Nightplanet

There are four systems around the room which handle, security, mine observation, communications, and power.

The power is turned back on to the station which allows Mentu to work the other systems as necessary.

The security system offers a few interesting choices, and despite being a century old Mentu can figure out how to work it from his past experience. Highlighting the need for experience to be able to understand an old system makes me wonder how old of a computer I'd be able to comfortably work my way around.

These are definitely references.

Thanks to the earlier exploration of the crew quarters Mentu is able to access the door release function.

The player can only open the last two doors, as Mentu sees no reason to open the others. I only opened door 11 at first since that was the Anubis door and I couldn't recall the other door that had a note on a desk visible.

The mine observer allows Mentu to take a look at the safety of the two mines. Both of them are okay to enter. Usually in these sorts of settings you'd expect to have to power on ventilation or something, but aside from a little radiation there's nothing to fear. Well, other than the hell bugs which skeletonized the crew and are most likely still down there in the dark.

The communications system is responsible for broadcasting the distress call that has gone unanswered for a century until Mentu showed up. You can shut it off and hopefully prevent somebody else from becoming stranded here in the future.

Raising the bulkheads gives access to the station's data logs. Most of them are unhelpful records about mining operations over the years the station was active, but the later entries reveal more about the station's fate.

Mentu learns the truth about what happened. The creatures made it to the mining colony's systems and drained them to nothing. The crew was stranded (I find it very odd that there isn't a single ship on the planet for them!) and couldn't last long with the ever hungrier creatures.

The planet was safe once the energy ran out, but Mentu and his ship's arrival only means more energy for the since dormant creatures.

The records room skeleton can be identified after the log has been read.

Mentu can now access the locked crew quarters and hopefully learn something to help him escape from the nightplanet. The crew died cold and frightened.

"Lacks experience with skeletons" is a very good phrase. This skeleton is the only one different from the others, but was wisely placed in front of an object that makes up the desk giving the player a reason to want to touch the object in hopes of moving it. If the key had been on a random skeleton it would be very easy to miss this key.

Nothing else is any help here.

The power room can be accessed but Mentu can't interact with anything inside yet.

I had to go back to the systems room and open the last crew door here to get an idea of what to do next.

The doctor's plan is laid out, the radiation emitted from the tritactinum will draw the creatures into th emines provided there's enough gathered together. From there an explosion can be rigged to destroy the creatures while Mentu can safely fly off.

I really like the finality of the "Mentu now knows what to do" line. A man. A plan. A tritacinum. Nightplanet.

Of course, this plan hinges on Mentu entering the dark mines.

Only the northern mines give a message before entering them as well as torches. The other mines entered earlier just let Mentu walk in at any time which seems like a minor design issue.

For all the tension Myth managed to build earlier, actually entering the mines winds up being a low point for the game.

Here they are with the lights on. The player needs to navigate this winding little path and place the tritactinum blocks in the cavernous area.

The issue comes from the fact that that has to be done one block at a time and a lot of blocks are required! Five for this first mine is a lot of walking the same path over and over.

When the last block is in place the detonator is set and the creatures begin to flock in. There's no actual change to the board when this happens or anything. I'd definitely believe this to be a case of the time limit beginning to get in the way of the game.

The other mine needs seven blocks to be deposited inside. It's incredibly tedious. The few torches provided won't be enough to get through the entire sequence either.

It's a good thing the second mine is basically a straight line from end to the other because otherwise cheating would be necessary. I was also a little let down neither mine had a skeleton for whoever it was that tried to follow through on the doctor's plan earlier. There's some indication of this with one mine requiring fewer blocks be placed inside, and I think it was a missed opportunity to show them along with a skeleton.

It also would've been cool if each mine needed half as many blocks of tritactinum!

More insects begin to flood the second mine. It's time to prepare the detonation and get off this planet.

And it wouldn't hurt to bring back a little something right?

I go to cross the wires, except the power's still on so I kind of electrocute myself. Thankfully this isn't a Sierra game so Mentu lives to shut off the power and try again. (You will die if you try it again.)

The Spanish is of course "High voltage flavor!" which was definitely a marketing slogan of Fanta. We were warned earlier that this game was fueled by the drink.

The mine observation system warns the player about the dangerous levels of radiation in the mines now.

Mentu can now power down the station, but doing so will mean it can't be restarted again.

This time Mentu can cross the wires and get ready to get off the planet. The power is off but the wiring still manages to begin starting the chain reaction to the station's destruction.

There's no actual time limit in play, the player is just expected to leave at this point.

If you picked up an extra block then you can get a slightly different ending, which is really just mentioning that you'll make some profit. The standard ending just mentions taking off above the explosion and being done with it.

When I took the block, I half expected it to cause a bad ending where it meant that a purple creature would make it on board my ship, but that's not the case. However, if you don't shut off the emergency distress beacon then you can get an alternate ending:

rip

The game ends with a large explosion illuminating the icy wasteland of the planet's darkened hemisphere. Again Myth does a great job of taking advantage of the mostly black background allowing her to create some lighting.

The game ends with a ZZT credits board. The mystery has been solved, Mentu got his valuables, and the threat has been neutralized. Myth gives plenty of shoutouts to some other ZZTer/MZXers and reminds you that this game came out during the Clinton administration.

The apologies are very unecessary! The science isn't why anybody was playing the game! The plot is nothing amazing but it moves the game along just fine. The game's graphics are servicable for the main gameplay portions while the cutscenes are very well done. The writing is strong even if the dialog for the dead crew is a bit more by the book. The obvious puzzles is an interesting way of looking at it. They don't really feel like puzzles, and the game feels more like a modern indie game that's more concerned with telling a story through gameplay than being something to beat.

The credits screen doesn't have a #endgame so I'll accept that apology.

That's almost all there is for Nightplanet. The game has a single unused board which is pretty great.

This notes board has a little bit of dev commentary about how much work they put into the game, and the disappointment that it's for a simple little game jam and not some years in the making masterpiece of gaming. It's a shame! Not that the effort wasn't put towards something "better", but that Myth felt this way at all. Making a game in 24 hours is an accomplishment itself, and there's a lot of capability shown here. If anything Myth should have been proud for what she accomlished here!

I don't know what it is about these contests, but people loved to put these random stats about their creation in them. Food eaten, hours slept, shows watched, and music listened to all come up quite a lot.

I'm impressed by the 90 minutes of sleep. I participated in a few 24 Hours of ZZT contests and would frequently plan to pull all nighters, but never came anywhere close to actually doing so.

Also the Simpsons episodes were reruns going by the dates the contest was held. I was really hoping we'd be able to know what episode aired.

Final Thoughts

Nightplanet is an excellent showcase on what you can do with ZZT on a time limit. Playing it sets a high bar for the contest and I don't expect most of the other entries came close to this. You wouldn't guess the game was made in a single day. Myth demonstrates a strong understanding of what to go for in a contest like this, focusing on telling a story above all else, and it absolutely works. The world is extremely tiny, empty, and there's very little to actually interact with, but you'll never notice it while playing because you'll be more invested in figuring out what happened to the station and how to get off it yourself.