Zomburbia

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Average Rating: Number of Reviews: 2 Write a review

In my experience, an amusement park appearing halfway into a game that hasn’t previously established said amusement park as part of its premise is typically a sign that the author has given up on their own theme (OK, my experience here starts and ends with Sorcerer). So I have to confess I winced when I stumbled out of Zomburbia’s haunted bayou and came upon a zombie midway – but then I smiled when I got to the description of the bumper cars, where zombies wearing trash cans ran around bumping into each other while burbling motor noises with their decaying lips. Sure, this is a bit old-school for my tastes and maybe not great game design in some abstract sense, but it’s so good-natured and entertaining, it’s impossible to stay mad.

To subject Zomburbia to a degree of pretentious literary theory that it is probably too innocent to deserve, the midway could be synecdoche for the whole: this is a decidedly 80’s style adventure, complete with inventory limits, hair-trigger unwinnability, and a find-the-deed-to-the-haunted-mansion-you-just-inherited plot (someday one of these games will inform the heir that if getting the deed is going to be too much trouble they can just go to the county registrar to get a replacement; sadly SUE ESTATE LAWYER FOR MALPRACTICE goes unimplemented).

I am typically somewhat allergic to such things, and I have to admit that I gritted my teeth the first couple of times I borked a playthrough by not knowing the exact right actions to take in a five-move timed section, or found myself juggling items between my pockets, my backpack, and the ground in an area I wasn’t going to be able to revisit. But Zomburbia’s bark is worse than its bite – notably, there’s an option to allow the SCORE command to tell you whether you’ve made the game unwinnable, and typically an UNDO or two will be enough to get you back on the right path. There are roving zombies, but they’ll typically ignore you for at least a couple of turns, and again a single UNDO will rescue you from their clutches. Similarly, while the game suggests that there’s an overall time limit setting a clock on your adventures, this is either a head-fake or just set at an absurdly generous level so that it adds flavor without frustration. And eventually its goofy enthusiasm won me over.

Make no mistake, there are some rough edges here – there’s a lot of unimplemented scenery, some guess-the-verb issues (PSA: you can’t POINT or AIM the laser pointer at anything, instead you have to SHINE it), at least one read-the-author’s-mind puzzle (or at least if there’s a clue about how to get past the muscle zombie, I missed it), and I found a couple bugs, though the author was responsive about fixing the one I flagged (including a game-breaking one where (Spoiler - click to show)the steamboat didn’t start sinking even after I blew up the boiler – fortunately I had a convenient save and I believe that's also now seen an update).

But look, this is a game where a skeleton band plays “I Left My Heart (in the Other Room)”, which boasts an actually good dumbwaiter puzzle, a giant alligator out of Peter Pan and ooky spooky ghosts out of the Haunted Mansion, and the world’s politest hedge-maze (it has a sign out front telling you you don’t need to bother mapping it!) If you have any affection at all for throwback puzzlers, Zomburbia is a great excuse to put on a headband and a Member’s Only jacket, slide a Van Halen cassette into your boombox, and enjoy a nostalgia trip that’s actually better than we had it back in the day.

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Adapted from a SpringThing24 Review

Played: 4/8/24
Playtime: 2hrs, unwinnable at 1.5. Restarted, 1.25hrs later ANOTHER unwinnable state? score 260/300, Read spoilers, done

An old school lightly-horror-themed parser? Seems like this entry would be talking my love language. Thing is, my intro to the hobby decades ago is definitely seen through rose colored glasses. There are aspects to parsers that I enjoyed when we didn’t know any better but DEFINITELY don’t want to revisit forty years on.

Let’s start with the good callbacks. I have referred to something I call the “Implementation Horizon” in parsers - the level of implemented detail that acts as a soft signal to the player where to stop poking. Zomburbia integrates this horizon deftly into its gameplay by leaning to VERY SHALLOW. This is not a problem, in fact it is very much a strength. Because the implementation is shallow, area descriptions are terse, punchy, and signal interesting items clearly and crisply. There is no futzing about with smothering detail, hunting out the one interesting noun in a sea of them. You don’t need to be TOLD you need the brooch. Its simple presence indicates that quite clearly. This should not be underestimated as a creative choice, it really smooths out player frictions and drag in a seemingly broad space.

The shallow implementation also dovetails nicely with old-school brevity. Descriptions are not flowery and dense, they convey their imagery and importance economically and crisply. The net effect is to make this mid-sized game kind of zippy. Couple that with a good-natured, quirky setup and cast, light humor (especially in death scenes) and it enables a very amiable old school experience. One of my favorite touches was (Spoiler - click to show)the protagonist slowly turning into a zombie. A great little goose to the proceedings. Kevin was also just delightful.

It definitely has gaps though. It is one thing to have a shallow implementation horizon, it is another to not fully plumb that horizon. There are a LOT of unimplemented synonyms, inadequate disambiguation prompts, and bugs (in one instance, dropped items were not listed in room location, and needed me to reread my transcript to figure out what needed picking up.) Some papers were coldly listed as ‘not flammable’ as I sparred with a particular puzzle. It did not fully recognize game state, in one instance telling me "You can’t find anything wrong with the broken hedge trimmers." Those broken ones you mean? Nothing notable comes to mind?

All of that could definitely have been forgiven had the game not also leaned into my two LEAST favorite old school tropes: inventory management and unwinnable states. The former was never really entertaining as a puzzle, it was a misguided attempt at ‘realism’ in works that didn’t need or want it. Its effect is book-keeping drudgery of the least entertaining kind. And this from a guy that plays with spreadsheets. Unfun wastes of my time grate here, particularly when the overall vibe is otherwise so fleet.

Which brings me to the unforgivable sin (according to Monsignor McC) of this game: quietly unwinnable states. My first playthrough, after two hours I stumbled into two of them. One of them was at least clued by in-game warnings, another… just happened? I was on the edge here: was the game enjoyable enough for a replay, two hours in? Its attitude was so friendly, I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt, so I plowed back in. Took me ~40 minutes to retrace my steps which was longer than I wanted at skim-speed, but then got back in the flow. Thirty-five minutes later I had racked up 260 points and was firmly into endgame… when I think I hit another one. I say ‘think’ because I had a flash of something I should have done, but at that point was beyond my UNDO window to revisit. It is possible that the game could have provided NPC business to reopen that window, but nothing in my experience so far indicated that was likely.

Ok, yes, not having a savepoint is on me. I knew what I was in for at this point, I’m an adult with some level of object permanence and cause-effect understanding. What can I say, I let the breezy environment lull me. So here I am, maybe two steps from end, do I go back AGAIN, maybe another hour’s worth of replay? I do not. Old school parsers didn’t have a wealth of alternatives vying for our time. They were what they were, was up to us to meet them on their own flawed terms. Today? I got choices, man. I chose to read the Hint sheet to see what I missed and yeah, I was on the right path. Yay? *sigh* I woulda really liked that, had I not needed to rewind so far.

Mystery, Inc: “Z-z-z-ZOMBIES?!?!” Shaggy
Vibe: weirdly enough, Scooby-Doo Horror
Polish: Rough
Gimme the Wheel! : If it were my project, I would eliminate any and all possibility of unwinnable states. Just kill them with fire. If that doesn’t sate my blinding rage, then nuke the inventory management too.

Polish scale: Gleaming, Smooth, Textured, Rough, Distressed
Gimme the Wheel: What I would do next, if it were my project.

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