Game Review: Zzzz (Commodore 64, Mastertronic)

The adventure game genre had come a considerable way by 1985, with even budget games having the option of having text and graphics describe your location, and a reasonable parser to work with. Utilities such as The Quill would help creation easier, with the imagination being the key limiter. But how do you stand out from the crowd in an increasing market of this genre that may also bring in the casual player in? Well, how about being able to input some of the commands with the joystick instead – that would help, right?

Sleepy Time

The plot of the game is relatively straightforward. You have gone to sleep, but it is such a deep sleep that you are trapped in your own dream, from which you are unable to wake. Therefore, you must travel through the land of Zzzz, and find and cross the border post and return to your normal world, or be lost in the dreams for months. How you manage to escape is up to you, but the plot is further enhanced by a nice loading screen which mimics the cassette front cover, showing you fast asleep in bed, and a little version of an out of sync Brahams Lullaby on the title screen, where the timing is all over the place.

After being asked if you wish to load a previous game or not., the game starts. If starting from fresh, you get a visual and text description of your bedroom, and pressing space sends you to sleep. From here, the dream commences and you fall out of bed and into an ocean with you appearing to swim for help with a mine bobbing out of the water, so you would definitely wish to avoid that. The screen now shows a graphic description of your location with text below and a space to input any text, and on the left and right hand side, various icons, which are all explained by the instructions.

Icon Driven

So, on the left side, top to bottom, the icons are effectively to move you in the compass directions, enter or leave a location, examine (magnifying glass) pause (bed) and save game (cassette). On the right side, they read from top to bottom with score, use (muscle man arm), help (question mark), inventory (filing cabinet next to help), redescribe (someone reading), get (grabbing a pole) and drop (hand showing dropping).  It is useful that the instructions do note these. To move between the icons, use the joystick and press fire to select. You can be more traditional and use the keyboard too.

What may have also been useful was a list of some of the parser commands so that you would have an idea of what may be needed to enter that is not one of the standard commands, and that may have helped give you an idea of what is to come. Also, because the cursor is a free circle, you have to move it between the icons, and that can be quite slow, especially if you can just type N to go north for example. You may find it useful on occasion, but it may have been a case of either using all commands via joystick with a more responsive system, or just stick to keyboard and avoid the extra frills.

Exit Sandman

One of the earlier puzzles is that once you move North, you will see some sand, and having a spade to dig will be helpful. The spade at first digs a bucket out with a voice underneath, and once you have lifted the bucket up, someone appears – it’s a sandman, according to the game’s text. More digging may also help here, just a hint to get you started. What you will note is that there are little musical interludes as the game plays, which may also give you an indicator that you might have done something right.

You soon discover the border post, where you ultimately need to cross to complete the game, but there is a sleeping bandit who guards the post – try to go past, he wakes and you are captured in limbo. However, there is a bike present which you may find useful, except you cannot carry it. So how do you make use of it? Well, it turns out there is a way, but the fact that in the game most objects cannot be used without picking them up first does make it more difficult than it might be. Again, a sensible explanation of the parser would help here.

In the Igloo

Another case of the parser or the game not explaining things well comes later on when you are able to locate the igloo, which in the description mentions that there is a wooden hatch that is inset into the wall. The graphic description also shows there is a hatch there, but any combination of commands to do something with the hatch does not work. Do you know what does? Ring bell! Since when is there is a bell present that is described for you to press? And how would you even know to enter that?  Such things like this do not attract new games players into adventure gaming, but maybe put them off because of the lack of clarity and obscurity of what should be something relatively simple to work out.

Once inside the igloo, you can then work out if there is anything inside there which may help you on your quest, and then one of those items may be useful to be worn. If you do, another interlude plays which again does serve as an indicator that you are doing the right thing. You also get to a road where you may not be able to cross safely, but how can you manage to do so otherwise? Again, the solution is that obscure you would not be able to necessarily even guess it, and that is one of the main faults here, especially relatively early on.

Wheels on the Bus

Later on, if you manage to progress further, you will encounter the road with the bus again. This time however, you need to find a way for the bus to be able to stop. If you do that, you can then board the bus, but of course do you have any money to pay the fare? Well, if you do, then there is another challenge, which, if you win, does mean that you may be able to get further provided you are a good shot. Some of these later puzzles at least are more logical and does mean that you may be able to get further in – but the problem is sometimes because they are obscure solutions to try, you are basically bashing the proverbial head against a brick wall.

Certainly, in some cases, entering some commands comes up with an odd reply too, as if the authors were attempting to inject some humour. Now this would work occasionally, but too often it feels misplaced and does not help you get further in the game either. When you do eventually manage to find the relevant border post and the way to cross it, you will think that the number of locations within the game are not as many as they could be either, and possibly the obscurity of the puzzles masks that somewhat.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Zzzz are in high resolution, with plenty of splashes of colour. The icons either side of the descriptive graphics are clear as to what they are, but they may have been better placed on one side of the screen only so that it would be less distracting. The text is readable enough but the choice of a red font on black background is not the best choice, and clarity would be key at times. Each location does also come with some animation if you do a particular task, which is a nice touch and addition. The little sound jingles when you do manage to complete a task relevant to help you complete the game do add some sense of worth to what you are doing, and some are a little off key – especially the title theme which is all over the place.  Nice to have nonetheless.

Final Thoughts

If this was just a plain text and graphic adventure, then Zzzz would work perfectly fine as it is. Having the addition of a joystick control for some of the basic commands does initially seem a nice idea, but the time it takes to move the cursor to those commands and enter them means you may as well have used the keyboard to enter it instead, and put more into the gameplay and descriptions to give you more of an experience. And that is where the game does fall down. The plot is perfectly fine enough, but the lack of detail and clarity in some of the descriptions means that you are having to almost guess some of the commands rather than have some logic about them, which does seem unfair. The obscurity of some of those puzzles really does not entice most people into continuing far into the game. A missed opportunity.

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