After Pain Talks

The rest of the playground consists of what I think is meant to be a basketball court with a very strange center and some wild perspective on a single hoop. The person on the court is devoid of code, as are all the decorative objects like the more recognizable see-saw.

This time the player clone warp is significantly more prominent, which in my opinion is a miss, if a harmless one. If anything, the bright yellow makes it stand out more than anything else on the board! At first glance I thought it may have been a merry-go-round

The other students here can all be interacted with. By the hoop Scott runs into Jordan, one of his friends lamenting that they're going to be moving away over the summer. This is more of Miller's credible writing, creating a serious scene between the two kids.

You can't help but feel for Jordan whose entire life is being uprooted, severing all his friendships and ripping him away from everything he knows, and as an adult you also sympathize with the parents a little who want that kid to actually get a good education.

Jordan's suggestion to talk to the principal to get connected with the school counselor is probably the least realistic thing here, but I suppose these kids are still so young that they might still implicitly believe adults have the ability to solve any problems by virtue of being an adult.

The entire scene is unrelated to anything in the game's story. Jordan won't be mentioned again, making it an oddly poignant moment to casually discard. Nothing even requires players interact with it, so there's a real possibility that you may activate the warp forward before getting to Jordan, which is a shame as it really makes the setting so much more real.

The main focus of the board is to talk with Kegan. (Yes, I misread his name) This is another student dealing with bully trouble. I guess this is why Jordan's parents want to find him a different school.

Unlike Scott who is cool and strong, Jeff's only hope is to hide from his aggressors. Luckily, Scott is also righteous and protects the innocent. This is one of many reasons he seems to be beloved by the entire student body.

Jeff moves up to Scott and threatens him, either oblivious or uncaring to Bill's blood on the asphalt thirty feet away, which leads to Scott's second fistfight in a single recess. These kids could really do with some adult supervision.

It's as scripted as before, with a few punches exchanged before Jeff gives up. At least unlike Bill, Jeff flees before his injuries become serious. His retreat is a lot less dignified, threatening to tell his "mommy" what happened.

Miller isn't about to deprive the local pediatrician of potential business, and so Jeff's programming has him run directly into the metal pole of the basketball hoop with a *CLANG!*, transforming the child into a red fake.

The warp activates and we jump to Scott arriving home after school where his mother is waiting for him. Given the multiple fist fights you were in I expected word to have gotten out and for mom to be aware of what happened.

But she's oblivious and doesn't bother digging deeper into the one word answer with ellipses Scott is willing to provide. Mom only wants to let Scott know she'll be gone for a little bit. Jeff's concussion must have prevented him from ratting out Scott.

Scott is then left to his own devices, and there are indeed some new devices that weren't there in the morning. There's a green TV playing cartoons and a green phone next to it. Currently they do nothing. Obviously they're of some importance for them to have been added.

So the only thing to do is go to the bathroom again, but before Scott can, the phone starts to ring. Connecting these two like this is a genuinely good gag.

The phone call may very well be Scott's last. If you've won over Tori with the locket, she'll be on the other end and the game continues. If you haven't, the call is a wrong number that instead causes the TV to change from cartoons to a breaking news bulletin.

Tori is too important to the rest of the game to not be with Scott. Instead of just forcing players to win her heart, you're punished with the news announcing that a giant meteor is about to crash on the town. Everything goes white and the game ends.

Rock falls. Everyone dies. Let this be a lesson to everyone that puppy love should be taken seriously.

Play your cards right however, and Scott's new girlfriend will surprise him with a call. Remember phone books? Tori just looked you up, and hopefully didn't get too many wrong numbers before trying Ms. Scott's listing.

The conversation again nails it, with an authentic representation of two kids talking on the phone in 2000. The conversation doesn't go anywhere and feels performative. It's got a real "We're a couple now and couples talk on the phone," level of engagement. A kid's idea of what couples do.

Of course it abruptly ends when Tori remembers an obligation to go to a friend's house today...

When the call is over, Miller expects players to sit around and wait patiently for something to happen. This is not a good plan. Players don't want to wait, and even when they're forced to, they're going to pass the time by examining things. In this instance, it's very easy to break the game's scripting.

Attempting to use the bathroom again causes the phone to ring again, which upon happening a second time went from good gag, to incredible. It's actually a bug, but it really had me laughing. The phone call you get if you try this is a new one, but it's not supposed to happen just yet and causes the intended event you're waiting for to not fire resulting in the game soft-locking afterwards.

Wait around for long enough (too long imo even if the need to wait was known) and Tori shows up at your front door!

This is flawless kid logic, a surprise visit using the power of the phone book. Just be careful Tori, if you refer to your boyfriend as a "friend", he's gonna get mixed signals.

But uh, Tori has a lot to learn about healthy relationships. Showing up unannounced at your boyfriend's door to profess your love is unnerving to say the least. Even Scott is clearly put-off by this, trying not to engage with what the words he just heard.

I really found myself impressed by how well written this scene is. The characters don't say all that much, yet I can really hear how they say these things. Scott is clearly unsettled with the level of obsession his new lady-friend is showing. Tori seems like she's realizing this was a mistake. The vibes here, are not pleasant.

At the same time, the childlike nature of the game led me to go along with it. The off-putting nature of Tori's forwardness felt like something that a child could very easily be oblivious too, with both halves of this relationship just emulating whatever ideas of romance they've picked up from their surroundings. It was certainly forward of Scott to give Tori that locket almost immediately after agreeing to try dating, and that was the correct play for the game, so why would I turn down the opportunity to spend time with my girlfriend? The kids may not realize how fast they're moving here, thinking this is just how romance works.

Again, this is flawless. The discomfort shown moments ago instantly dissipates as Scott decides to just run with it and transforms himself into this suave gentlemen showing Tori around his fine abode.

And despite the rocky start, the two seem to actually do well together. Eight hours go by, which is a pretty long hangout considering it didn't begin until after school let out for the day.

Mom's not back from the store, but whatever, Scott and Tori are having so much fun they don't notice or need to eat or anything. The spell between them is only broken momentarily when the phone rings again, this time when it's intended to.

So this is a twist I suppose! Mom was in a horrible accident and while she'll be fine, Scott's gonna have to take care of everything for a few days until she's released.

When I got this phone call via the piss glitch (that's what it's called now), I assumed it was a convenient way to get mom out of the way for whatever the author had in store, making it one of a number of ZZT worlds (Kwest) of (pre-)teen fantasy. The adults are gone and now the child is free to do whatever they want. Maybe they'll order a pizza and stay up all night? It's a real Home Alone situation, at least in that context.

When you get the call alone, the seriousness of such a call feels more like a weird setup to give the player absolute freedom, with a tacked on "she'll be fine though!" to the atmosphere from darkening. With Tori also here there's much more to the drama. Scott has to process this phone call while his newfound and oddly clingy girlfriend is with him. The stress is compounded, and the improved vibes from the hangout are once more replaced with anxiety. This is too serious and too poorly timed to segue into "Tori and Scott's No-Responsibility Weekend".

So when Tori reacts to the news like this, it too is a little unexpected.

Yeah... so Tori.... she's got more to her than being a bit clingy. She's the villain of this game.

The game over is unfortunate. Just like with the meteor ending, players probably aren't going to have multiple saves by this point since there hasn't really been anything to suggest you might need them. These dead man walking situations can very easily force players to start the game from the very beginning.

On the bright side, at least it means that the smart thing to do is tell Tori to go home when she abruptly shows up at your door. The adult instincts are correct here.

Send Tori away and she sulks off, disappointed. Her leaving triggers a change in what's on TV to a less fatal news update, and with this news bulletin, we finally have our plot. Tori is an alien that steals souls. Scott wisely decides to leave town. No thought is given to his mother.

And don't think about dialing that hotline! The phone is still set to make you talk to Tori and her object is used to time when to activate the warp to the next screen. I immediately loaded as soon as I failed to call the 1-800 number, but I wouldn't surprised if using the phone again soft-locked.

Another player clone teleport occurs, and there's another abrupt cut to this strange board that looks unfinished compared to everything seen previously. The editor lets us know that this board is "Town", and it consists of a dead body, a note, and a shop. My three favorite things.

The body can't be examined, but the note reveals Tori's location. Scott pivots from flight to fight, presumably because his mother is now in grave danger. It's hard to say though, since he never mentions her, and somehow Miller never thought to actually include her anywhere in the hospital section of the game.

The shop is the one moment where the game has a sense of normalcy. Your experience (gems) let you purchase the usual essentials. The "Full Health Restore" is a bit vague as to what it will be restored to. 100 is the obvious amount, but that would make it pricier than just buying 50 health twice.

Buying it gives Scott 100 health. Don't buy this.

Ammo then? Well, despite the tutorial teaching players how to shoot arrows, there are no enemies in this game that you can shoot. Any money spent on ammo is a waste. Torches? No dark rooms! The more sensibly priced health options appear to be the only thing worth buying. Scott has been slowly losing health from fighting, and the unavoidable damage means that eventually he'll be the one coughing up blood. It's that or save it, but you probably won't be shocked to hear that this is the only store in the game.

Health it is...

...No. It isn't. Because while After Pain Talks still has some fighting, the simple touch combat is also over and done with. The remaining fights use the obligatory RPG engine for games of this era. Add this shop to the list of things Miller fakes out players with.

Then there's this board, attached to the town which again throws the previous perfectly adequate art style out the window in favor of filling the screen with line walls for some reason? Even the empty void previous felt more like "outside" than this. This feels looks like a hospital somehow merged with a Link's Adventure level.

And then it's right back to something a bit more along the lines of what's been seen before.

The moment Scott enters, he immediately finds Tori who has been going around the place indiscriminately killing pretty much everyone she finds.

Miller can accurately depict kids dealing with first romances or the struggles of moving to a new town. His evil villain monologues and retorts from the hero leave a bit more to be desired.

Miller's already been on shaky ground with the bugs in Scott's home, and the inevitable RPG engine looking like this doesn't inspire confidence. It immediately makes me suspect it was added more out of a sense of obligation than anything else. RPGs are cool. Cool ZZT games gotta have em.

So let's see here... Tori's health bar is up on the top of screen while Scott's is in an area reserved for UI. Each character has an active time meter à la Final Fantasy. And speaking of which, the fight features a ZZT conversion from Final Fantasy as a backing track.

It's a solid conversion. One that I wonder if Miller converted himself or not. There are a few more obviously original tunes, which sound a lot more like the usual non-musician ZZT compositions. Banged out tunes. I wouldn't be surprised to learn this was someone else's conversion, but Miller provides no credit to anyone else for music.

As for the timer, it does nothing other than add a small delay between attacks. Both meters fill at the same speed, operating ignorant to anything else happening. This ends up making the engine function just the same as one with a set turn order. One of Miller's many illusions.

Scott's offense consists of two attacks. Punches never miss and do a single point of damage. Kicks have 50% accuracy but do two damage. Standard stuff.

Your attacks are accompanied with a little visual effect activated by making some invisible walls temporarily visible.

Tori's attacks are equally straightforward. She has no randomization either, following a loop of "punch, punch, slam, punch". Her attacks have damage numbers like the bullies, but now with breakable walls being used instead of player health, they aren't very precise.

It makes for a perfectly average experience at best. It has nothing unique to offer, and its presentation is minimal save for those invisible walls. Yet it doesn't do anything off-putting either. The wait for timer to fill is brief, and the health meters are tuned so that Scott is almost certain to win. Attacks having some randomness means that the fight feels like you could lose with some bad luck, and Tori's pattern of attacks feels random even if it isn't, creating an illusion of a more complex fight. (Her punches all doing slightly different damage according to the numbers displayed also make it harder to notice the pattern.)

Once Tori is defeated, she runs off vowing to fight again. It's not over yet, and that's for the best as this would be a very blah way for the game to end otherwise.