Making The Most of Text
The aesthetics of Joe Blow are definitely where the game suffers the most. froznfire's commitment to mono-colored boards may have made color choices easier on them, but it makes for an incredibly samey looking game. The bar, having been set quite low, makes those few boards that do try to do a little more come off as more impressive than the otherwise would.
I wouldn't suggest purposely tanking your game's graphics just to make the mediocre appear somewhat good, but that's what's happening here.
The presentation may not be there, but the heart is. You can't have a game with interdimensional tunnels and not try to do something to make the tunnels look as cool as they sound. froznfire clearly recognizes this, replacing the monotone with a rainbow of colors and a bit of hyping up the scene via a scroll to emphasize the pretty colors, and acid-trip like visuals Joe is seeing, even if players don't.
A little palette cycling with an object to #change the colors of the walls would have gone a long way to making things a little more eye-catching, but this to be another example of froznfire not having a comprehensive knowledge of ZZT-OOP. The command isn't used at all in the entire game!
Oddly enough, I found myself getting a better sense of being yanked between dimensions from something significantly more mundane: the Swell Land subway system. The subway is used to get to and escape from the prison sector, which is geographically isolated from the rest of Swell Land. To give the effect that you're on a long journey, a surprisingly large number of boards are dedicated to Joe's subway rides. The first time, the ride is three boards long. It's a sensible amount given the subway is made up of conveyors to rapidly shuffle players along.
The second time? Eight.. Almost a fifth of the game's boards are subway rides! As excessive as it may sound, the rides don't feel too long. I'd say it's no slower than riding the Z.U.T.S.. These rides have their twists and turns, which makes them seem like they'd fit right in as dimensional travel as the player is thrown all over the place. The second ride though grounds itself by not just being a trip through the void. This longer travel brings the player over (under?) a lake. Again, not the most impressive looking screen. Still, it's hard to not appreciate the fact that while in prison, you do visit a board overlooking the same body of water. The continuity is a cool detail.
And let's give it up for the espresso machine. That's a real piece of work. It's a shame froznfire didn't give themselves more opportunities to create contraptions of of objects, as they do seem to have a knack for it.
You'll find most of the charm in Joe Blow Socipoon stemming from the way the game is written. This is hardly the most serious of ZZT games, as you'd probably expect. froznfire is unable to resist playing the comedian. It's not just the characters that have plenty of moments to shine with an unexpected quip, or humorous remark, the game's setting also has a number of signs for sight gags. These range from additional sarcastic remarks, to the kind of signage humor you'd expect on something like The Simpsons.
The people of Nifty and Swell Lands are hardly adept at marketing.Their stores sell "Worthless crap", as emblazoned on their buildings. The big box store is named "Super Crap Mart", and they take their coffee at a little cafe known as Starshmucks. That's all extremely par for the course in ZZT, nothing that would make Joe Blow an innovative new comedy, but froznfire has better material as well.
This is why I'm bringing up The Simpsons. It's definitely a sign gag you'd have seen back then.
Maybe not all of it is on that level. To a younger kid though, this is some brilliant material. The frequency of these moments, shows froznfire was really invested in peppering them throughout the adventure, making sure that even the most serious of moments would still be pretty darn silly. No stuffiness allowed.
The people themselves have plenty to contribute here as well, Joe included.
It's a recurring theme throughout the game that people will refer to wherever they happen to be as a dump. Everyone's got a real case of grass is always greener here.
Philosophers meet the end they so often do.
Joe's attempts at getting more ammo from the Super Crap Mart lead to him paying for the privilege of chasing after the thief. The gems are really taken, though there's no code for handling players that didn't pick up all of them from the opening shop's vault.
I guess you can argue it's not a scam since paying the fee gets you the thief's business card.
Being from Earth, Joe is no stranger to solving problems with a gun. At this point in the game, how violent Joe is willing to get is still unclear. By the end of the game, he'll have a body count to his name, so do not be mistaken: Joe will kill this guy if he doesn't cooperate.
The Starshmucks café is a great place for lines. There aren't a lot of NPCs to be found that aren't directly plot related, except for here, where a handful of unique responses are shared between dozens of patrons. They hate Joe, and they hate the guy Joe is looking for. It's even funnier when said from people at Miguel's table.
There's a bit of a snag when Joe sneaks into the prison with a phony badge to get his fingerprints identified. He needs to come up with a reason why he would want to fingerprint himself. The person who takes the prints wastes no time in pointing out how dumb his cover story is, but thankfully doesn't object to doing it.
Not to mention the outburst of shooting open the door to Jorge's prison cell, only for him to leave the screen via a secret passage instead. Joe ain't the luckiest guy.
By far though, the best moments come from froznfire's own little bits of commentary. There's a fun disrespect for the player that isn't mean-spirited, yet feels wonderfully expected in a game as kind-hearted as this.
This can happen just a few minutes into the game.
Each chapter offers a little blurb of what to expect next. Sometimes froznfire shows up to make sure you don't get your hopes up too much. "Joe is excited to learn who is and why he's here. He's not going to though."
Even during the tenses moment of the final confrontation to stop Domingo from blowing up Swell Land, froznfire can't help but point out the crowd's ignorance as to what's actually going on.
The ending though, absolutely cracked me up. Reading "them" so many times just to scroll slightly down and discover a character calling out what a strange way of speaking it is. Joe just saved Swell Land and is getting feedback on his word choices.
Final Thoughts
Joe Blow was a blast to revisit. I figured seeing the game now would be a wake up call, where maybe I'd take a sympathetic stance towards the game out of nostalgia, really leaning in on "Well, if you're 10 years old it's good". froznfire really did create something that is genuinely fun to run through.
In some ways it's sparse. Details are almost entirely absent from a game where walls are meant to be solid and objects are meant to be people and nothing more. Which is a shame, as whenever frozn does allow themselves to try to create some actual scenery, they do a good job of it! A few bits of story are dead ends, and story is the biggest part of the game, so a scientist being helped, then forgotten about makes for a strange almost non-sequitur of a scene.
Yet even now as a decrepit old man, the game's personality continues to endear. It's silly, it's fun, and it's laying down the train tracks to move things forward while the train is already in motion. Nothing in Joe Blow is so important that it had to be that way. A trip to the library could just as easily be a trip to a lab. Finding Miguel at the coffee shop is no different than finding him at a park. Just walk up and touch. froznfire's ideas are almost certainly the first to come to mind, leading to a game that shifts gears regularly. Joe wants to go home, until he wants to prove Nifty Land is real, until he wants to go home, until he wants to recover a stolen item, until he wants to stop Swell Land from exploding (which, being in Swell Land, is a sensible pivot actually). You get to experience, in real-time, froznfire deciding what he wants to create in ZZT next and hurrying the player there by any means necessary. Maybe you'll collect keys, maybe you'll answer my questions three, and maybe you'll just go commando on the local subway transit authority to steal a key.
As a child, it's inspiring. As empty as the journey actually is, it feels within reach. To take froznfire's game at face value means that others will do the same with your own creations. You can play this game, and you can make this game. Come up with a few places, add in a few roadblocks, and the right smiling face to speak with to get past them. The formula is simple, but the results add up to more than the sum of its parts. My memories of the game had faded over the years, letting me relive a lot of the game like it was the first time again, and it just works.
It's an adventure with a likable protagonist whose goals are just one step out of reach. It's satisfying to discover Joe's identity, even if the title gives it away, and even if that knowledge has no impact on anything else in the game. froznfire is capable of making you care about the little guy you're steering, and that is a skill that's more important than knowing how to set flags or animate colors. The game has a strong personality that allows it to be more than a first-timer's adventure game. Joe Blow Socipoon captures what it means to be a child who creates games free of responsibility. The game wasn't made to win a community award or get people excited for the more ambitious sequel. It was made to be enjoyed. To surprise the player with its twists, turns, and returns to places of old. To surprise the author with what they're capable of.
