♦ Livestream of the ZZT world "The Forbidden Island" by Mark McIntyre (1994) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/islandmm/] ♦
♦ Stream Contents ♦
• (03:35) "The Forbidden Island" by Mark McIntyre (1994) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/islandmm/]
Another 100 board game, this one one zippy enough to get through in one sitting.
Using the classic "shipwrecked on an unkown island" motivation, players explore an unnamed island in search of finding a way home. This is done with a mix of action sections where you fight your way through forests, caves, and beaches filled with enemies, with plenty of little items to find for fetch quests for the villagers that will get you keys to new regions or other items for trade sequences.
It's technically open ended, with a number of paths available at any given time, though progress is generally limited to one specific area. This along with the amount of backtracking through empty boards makes the time to get through this vary wildly based on how well players can intuit where an item might be useful. A few shortcuts back to town would have done wonders. Instead I was cranking up the gamespeed or using board warp cheats to bypass empty screens and cut to the chase.
When not backtracking, it's actually a solid little game. The environments are varied, and include a number of dungeon levels to fight through in addition to the monsters of the overworld. Many of the quests are straightforward enough. Give the sick guy the medicine, give the hungry guy a cookie, give the child who loves the Animanaics a Wakko Warner doll. Though one in particular at the end mostly boils down to talking to everyone until you figure out who wants what you're carrying.
The game has some real heavy Link's Awakening influences. The first section of the game includes a witch that can give you magic powder to use on a trickster raccoon, with dialog lifted wholesale. Fortunately, afterwards Mark keeps his influences a little more distant, making the game something that feels very much his own creation and not just a retelling of a Zelda game.
Towards the end, there are some great looking boards, with the desert filled with various hoodoos and mesas as well as a great sunset when you return outside for a bit during one of the later dungeons. If you can get past the backtracking and don't mind looking up a solution or two to speed up the clunkier trades, this one is quite enjoyable. Sadly, it does run into a few code issues as well which prevent the game from being beaten without manually setting certain flags (they've been documented in detail on the Museum feedback page for the game). An above average adeventure that stumbles a bit with its code, The Forbidden Island is otherwise one I'd highly reccomend to ZZTers looking for an old fashioned island escape.
♦ Play this world directly in your browser ♦
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/islandmm/
♦ Originally streamed on October 13th, 2024 ♦
