice ends quietly with a reminder that it will never be continued. There's just one last wintry scene of Jubal, Martina, and Cedric leaving the city and definitely sharing some similarities with the final board of Frost 1; Power.

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