P.D.S Enhanced

Last time, we took a look at the first two releases in PDS (Planetary Defense Station) series. The first, an early ZZT world by Creator was above all else: short. A five level shoot em up with with no real story outside of an initial "aliens are attacking, you need to shoot them". The simple mechanics, to be expected both given that it's one of ZZT's earliest shooters, along with with its author's still relatively new arrival to ZZT, lead to a game that could be beaten in about five minutes.

It wasn't completely bland though. A number of things about the game made it more memorable in ways positive and negative. A one-hit kill system that demanded players make no mistakes (questionable, but imo better for a game otherwise lacking in difficulty). A horizontal layout allowed for bigger stages (negative, shots took too long to travel making aiming unreliable and the extra space wasn't used for anything). Some more unique levels that weren't just ships dancing and shooting at you (positive, the ricochet level was a clever idea if poorly executed, and the final boss had a creative invisible shield made out of blink walls). It was a respectable first effort even if it wasn't something you'd find in any Top 10 lists.

Creator wanted to do more with the concept, and took the project to the then brand new MegaZeux engine. Thanks to early MegaZeux supporting importing from ZZT (without object code), the game was able to be dropped in and modified to take advantage of MegaZeux's support for custom character sets and digital sound. The result was a very odd game that felt more ZZT than MegaZeux aside from the music.

The MegaZeux game introduced some flaws of its own. A new missile launcher upgrade received halfway through the game offered some strategic use, but it also was accompanied by a stage of enemies only vulnerable to a weapon with very limited ammo against enemies that could not be hit reliably. Compounding the issue with need to try the stage again and again was the game only allowing saves on checkpoint screens. Each death meant replaying multiple levels, and eventually I had to edit the game to give myself infinite shots to be able to proceed.

Just as with the original, there were some fun ideas which were able to do more than ZZT ever could. A boss fight against a massive ship armed with flamethrowers was the highlight, requiring you to carefully swoop in and out of range of its attacks in order to safely mount your own offense. The missile system, when it wasn't mandatory, provided the chance to take out multiple foes at once with a well-timed shot and added a much needed second to option to just mash-firing laser beams. The story was still neglected, but the final stage at least featured an enemy that taunted you instead of being another generic ship. It was progress to be sure, but both games held far more potential than Creator was able to deliver at the time, which stung more-so in the vastly more capable MegaZeux compared to ZZT where options for shooters are inherently very limited.

Both games had messages from Creator about intending to do more with the games in a later release. To give the game an actual story, answering the much needed questions of what you're doing and why. Finally, in P.D.S. Enhanced, that promise gets fulfilled. More than a year after PDS Super, Creator takes it back to ZZT for the third and final game in the series and pulls it off, creating a shooter worth paying attention to.

MegaZeux has been ditched, and we return to glorious ZZT where the game's engine can still be taken seriously. The engine, just as the title suggestions, has been enhanced, offering a number of improvements over its predecessors.

Some things never change however, and just as before starting the game immediately drops players into the thick of it. Only now, Creator has developed her skills, using the possibility that players would be familiar with the original as mirror its opening so that it can be subverted soon afterwards.

The opening feels more like an homage to the series' origins that yet another revisiting of the same levels. Thanks to a rather clever reinterpretation of it as training rather than a real alien threat. The original PDS was training for Creator's skills, and now it serves as training for the player. It's really remarkable to see a ZZTer look back on their earlier rougher releases with positivity rather than embarrassment. One year in ZZT is a pretty significant amount of time to learn.

When the opening mission objective is cleared away, you can take in just how much more fleshed out the game is compared to its predecessors. Now armed with STK within ZZT, PDS Enhanced is able to stand off against MegaZeux in the visuals department. And really, exceeding it as Creator's addition of background art is able to depict a much more interesting take on outer space than void with some stars. Sure, there are no custom floors as one would use in MegaZeux, so the stars in the play area are stuck as boxy fake walls, if anything this demonstrates the thought that went in to how to best present the game without the perks of MegaZeux.

Getting to see Earth this time helps emphasize that you're supposed to be defending our home from invaders in these so-far story-free games. Your role in this story is now conveyed through the environment itself. The preamble text no longer needs to explicitly tell you everything that's going on, you can instead infer it.

As far as the changes go, there are number revealed right away. A new shield meter means that one hit is no longer instant death. The levels now have this 3-D border effect to them to simultaneously keep the board looking filled, while shrinking the actual play area a good amount. No more shooting bullets across the entire screen!

The new screen size is still about twice as wide as vertical shooters are tall (assuming a few rows are used for a HUD), but hitting a target is the easiest its ever been thanks to your new and improved ship design. Yes, Creator has finally gone and made your ship out of multiple objects so that you can shoot three bullets at a time. This does wonders for your ability to actually hit ships at long range.

The enemies slowly marching west that led to a soft-lock before is no longer a problem. Enemies do still gravitate towards the left side of the screen, only now they do so with ?W allowing their loops to continue if they reach a wall, where a few #GO RND commands give the ships the ability to move back into range of your weapons. Enemies take multiple shots to destroy this time, and are pushed back when shot, making it even easier to keep playing as long as your shields are still intact.

Before you get too excited, be warned, it's not all roses. Your new ship, if attempted to move against a wall or against an enemy bullet that happens to block your movement, will still crumple up into a little ball of objects. This is a common issue with ZZT shooters that nobody seems to have really gone all out in finding a way to prevent. It's a difficult problem that depends on how the ship is drawn, the order the objects were placed on the board, and how many things could potentially interfere with movement.

The ship, while now set to #CYCLE 1, still isn't the most responsive thing as the input arrows remain at #CYCLE 3. Almost perfect, but not quite. And of course, Creator still insists on the left arrow shooting!

The same flawed method of detecting when a level is completed is also retained, which can be an issue with your wider shots being more likely to hit multiple ships at once. In practice, I didn't run into this once though, so it can't be that likely.

Most of these problems eventually go away as Creator has a much grander vision for this game than before. This engine is merely the first, with later sections of the game having brand new designs that are free of the obligation to replicate the original experience.

The second level dramatically increases enemy firepower. The enemies keep their appearance, but switch tactics to firing bursts of bullets with a slower approach.

The background meanwhile suggests that these battles aren't concentrated to just one area. The sun is moved out of the scene and a much larger rotated view of the Earth is presented instead. The backgrounds really do a lot to make it feel like you're protecting the planet from beyond its atmosphere. The game has a real personality now that allows it to express itself beyond bullets going back and forth across the screen.

Level three moves us away from Earth to lord knows where. Here the enemies don't attempt to approach at all. Instead they move randomly while shooting smaller bursts than before.

The shifting tactics demonstrate some solid development in game design for Creator. These enemies all feel different to fight. I took a lot of screenshots during level two to demonstrate just how oppressive the enemy fire was. Due to the cycle three inputs, players can't fire as fast as the enemy, requiring you to get a head start by firing where enemies will hopefully move into. Then for the third level, the challenge was actually hitting them at such long range.

In the previous games, while there were still differences from level to level, you'd be hard pressed to say what was actually different without digging into the code. Here you can see the difference in action.

The game could still do with some less abrupt transitions. Suddenly, rather than a fourth level, you're dumped into something more akin to a main menu. Those training missions are all in the past now. It's time to pick a new theater or to check out some of the new ships that make PDS Enhanced so different than the other games.

Three ships are presented, with an object offering more detailed descriptions.

There's a mix of world building and player-relevant specifications here. Players are flooded with information in what was previously a desert. The Guardian is a standard-issue space fighter. The TunnelRat was developed for the Tunnel War on Titan. The Behemoth was developed to deal with the alien attack in the first game, but the war was won before before it ever saw service. The world of PDS now has a history, conflicts, and provides players something new to look forward to with these alternate ships that have yet to be seen!

The theater select provides a little galaxy map, giving a sense of scale and just how deep into space you're expected to travel on your missions. Mission overviews are provided via an object. Even though it looks like the game is branching out into a non-linear format, this is just Creator wanting to give players a glimpse at what to come. While you can sign up for any campaign, most choices do nothing, and one says you don't have enough experience yet.

The reality is that you have to play these campaigns in order. The game will begin to develop a narrative once things get underway, so jumping around from mission to mission wouldn't actually work, which makes this presentation of the missions rather strange.

You may also notice that there are only two passages here for the missions. As is the tradition, PDS Enhanced isn't as complete of a game as it was intended to be. Only the P.D.S. Defense and Tunnel War theaters are actually playable, with some scrapped inaccessible boards taking place taking place between missions two and three. Sadly, this means that players will never get to fly the Behemoth bomber.

The game's continued tradition of not being finished emerges in an additional way here. The doors to the two existing campaigns move west and south when selected. Alas, the corner of the boundary to keep players from wandering all over is a little too small for that to work. The door continues to block you from going in, necessitating a ?ZAP to begin the new material. Kind of an embarrassing mistake! But it says something that even with as blatant an oversight as this, PDS Enhanced still comes out on top.

After the initial training mission, it sounds like the first thing you're going to do is exactly what you've been doing, and you are. Except now Creator is interested in P.D.S. being a more developed idea instead of a ZZT Space Invaders knock-off. Entering the first passage doesn't just mean going to another copy of the engine board used in training.

Welcome aboard the P.D.S.

In the ready room, players are introduced to themselves as much as they are new characters. Speaking with other members of the team fills the player in on things their character knows that they don't.

The crew rules. There's "Blood", a man your age with wild eyes and questionable sanity. "Hunter", the squad leader of Red Wing who appears older than he is. And of course "Ace", who is a woman.

Yeah, no, I wish I could tell you more about Ace than "girl". Don't worry, that'll come later.

Your character never introduces himself, though later on your compatriots will refer to him by his call sign of "Avatar", which is a great choice for a player controlled character.

Having completed your training, you were assigned to the Red Wing unit of P.D.S. just in time for the team to fly out and take down some of the evil aliens still trying to destroy Earth. And with all this new knowledge, it's time to head to the hangar to begin.

This board with its flashing runway lights and sirens has more personality than anything in the previous game by a long shot. Here we are about to the same thing we've always done, only now with a far more frantic energy.

The shoot-em-up part of the game is just like the training sim. Creator continues to play with the backgrounds to keep the boards from looking too-identical, and all the positives and negatives from before still apply.

Only now, there's much more understanding of what's going on. You're just one member of a larger team. Everyone else is off having their own battles, and you can't be sure who will return safely or who will be killed in action. The easy difficulty is explained as remnants of a now-limping alien fleet. You can use your imagination to create detail where there is none, instead of only seeing the board as nothing more than an engine where bullets are exchanged.

The backgrounds, focusing on the station itself aren't as appealing as the shot of Earth from earlier. It's more of a struggle to cram it into a corner with so much space reserved for the 3D box effect which uses the same colors as the base. Things look more dull and gray, a step back from the more vividly colored backgrounds in training.

Still Creator finds a way to get the station into the scene with an angle that sees it clipping into the gameplay region. A very calculated position that permits the rest of the station to be made out of fake walls so it doesn't impede the action.

That action even includes a boss fight! Another innovation from the MegaZeux P.D.S.game is successfully integrated into ZZT. The big dragon ship may not be as large as the bosses seen previously, but honestly it looks better than a big wall of gray.

We get a look at a non-bullet projectile in the form of missiles. They get launched at certain points during the fight, sending the objects themselves careening at the player. Where MegaZeux still has the edge is when it comes to alternate firing modes. Your ship has no where to tell the difference between a missile striking it or just a bullet being adjacent to it (at least without waiting another cycle to see if it becomes unblocked, which would mean halving how fast you can move to perform the check). Likewise, the missiles are unable to tell if they've hit your ship or just reached the boundary of the play area.

This makes the missiles incapable of properly damaging your shields, but that doesn't mean they're ineffective. When they impact, they create a little explosion above and below themselves before disappearing. If you're specifically hit in the wing, your main cannon will be caught in the blast and destroyed, reducing your firepower.

Once the turret and missiles are gone, the ship's eye becomes vulnerable, launching itself and acting like a regular ship that needs to be defeated to clear the level. Perhaps the flamethrower boss was more effective. The missile-launching boss is still a unique for finding a way to threaten players with something other than reduced shields.

There's even some acknowledgment of a job well done. This game's vision is finally becoming clear, even if you do have to squint to make out the text.

Shooting down aliens from the P.D.S. is all well and good, but it's pretty basic stuff. Aliens wanna blow us up. We don't wanna be blown up. The Tunnel War though? You would not have believed me saying this during the other games, but the story is going to become a real highlight, exploring some themes that are far more complex than most worlds of the era.

Even with all the strides Creator has made to this point, I still didn't really believe it. It sounds like workers are demanding better treatment from the corporation that employs them. And it sounds like it's going to be my job to make sure that their demands are not met. I didn't think Creator would have put that much thought into what this mission overview seems to say, instead just being like "Yeah, Descent was cool," and not considering how vile an act it is to protect a business over the people. Creator is in fact well aware of the statement being made here, and it's not one in favor of the mining corporation.

Hello, yes, this is a ZZT game from 1995 that deals with labor relations in a serious way.

Initially, this second campaign looks like it's going to have even more emphasis on the game's world beyond piloting a ship with an expanded headquarters. The cracks quickly begin to show as players try to engage with any of it. This blue smiley, presumably meant as an information desk or something along those lines, has no code.

The cafeteria is vacant too. The yet again incomplete game is letting us know right away that the good times are not going to last for much longer.

The briefing remains intact, along with getting some short bits of dialog with the crew before starting. Ace has the only dialog of note initially, showing signs of distress as she doesn't like the idea of flying underground with thousands of tons of rock above her. It's nice when these characters get to be human and not just machines piloting space ships.

She shows actual emotion when the mission is revealed. Your team is assigned to deal with a miner revolt on Titan by blowing up the underground city's generator, a plan which will presumably kill the entire population. Didn't expect genocide to be a part of this series, that's for sure.

There's still an optimistic naivety to it all. The soldiers get to object to their orders, and their commander, Captain Eaod, while not willing to refuse, is similarly upset at the task he must give. Everybody agrees this sucks and should not be done. Except Blood, but his archetype is the guy who only wants to kill.

Ace puts her foot down and commits to not participating, no matter what, but then...

When some of the miners launch their own attack on the base so as to not uh.... have them and their families die a horrible death underground in darkness due life support being destroyed out of their employer's malice, the team decides they have to act if just to save themselves. Ace's sudden pacifism gives way on the technicality of I won't kill an entire space colony, but I won't stop Blood from doing it and it's time to scramble.

I was genuinely shocked at this scene. It's quite optimistic that three out of four... soldiers? mercenaries? would refuse orders to harm their fellow man. As is their captain being so accepting of Ace's wishes to not hurt anyone, but the dark turn this story suddenly takes is far more compelling than much of what ZZT games have to offer. Putting players in this horrible spot where they don't want to do this mission, but they themselves will be killed if they don't is extremely bold for a game of this vintage. This kilobyte of dialog hits harder than the majority of ZZT worlds, even the ones that are also trying to tell a complex story.

In Dogfight you fight mutated birds that attack by defecating on your plane. In P.D.S. Enhanced you find yourself committing war crimes that you and your fellow soon-to-be war criminals are deeply opposed to. Few would attempt tell a story like this, and fewer would be capable of pulling it off. Creator here quietly creates one of the most natural and believable sources of conflict in a ZZT game only for it to remain unnoticed for years and years.

Well, at least you're going to doom a bunch of civilians with horrible working conditions in a cool new vehicle!

You and Ace with your "objections" get to focus on defending the base. A new engine is deployed as your ship can now both move and shoot in four directions. This one finally remembers to set the inputs to cycle one, allowing the action to be as smooth as possible, save for a tiny delay between shooting the input arrows and your ship responding with its own shot due to your bullet needing to travel.

You're tossed directly into the fray which made this mission one that I actually failed on my first attempt. Part of it was also taking a moment to get my bearings. It's easier to notice Ace's dark red TunnelRat ship than your own and be focusing on the wrong object as you try to steer.

Ace moves and shoots entirely randomly making her no different from the enemies enemy as she's equally likely to shoot you or the miners. If she's hit three times she ejects and disappears from the fight while the miners themselves take five hits to disable. In both cases, not knowing the specifics of how the game functions here leads to worrying that Ace taking too many hits will be an instant game over, and that the same may happen if you continue to shoot a disabled mining vessel, destroying it. Creator is generous so neither of these things can actually happen. The only way to lose here is to run out of shields.

When the miners have all stopped, the game doesn't automatically advance to the next scene as with the previous engine. Progress occurs when you blast through the rock on the winding path and actually steer yourself to the next location. It's nice to maintain continuity like this, though I wish the game would have at least told me to proceed to the exit.

Looking at the code, players don't even have to deal with the miners. The exit is always active if you can make it there. Even if the ships are all immobile, it can be a pain to get to the exit if Ace does what she did for me and manages to pilot herself into the path forward. You're stuck tailgating until she randomly moves aside in one of the few places where there's room.

It beats another soft lock at least.

Captain Eaod chimes in with the news that Ace had to eject, whether or not you managed to keep her alive. Blood and Hunter are MIA. People are dying, and so this being nice thing is not gonna fly any longer. Kill the miners. Blow up the generator. Doom the colony. Get blood on your hands.

Sure enough, the miners here are destroyed when shot rather than left intact. The amount of rock to tunnel through is much more exposed here so being free to burrow is a lot harder if you don't kill the miners.

There's a nice buildup to the generator itself. The terrain goes from natural and cavernous to a cleaner constructed look as you approach. Some defensive turrets force you to dodge as you approach one of the pillars supporting the generator that you need to shoot your way through. The variety is appreciated.

Similar obstructions await at the generator itself when suddenly something goes wrong.

I wish I meant more excitement with the story, but no, I'm talking about a bug that forces players to cheat to get through this board. Both the normal walls and water that make up the generator are indestructible. You can never actually shoot the core. The easy fix is to just ?ZAP through to the exit.

...but if you're willing to do some digging as the player you can make the core reachable and overload it. While things turn red as if an explosion is imminent. There isn't actually any need to hurry here. The effect is just that one time color change and nothing more.

Creator still tries however. You may not get to see the explosion, but you sure do have to outrun it. A classic outrun the slime board follows. The stakes aren't particularly high as an incoming transmission informs you that you can drill through any lava if you get trapped, turning down the thrill of a dangerous escape sequence to a more tepid experience when the motivation switches from saving your hide to avoiding digging because boring is boring.

The escape continues for another board. It's a shame that the lava is not only not a threat, but explicitly revealed to be illusory. A second lava flow coming in from the side would make it much harder to estimate how much time you have before it cuts off the escape route, compared to the main flow where you know that as long as you're ahead of it you're safe. This could have been a great sequence by just jumping from normal walls to water for the lava animation.

Of course, even if you had to outrun the lava, the slimes are set to a very slow speed, giving you ample time to reach the exit.

It's not even close.

Mission accomplished. A lot of people died today thanks to your actions.

I did such a good job I got a promotion! I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that two more experienced members are MIA and the other surviving squad mate has questioned her orders...

Officially, the game ends here. The story comes to a sudden stop before we can see what it's like over in Gold Wing. It's a perfectly natural chapter break, making PDS Enhanced seem no different than the many other ZZT games with promised sequels which never emerged.

...but as mentioned ages ago now, there are some unused boards in this game that provide a peek at the lead-up to the next mission along with a few other odds and ends from development.

Like this unused platforming engine! It seems decent enough. It just didn't fit in with the Tunnel War mission I suppose. The character's dark blue color goes unused by any crewmate, so this is presumably Avatar here. Another solidly designed engine like this would only serve to make the game more impressive. What purpose it might have had is currently unknown.

There's an alternate title screen that I personally prefer, provided that a finished version would have included the name of the game somewhere. This one is a revised take on the original game's title screen.

You never really get a good look at the defense station in this game, so it would have been nice to see it here or in a cut-scene or something.

There's also a significant amount of story that's only featured here. It provides a date for the initial game of 2021 (lol), as well as quick overviews of not just the two campaigns included in the final release, but a little bit of information about those that never got made.

Near Alpha Centauri, space pirates were preparing an attack on a research station. Near Vega, the armadas of the not-so-defeated alien empire were amassing, with Earth planning to attack them using the "Sunset Dragon", a nearly moon-sized battleship.

And of course, mysterious watchers do be watching mysteriously all the while.

Lastly, a look at the game's cast before jumping into training. I suspect that this all got scrapped as it spoils the surprise that the game is more than just a remake of the scant few levels of the original game.

The would-be third campaign begins with you and Ace having arrived about the USS Pegasus, the research station in the alternate title screen that is going to be sieged by pirates. Your quarters provide a chance to meet the fellow members of the Gold Wings and provide a chance to talk with Ace about the previous mission.

Beyond that, interactions are pretty limited. A computer terminal provides a lot of reading material, rehashing Red Wing's members and their fates, info about the Pegasus...

...Along with this very funny reveal of the Sunset Dragon.

It's a bit much to take in all at once, but Creator's heart is in the right place, adding more detail to this world she's created that might have been relevant had the game been completed.

Like this little touch where the station is so crowded that your lodgings aren't even your own. You're stuck borrowing space from crew that are currently on their own missions.

I really appreciate the way PDS Enhanced has humanity spreading across the galaxy while still struggling. It makes me wonder what society is like when the corporations are getting away with blowing up generators and even esteemed Captain Avatar isn't even respected enough to get a quarters he can call his own. It seems like the more we learn about humanity in the 2030s, the rougher things are looking.

The two surviving members of Gold Wing can be talked with, introducing new characters to replace Blood and Hunter. We get some quick and easy archtypes with Slice, the 18 year old engineering genius who already completed college and Blast, a green haired kid too focused on listening to music to notice the player.

The highlight is talking with Ace where you can tell that she's struggling for all sorts of reasons after the previous mission. Does she blame herself for Hunter and Blood's death? Does she hold out hope that they're alive somewhere? Is she terrified as to whether or not she can be helpful on this next mission? Or worse, terrified of what she'll be forced to do in order to "help"?

One final briefing for a mission that can't begin.

Like the previous mission, you can talk to the crew, though not much is said. The mission itself is straightforward and raises no objections this time either.

It's still a bit of a subversion though! The job of defending the Pegasus isn't yours to worry about. Instead, you get to launch a counterattack on their own base while the defenses will be minimal. This is totally the mission where you'd do a bombing run with the Behemoth, and we'll never get to do so because that's all there is.

Final Thoughts

A lot of ZZTers have their embarrassing early releases before going on to make a name for themselves. ZZT's young audience in the 90s and the impressive job that was done over the years of keeping their games accessible means you can go back quite far with a number of creators... like Creator. Rarely though does an author start a series in such a rough state and stick with it long enough to transform what was initially lead into gold. The massive sci-fi RPG series Chrono Wars perhaps? But Chrono Wars, for all its positives, is a game continually adds on more and more. Alternate timelines, evil version of protagonists, rules and dangers of time travel that change with each entry in the series. It's a wonderful rollercoaster, but the track was clearly built with the ride in motion. Creator opts instead to repeatedly calling a mulligan, taking the initial idea of shooting aliens from a defensive space station and trying to turn that into something players will remember, return to, and even look forward to more of.

By this third attempt, Creator found a way to take a typical shooter and transform it into a much more memorable game. The Red/Gold wing teams provide some much needed character drama that can keep players interested even when the gameplay remains the weakest aspect. PDS Enhanced has some similarity with clysm's Turmoil, putting a group of space cadets into dangerous scenarios and taking advantage of the game starring a group rather than a lone hero to create some drama and moments of anticipation. I left PDS wanting to know what was going to happen next. And unlike Turmoil, the game takes a much more serious approach to the subject matter. Rarely in ZZT games do we see the heroes forced to do something awful, and have to live with the guilt of their actions.

With PDS, Ace's disgust at attacking civilians, only to then be forced to in order to keep herself alive is a remarkably complex plight to reckon with in a ZZT world. Toss in a few hints that she had romantic interest in someone else on that mission now presumed killed, and the game's story will hook you in. That in turn gives the rest of the game a chance to breathe. Once the game has more appeal than shooting aliens, the shooting aliens is permitted to step back. Text in ZZT is the one thing that isn't so heavily limited. Trying to develop a little shooting engine, no matter how well executed it is, will never be able to approach anything its audience hasn't already seen done 1000x better in other games. But once players are snared by the story, there's suddenly motivation to engage with and appreciate the rest of the experience.

You will have more fun putting a quarter into a dusty Galaga combat than any of the three games here can offer during their own intergalactic dogfights. That is forever ZZT's curse, to offer only a facsimile of gameplay styles well over 40 years old. What ZZT can do though, is pull you into a world in such a way that you'll be reluctant to shoot a because there are people in there who only want a better life for themselves and their families.

PDS ended with me wanting more, especially seeing the sliver of boards for the third theater hidden away. After much love and care was given to nurturing this idea, PDS Enhanced finally allows it to begin to blossom. The third time really is the charm with this one.