Kewltown

Kewltown's king has been overthrown by his wizard, and you're the only one who can stop him and save the princess from slavery and its associated unpleasantness. Brave a series of challenging rooms to make your way to the wizard and end his tyranny! That is, if the cheap enemy and spinning gun placements don't kill you first.

The game's layout interesting. Each board consists of a grid of 3x3 rooms, often non-linearly connected, which you have to fully clear to either get to the passage or get enough keys to unlock a passage. The obstacles in each board are quite varied- shoot some enemies, run a spinning gun gauntlet, dodge shooting objects, deal with some simple slider/boulder/transporter puzzles, the obligatory invisible wall maze and some conveyor courses.

ZZTurbo mixes things up well on each board, but tries to adapt things which don't really work on his small-board format. The worst offenders are 'Three Lakes'-type courses (which work really badly in a small space with quick-firing guns) and overly aggressive enemies clustering around transporters-you have to take hits just to get to the other side, grab a key and dash back. There also is an obstacle course on the final board where it's very easy to get trapped and would require repeated restores or just a ZAP to get through. To the game's credit, you are well-stocked with ammo and torches. The slider and boulder puzzles, while quite simple, work well for the small areas they're set in.

With just a little more difficulty tweaking and maybe a few boards, this would have been a really fun game to play on and off- with each board essentially being a nanogame. Maybe not a lost or undervalued gem, but something which might end up on one's recommended ZZT games list.