After a very long pause, it's time to jump ahead all the way to 1998. May 7th, 1998 thanks to the text file offering a release date. At Nadir's suggestion I'll be playing through War-Torn by Matt Dabrowski, who more often used the nickname Madguy <s>O' Bedlam</s>.
The game's text file gives us some background.
Oh, joy of joys, War-Torn is finally finished! After three months of
intense, back-breaking labor in the hot sun (well, not really), I've finally
got something for you slack-jawed yokels to lazily play while sitting back
in your reclining chairs, drinking iced tea, and swatting at flies! What a
horrible waste...
Actually, I think you'll enjoy this game. It's about a dude named Kyle who
sets out to find the awful truth behind a bloody world war. Remember, run
WARTORN.ZZT first, and once you've finished with it, move on to WARTORNX.ZZT.
And another thing- remember to register! No, it doesn't cost anything. No,
you won't be sent loads of junk mail each and every day. It's real easy and
fun! Just send me any comments and suggestions you have about the game, and
I'll send YOU:
-The official War-Torn FAQ (frequently asked questions)!
-A preview of my upcoming games!
-The great feeling that you get when you actually PAY for shareware!...
no, wait...
I don't care how long the game has been out, I'll still send you this stuff!
And don't forget to play my first game, Todd's Adventure!
So quit reading this idiotic text file and get playing, or I'll kill the lot
of ya!*
*It won't be pretty...
This game likely came out right around the time I first discovered the ZZT community so it was a pretty defining moment for me. It quickly became my favorite ZZT game. Nadir says it's not actually a very good game, and as we'll see, Nadir is always right.
Madguy's old website is still up
here. It offers some other info on his ZZT games, but I'm going to it now to do some math, thanks to his birthday.
War-Torn was my first really ambitious (and my only non-humorous) ZZT game. Completed in three months with a two board a day average (I must have had a lot more time than I do now), War-Torn got me noticed among ZZTers, who seemed to like it a lot. Well, except for this one guy who reviewed the game on Z.Archive and gave it a 6/10, but I got him to change it to 7/10 because I was annoyed. The idea for a big epic RPG probably came before the idea for WT's storyline. Basically, I saw how popular Rhygar 2 was, and I said to myself "Hmm, I can do better!" And WT was a better game in some respects. The RPG battle system absolutely kicked the crap out of Rhygar 2's. However, in terms of dialogue, WT fell short. When I play it now, I realize that some of the dialogue was pretty laughably bad. Not all of it, but some. Also, the characters did not have very defined personalities. They were rather generic, if you ask me. WT got kind of overshadowed by the unfinished version of Rhygar 3 that was released about a week after WT. It was still kinda popular, though, and that's all that matters, right? Plus, the whole "world gets blown up" plot will be seen in AfterShocked, only it won't be so dead serious.
This game was made by a 14 year old, and in the writing it really shows. While Town was created by a grown man, ZZT offered many of us the opportunity to create games when learning a proper programming language was just too difficult and too time consuming. ZZT's instant results gave a lot of teens a creative outlet they otherwise wouldn't have had. Playing these games as an adult now, the teenage demographics of ZZT are pretty blatant, but at the time everything was all too relatable in terms of what a game should be.
With all that stated, let's take a look at Matt Dabrowski's War-Torn!
In contrast with Town's bright colors and cheerful appearance, War-Torn starts itself off with a much darker look. By 1998 Super Tool Kit's extended colors were the norm, and with these new colors ZZT games got dark. No more bright green fields of grass, and yellow paths. Now there were browns and grays like any modern game. (That's a jab at modern games.) The title screen plays a simple little theme tune that is used throughout the game and doesn't sound half bad, though it is a bit basic.
The player will also note "Enigma Games Presents" on top of the title screen. By 1998 ZZT companies were a common occurence. Groups of ZZTers banding together to help test each other's games as well as help with graphics and music in some cases. Most companies were just names with little meaning to ZZTers. (I for one can't name any other Enigma Games title.) Though some over the years like Interactive Fantasies and Eagle Rock Interactive had amassed talent enough that you could expect quality just by the label. As ZZT began winding down companies dissolved though collaboration still happened.
While Town dumped us right into the game, War-Torn dumps us into a non-standard menu board. ZZT games often had main menus with passages to the game, credits, or an opening cutscene. Though this one is a bit different in that it's not clearly labeled. The objects above tell us that we should register the game (for free) and get an FAQ and information on Madguy's upcoming releases, and give us the credits.
As is the case with most game's credits, everything but beta testing is just one person. The credits thank the usual crew, Sweeney, Janson, XAbbott who made the color kit Madguy used. Final Fantasy 7 is also thanked for getting Madguy interested in RPGs. I suspect a lot of ZZT games from this time period were inspired by Final Fantasy 7.
With a "Good luck!" we are brought forward to the game's introduction.
Five years ago...
We had received threats...
...from anonymous sources.
Every nation had a reason for war.
No one could have known it...
...but we were on the brink of disaster.
All of our major cities were wiped out.
This happened in every area of the world.
No one knew who was to blame.
We were at war with ourselves...
...and maybe something even greater.
Our introduction sets the backstory for us. The world is at war, though nobody is really sure who started it. The blue sky fades away to a bright red explosion and our skyline is wiped away in a nuclear blast. I already made claim that the writing is clearly a 14 year old, but the story as a whole in War-Torn isn't bad at all. The dialog is where things get sketchy. Mankind brought to the brink of extinction through manipulation by an unseen force is a perfectly reasonable plot for a sci-fi RPG like this one.
The player is dumped into another cutscene which introduces them to the protaganist, named Kyle. He's now old enough to enlist in the army and is leaving his home today to do so. His father was drafted when the war began and they haven't heard from him in years. Kyle isn't too worried about his mother, as many families share homes in the forts where people now live.
One nice detail to this opening cutscene that I don't believe many ZZTers did, was jumping back and forth between objects to show who's talking. Typically games were written in more of a play like form with dialog prefixed by the name of the character speaking. This is why I'm not going to be doing many text dumps except when it's something worth noting.
We're taken to our first board in which the player is in control. Some objects wander about aimlessly and will say their goodbyes to Kyle should the player touch them. All these characters are given names, though none of them are of any importance. One mentions that you're not the only one from the fort enlisting, there's also somebody named Jake. I've never been sure if the large object in the center is meant to be a stand or a well. Either way it is massively out of scale.
Despite other paths being drawn, there is no way to go but south, the previous scene establishing that it's time for the player to take their leave.
Look at that shadow!
A message pops up fairly quickly, Kyle notices what appears to be flames and wreckage ahead at the bus stop where he was meant to begin his journey.
{SCENE MISSING}
The player can actually go back into the fort (I didn't), but there is no longer anybody there. There's no draft dodging here.
Somebody has blown up the bus! Rather quietly judging by how nobody heard an explosion so near to their homes in the middle of a war. The blue body is identifed as Jake, "presumably dead". Kyle vows to make whoever was responsible pay for their crimes and continues onward without the bus.
We are treated to a cutscene where Kyle hears noises behind the tree, and a man with a mask over his face steps out, most likely the bomber. The first RPG battle of the game commences.
We are taken to a simple screen showing the fight of Kyle versus the bomber. A tutorial pops up explaining how the system works. Touching the white object brings up lets you choose an action, an attack with your staff which is low damage but easy to hit, a charge attack which is high damage but hard to hit, and shooting your gun at the cost of a bullet for high damage while being easy to hit. Later on the player will gain access to magic spells and first aid kits to heal, but for now we get a relatively simple battle.
In a future update I will make a more detailed analysis of how this engine works.
Though it looks like we're at an advantage, the combat is rather fickle. Basic attacks do too little damage, and missing repeatedly is very common. In addition to this, the bomber throws a grenade at you when his health is low which deals four damage to Kyle, exactly half of the health he can lose without dying.
Trying again, and being a bit more aggressive, things work out better. All of these fights can of course be trivialized by saving in the middle of them, but that's cheating.
I recall being genuinely amazed at how good the drawings of people were in this game. The creature we killed melts into a puddle of blue goo. Realizing that he's dealing with something that wasn't human Kyle decides to report this to the authorties.
Continuing down the road we reach another fort, Fort Edgefield. A trainer offers us the chance to learn our first magic spell for $25. I make sure to buy it, and would expect most people to since it's magic in an RPG so it's got to be good.
Fort Edgefield seems much smaller and less walled in than our home fort. Kyle comments on it not being as nice as his home.
The first building we explore has an old woman who tells us her son is out there fighting. A radio can be turned on, warning of Russian troops approaching Fort Glasseye and warning citizens to evacuate while the army arrives to defend the fort.
The side room has noting but boxes of junk, except for a photo which the player can look at by going into the passage.
What a chin.
The middle building is the police station, where we can report what we've seen.
Kyle: Someone blew up a bus with some people on it!
Policeman: Whoa, slow down, kid!
Kyle: My best friend was on it. I found the guy who might have done it, and he attacked me. He had some sort of strange mask on, and it had these weird glowing eyes. I think I killed him, and then he melted into a blue slime...
Policeman: A blue slime, huh?
Kyle: Yes, a blue slime.
There's the brilliant writing of War-Torn. The policeman doesn't beleive us, but lets us look through files in the back to see if there's any record of anything like it.
In the back room the player can examine the files where they will find a news report from two years earlier.
A sixteen-year-old girl, Anne Chase, was found lying unconscious in a corn field west of her home in Fort Stellah. After regaining consciousness, she claimed that some '...bug-eyed, mask-wearing men...' had kidnapped and performed tests on her.
Doctors say that she may have been drugged, adn that the images which she saw were not real. Police inspectors are not planning to go into this case in any more detail.
Kyle vows to go to Fort Stellah and find Anne to get any information he can. At this point you can advance the story and leave the fort, though there's more to do first. You can show the cop the article and say you're going to find her, and he'll say she was probably lying, and in two years she could've moved, died, or been sent to the nut house. Poor Anne.
The last home seems to offer nothing but more flavor, the mother says she hasn't heard from her husband in months and the little boy is excited to see somebody who's going to fight in the war. RPG savvy players will know to loot any home they can enter, and 10 flakes of magic dust can be found in the corner of the bedroom. Despite learning magic, we still don't know how much it costs to actually cast it.
Heading west takes us to the fort's public kitchen.
Inside the kitchen is more flavor, a veteran who lost his leg talks about how much better the food is here than in the military. A fat man says he's showing up for lunch early so there's no line.
In the middle of the cafeteria is a vendor selling 5 ammo for $10, 10 flakes of magic dust for $5, and a first aid kit for $5. I spend all my money buying bullets (as they're consistent) and a first aid kit, as healing is essential.
With my shopping done, I can now leave the town and proceed forward.
The guards will now let us through, though we didn't know we were blocked to begin with. If you head here without having read the newspaper article, you can't proceed as there's a battle just two miles away and they won't let anybody pass. The fighting is rather close to home.
We're treated to a brief cutscene of Kyle and his one bloated leg heading towards Fort Stellah, where he notices a faint red glow, two pairs of eyes in the bushes beside him.
Our second battle makes us fight against two more of the mysterious creatures. These ones have less health than our first fight against a creature, but of course we'll be taking twice the attacks.
I open the battle with my new thunder spell, which turns out costs a whopping 20 magic points. It does however, hit both the creatures at once for three damage, making the battle halfway over immediately. Bullets meanwhile are significantly cheaper, and do the same damage, though only to one enemy at a time.
With my additional supplies, this fight goes much more smoothly, a bullet for each creature finishes them off.
Upon finishing the battle, one of the creatures isn't quite dead, and Kyle's attempts to find out what the creatures are are thwarted as one melts away and the other falls off the cliff.
The creature is impaled on a dead tree below. "It was a horrific sight." Kyle wonders where they came from and why they tried to kill him before moving on.
Next time, we'll explore Fort Stellah.
