Invasion ZZT Revision

Underground, Andrew rushes on ahead probably right into an alien trap leaving Sam to catch up. The alien with the box is still pushing it and grumbling the whole time about regretting joining the army.

The only other item of interest is this scroll which "cryptically" explains that the gem count for a player attempting to collect them all right now should be five out of ten. The annoyed alien also mentions how they lost the key somewhere which means Sam can safely turn around and collect any missed gems. Later on there will be a point where Sam can't turn back, and even later there will be a point where the location of all the gems is revealed in the game itself and not just the documentation, but you'd have to start over to collect anything missed by the time you see the full list in game.

This alien is one of the most sympathetic characters I've seen.

They also do what I can only describe as yeeting themselves right out of the game as they run right over some walls and off the board.

In reality there's a fake wall path to the north and a secret board connected to this one. I'm literally using a custom HUD to show me board exits and I still missed it.

Guess what? That secret board has one of the gems on it.

Instead all I found were the two crates which contained some health via an alien meal (which Sam debates on if it's safe for his body to consume it) and some coins and torches in the other.

The alien crossing the fake walls is weird enough that it's very jarring to see, but I don't think I'd have made the connection that the player would be able to follow them, especially playing in vanilla ZZT and not being able to see a board connection to the north. I think this could have been communicated better.

This is the sort of thing that makes me think Andrew is going to get captured. This is a very dialog heavy game, and it's been a game where the dialog has been enjoyable. The issue though is that so much of the dialog has been about brainstorming what the aliens are up to and how to stop them. I feel like once aboard the UFO there's going to be far less reason for these long conversations. I'm expecting a more frantic pace and shift to action that's going to make these conversations seem a lot more tedious.

The password is of course the alien-Canadian flag colors of red, white, and pink.

Andrew, desperately wanting to get him and Sam killed just runs right through the open door into a group of aliens, pushing Sam along the way.

THEY SURE DID BUDDY.

Luckily by this point Sam's gotten pretty good at shooting aliens. Andrew, despite being armed with a weapon now, doesn't move or shoot during this encounter. He'll say ouch if he's shot but there's no way for him to be killed and end the game.

Once the defenses are neutralized, Andrew runs ahead again showing no fear whatsoever. This time it works out as there aren't any aliens left down here. Instead there's this very large device whose purpose is currently unknown.

Again the stylistic choice to use walls instead of objects for the bulk of these things works. It's all weird alien technology and it's perfectly fine to make no sense.

This is the perfect opportunity to ditch Andrew. Have him operate the controls while Sam uses the transporter and it's a nice easy break. At least until Sam discovers that there's a timer.

Sam activates the machine and Andrew is beamed up onto the ship. Sam follows closely behind.

Welcome to the UFO. Andrew is already checking the place out when Sam finishes arriving. (The player's in the empty spot since I took my screenshot at the wrong time while paused.)

I always love the goof that aliens are running MS-DOS compatible machines that seems to show up every so often in ZZT.

There's a big mess of dialog yet again as the two try to come up with a plan since getting on board has been pretty improvised and none of them know the details of where exactly they are or where they should be going. Finding the front door and getting Anne on the ship seems like a good enough first step, but before the two can get anywhere...

Two aliens wander onto the scene.

Okay. Okay I did not expect this to happen. Alena seriously just killed off Andrew.

Even in death these kids just want humanity to be better.

Sam gets the random alien artifact and brings it to Andrew.

The death of Andrew absolutely caught me be surprise. Invasion ZZT has played like a kid's novel so far. The characters have felt invincible if only because they were the protagonists. They were too important to actually get rid of, and here we are with one them lying dead in the middle of a UFO.

The more you dwell on it the heavier it gets. There's no ages for the characters, but if I had to guess I'd say they were intended to be pre-teens. This is a ZZT game that killed a child and not in a way where you're supposed to find it funny or edgy, but genuinely sad.

Most ZZT games handle death very poorly, through a combination of factors including killing characters the player has only superficial knowledge of, using the death as a joke (typically in poor taste), or hamming it up so bad that it ought as well be a joke. The characters Sam, Anne, and Andrew are not only developed, but they've been such positive people that this scene is significantly more tragic than any other ZZT death scene I can think of. You probably aren't holding back tears, but there's no denying the real sadness felt here, even when the scene itself is still a little silly. (None of the aliens seem to care that Andrew was talking to somebody else the whole time?)

Alena brings death to ZZT in a way where an emotional response can actually occur, and I think of all the surprises this game has had, it's this one that makes it stand out most of all.