♦ Livestream of the ZZT world "Code Red" by Alexis Janson (1993) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/svzztreg/]. ♦
The game so nice we played it twice.
Code Red's biggest claim to fame is that while an individual playthrough is of fairly normal length for a ZZT game, it in fact has eight unique endings each with their own path to reach, effectively making it eight games in one. So Kyle is back at it again, this time hurrying through the house as quickly as possible with two personal goals: 1) Go back to bed. 2) Be nice and non-destructive this time.
As it turns out, these are both impossible. Items in the house are sometimes needed to make any progress on a specific path and our lack of fishbones means having to cheat some up to get a stray cat out of the way. The amusement park has some cute scenery, and some surprising puzzles as well as some surprising issues. I still doubt they'll all be this way, but this is one of the all time greats, and so far it's shown it's age quite a bit. (I'd compare it to Sivion with it's massive world and often frustrating game design.)
The park's fun house has some decent puzzles to get through, though it's most complex one appears to have a pusher placed in the wrong position rendering it unbeatable! Afterwards of course, Kyle rides on a roller coaster before discovering one of the rides is a transporter to an alien space station different from the previous one. There he makes first contact with a bunch of sleeping aliens that will kill him if awakened, so in stead he injects them with chemicals he finds and steals their stuff. This apparently saves the world, though with Kyle dutifully preparing for the aliens' inevitable revenge that will arrive years later.
♦ Play this world directly in your browser ♦
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/svzztreg/
♦ Originally streamed on September 22nd, 2023 ♦
