♦ Livestream of the ZZT world "Voyage of Four" by WiL (2001) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/vo4/] ♦
♦ Stream Contents ♦
• (2:50) "Voyage of Four" by WiL (2001) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/vo4/]
Going back to a personal favorite of mine that I missed out on for the first 20 years it was available.
WiL's Voyage of Four is one of those fancy ZZT worlds of its day that wants to push the medium in new directions in terms of storytelling. Falling somewhere between Rhygar, a story-focused RPG epic, and Freedom, a ZZT musical, Vo4 splits the difference with a operatic presentation broken up into small moments of more traditional ZZT RPG gameplay.
Players follow the tragic tale of Cyros, a simple farmer who happens to be away from his village when the Tor army began their war on the people of the Outlands. After finding his son dead and wife moments from passing away herself, he vows revenge on the mysterious "Man in Red", the general leading the army in their bloodthirsty campaign to conquer the Outlands.
After attempting to ride ahead of the army before they can strike at the next town, Cyros soon finds himself dealing with an imposter who has taken over the town, thrown its real elder in prison, and has no intention of investigating Cyro's claims that an army is heading this way.
In prison, he meets the real elder, along with James, a victim of another raid that only wanted to warn of the approaching danger. The three manage to break out, fighting their way to the imposter with a unique RPG engine that flips the script, with players choosing commands, and then who to issue them to, allowing you to try and react to enemy attacks. (It's a real struggle though as your options in combat are quite limited.)
Once the town is saved, the group separates, though it's not long until James and Cyros team up again, vowing to bring an end to the bloodshed, becoming folk heroes who arrive in towns and prepare them for battle.
Meanwhile, princess Chyrisa longs for a normal life outside the castle walls. Her family has also begun invading the Outlands for free real estate, and she wants no part of it. When she discovers her brother and his conniving friend plan to take the reigns of the kingdom by force, she flees the castle, heading into the wilderness.
There she meets James and Cyros, joining them, and slowly learning how to adapt to a much less luxurious life. The three voyagers continue their mission with players taking control of Chryisa as she helps organize villages, hopefully improving morale rather than hurting it. The efforts push back the Tor army to the point where an assault is lead on one of their fortresses. They are accompanied by Argyle, a river god that takes the form of a bird and speaks in birdsong in order to bring down the protective barrier and storm the fortress.
Here the man in red and an all-powerful djinn are revealed to be from another universe. After a fight with the djinn, the voyagers are sent through to that dimension where the first file and this stream draw to a close.
It's a game with such a large scope, and grand plans that many ZZTers have toyed with, but few have managed to tame into a complete work. The gameplay is very basic, the RPG battles far too hard, but the sweeping tale makes it one of ZZT's finest stories of the era.
This world was played not just to show it off, but also as WiL's recent uploads of abandoned material include a cut dungeon crawling section of the game better detailing Chyrisa's escape. I thought it would be nice for folks to have a chance to see how that puzzle piece would have fit in to the rest of the game. Next week, we'll learn what a Taros Umvir is.
♦ Play this world directly in your browser ♦
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/vo4/
♦ Originally streamed on January 24th, 2025 ♦
