Meet The Tardigrades!

Today's selection is Meet The Tardigrades!, a game with some very eye catching graphics for ZZT. It was released in 2006 by "The Pynk Panthyr", somebody who was more ZZT adjacent than directly involved with the ZZT community. I don't think you'd see them around on IRC or the z2 forums of the era, but I definitely, followed their livejournal where they were a friend of a friend of a friend. So it's cool to take a look at something a bit less mainstream for ZZT. And what could be less mainstream than a blatant parody of The Beatles?

From the title screen however, it's apparent there's going to be more to this fab four than a certain resemblance to the British sensation. The Tardigrades are a band not from earth, and we'll be dealing with a sci-fi game whose story feels less like "A Hard Day's Night" and more like "Star Wars".

Like all Mirror Image Games productions, the game opens with this vertical walk down a logo where a mirror image of the player appears on to their right. It's an iconic opening and MIG's branding is about as on point as any ZZT company's ever was.

After the logo the player is taken to a colorful main menu with some unlabeled objects and a passage to actually begin playing the game itself.

The credits jump right to the special thanks, skipping the usual slew of giving the game's sole developer as many credited roles as possible. Myliverhurtz is thanked, and I believe the reason for Panthyr's introduction to ZZT and the connection I had on Livejournal back in the day that got me following them.

And our first thanks to the Beatles for being an inspiration.

The other object gives some information for the creation of the game. It looks more like the information you get in 24 Hours of ZZT contest games with its list of music listened to while creating the game. We also get to learn that it only took a week to complete. It's not a particularly long or in depth game, and sets itself up as a first chapter of which (as tends to be the case with ZZT series) is also its last.

Tragedy strikes. But let's not despair for a broken CD player and instead move forward so that we can meet the Tardigrades.

This long nosed fellow is not a Tardigrade.

Already I get "Star Wars" vibes. Myrddin here is getting these premonitions that something big is going to happen soon, and the player is without the slightest context for what that might be.

And here are the Tardigrades themselves! Jukka, Paava, Gjergj, and Frodo are all dressed in their early Beatles fashions of a nice suit and tie, but with the addition of a colorful cape as well. The cape may be to make them look less samey with their body designs, but also serves a use by indicating what color the object representations of them will be in cutscenes. It's a nice way to give some meaning to the colors selected for the objects.

Their current discography is loaded with hits that ought as well be Beatles lyrics.

Nobody has any idea who they are right now though, and if they can't make it to that festival, nobody ever will.

This game is mostly cutscene, but it works out nicely with how pleasant and detailed the art is to look at. The sliver of visible ZZT on the monitor is a great touch and the bullet uses blinking colors to create an illusion that bullets are repeatedly being fired.

There's some big text dump here which gives us the plot of the game, at least from the Tardigrade's side of things. Myrddin's own worries have yet to cross paths with the band.

But it won't be long before they all meet. The concert's in two days and there's no way they can afford to charter a ride. Their only hope is to venture up to the dark woods, ignore the rumors about Myrddin, and hope that they can bum a free ride from him. It's not much of a plan, hoping that the weird old guy in the woods will be friendly and willing to help some random band for no reason other than to be nice.

Still, Frodo is right that there's no alternative for them, and that realistically the worst that can happen is a "No" response.

Cut to the dark woods. Pynk does some nice work on the trees here. You see a lot of trees and forests playing ZZT worlds, and these are definitely some of the better looking ones. Branches made from objects! They look a bit nicer than the usual blob of green on a brown rectangle for a trunk.

With that Frodo runs off into the woods, leaving the rest of the band to wait patiently for his return.

And then we get to gameplay! The player takes on the role of the drummer Frodo and has to venture into the woods to search for Myrddin. Alas right away there's a large barricade and a guard blocking deeper passage into the dark woods.

The guard has orders to not let anybody pass due to how dangerous the woods can be. Speaking with the guard a second time brings up an option to try and bribe the guard, but Frodo has no money to bribe them with.

There is of course an alternate route...

The cave is full of gems as well as some green cave dweller enemies. They'll bite if you get too close, taking away three health, a small amount when the player has 100 and can get more from the gems.

The foes can also be beaten with a good thwack from a drumstick, splattering into a red fake of gore. The way this happened was momentarily exciting for me. I hadn't ran into the enemy to try to attack it, but ran past to attack instead. Most melee combat in ZZT consists of touching the enemy to attack and being in contact with it for too long resulting in being attacked instead. For a moment I thought Meet the Tardigrades flipped it, encouraging quick hit and run movements alongside enemies while running into one would end your momentum and result in damage. It seemed like a very good system, and I can't believe I hadn't seen the contact/touch mechanics flipped like it before!

Except it was all a fluke. In reality the enemy code is to move around for a bit, check if the player is in contact, and if so act like the object was touched. So touch/contact result in the same code running. Then that code simply checks if the object is blocked in a random direction, and if so the monster takes damage. If not, the player is hurt instead. So instead of this cool system that would encourage fast attacks, it's actually completely random (although the more things surrounding the enemy the more likely you'll damage it). What a shame!

The cavern splits immediately, and I opted to head to the right first. It's more monsters and gems.

Followed by another split with more monsters and gems. There's also a health kit at the crossroad however. Using it will set Frodo's health to 100, so it's best to hold off on using it right away since the enemies do so little damage.

Following the northeast path leads to an underground river with a bridge, plus a locked gate. Without the key there's little to do other than turn back and take the other path.

Something different! This room contains a bunch of gems sure, but also some boulders and a sleeping creature.

The object is named "caveboss", and Frodo is given the opportunity to poke the sleeping creature.

Surprising no one, the cave monster wakes up and begins to attack. It feels no different to fight than the cave dwellers in the rest of the cavern, but it takes a few drumstick hits to defeat.

Defeating it results in getting the red key to the gate from earlier. The board also loops back with the cave entrance where if the player has collected 50 gems they can in fact bribe the guard.

But I opted to keep my money and exit from the back end of the cave beyond the locked gate.

I of course immediately try to talk with the guard from the other side to see what will happen, and the answer is nothing. Frodo won't get his attention.

North of the guard results in a board that immediately pops up a message, and I got this nifty little mid-scroll opening screenshot where I learned that the scroll doesn't open with a dark blue background, and that the characters used in the bottom left corner appear incorrect? Weird!

Oh no Frodo!

A mysterious figure arrives to save Frodo from certain doom.

Frodo awakens in a small cottage and encounters a robot that introduces themselves as Sherlock and explains that Myrddin was responsible for the rescue.

There's nothing to interact with save for Sherlock who only mentions that Frodo should go outside.

This leads to a new cutscene where Myrddin and his guests are speaking with each other just outside their ships.

Frodo walks up to them and listens in:

The perspective here is phenomenal. Over the shoulder is not an angle you typically see in a ZZT art board.

The player still has no idea what's going on, but it sounds like something big is going to happen.

Well that was easy. Myrddin is all too excited when he realizes Frodo was looking for him. Perhaps the Tardigrades have more fated for them than just playing at a festival?

Mission accomplished. The boys have their ride.

The player still has no idea what's going on as far as the big picture goes. Myrddin obviously knows a lot more than he's letting on.

Meanwhile Pynk does another great job visually with this dark ship save for the cyan glow cast by one of the monitors.

And so the ship blasts off into hyperspace to make it to the festival.

And as tends to be the case, the sequel never happened. Despite the game just cutting off here, it doesn't feel like an incomplete story since whatever the bigger picture was meant to be isn't really even hinted at. All we know is that Paava, Gjergj, Jukka, and Frodo got their ride.

Final Thoughts

All said and done, the Pynk Panthyr did a nice job here. The game is satisfying to play through with its strange combination of sci-fi and the Beatles. The gameplay is basic, but tolerable, and it doesn't overstay its welcome any.

The real standout here is definitely the art. Pynk has a very distinct style and really knows how to work with it. There's lots of use solid black in backgrounds in order to be able to put more detail onto the foreground characters. Myrddin is depicted very well in every one of his appearances. The group shots of the band manage to fit four characters on a single board without feeling cramped, and while all four of them are mostly pretty similar looking, I think that's more due Beatles than Pynk.

What story is there is pretty basic, a young band wants to play a concert and thinks it will be their big break. There's obviously supposed to be something greater going on with Myrddin, Ernesta, and Aleksei having some feeling that something big is about to go down. Like I said, it feels like Star Wars, and I wouldn't doubt that as an influence, but at the same time there's little we're told about the world the game takes place on. There's no hints of an evil galactic empire or cosmic event or really anything to go on.

The game features a few progress boards where Pynk writes up what they were doing and when in the development of the game over the course of March break. If you take a look at all of them you'll learn that the game is meant to be part of a trilogy, and some notes about the plot being all hammered out so there was something planned, but I wouldn't be surprised if during most of this game's development there was no idea what Myrddin was worrying about.

In the end, we're left with a brief glimpse at a universe that we can never revisit, and it's a shame because the concept here is fun and interesting enough that I would have liked to see more. Still, it's certainly pretty at least!