ZOMGame

ZOMGame
Author	CJA
Company
Release Date	October 11, 2005
Genre	Joke/Adventure
Download	No link available.

Plot summary

1

The player awakens in a nondescript house as a default smiley. There is no plot at this point; the player simply walks around the house, checking things out. When he has explored enough, a door to the backyard opens. The player is knocked out and goes through a short dream land before waking up in the house. The player, now possessing ammo, shoots things instead of looking at them to progress the "story".

After shooting various objects, the player then ventures back outside to face a gigantic bat, Fatbat, who is blocking the sun. The two fight in a rather long-winded RPG battle. The player then goes toward the harbor via a road which constantly repopulates with builtin objects. He eventually meets Dad, who goes out on a boat with the player. The boat is attacked and the player swims back to shore, where it begins to snow.

The player travels along a snowy road and into a labrynthine factory. After clearing the factory, a sudden cutscene parodying Revvy's XXXX: i am vinn diezel begins. The player is then dropped off in what appears to be POOP ROAD >:(. Arcade points, which are scattered about, grant the player access to an arcade. The player escapes to Level 2 through a river in the back room.

2

After dropping through an abyss and turning red, the player finds himself in a monochromatic world. This world leads into an unfriendly ZZT-like land, named Delaware. The player turns green on contact with a green floor at the end of the level and falls through a hole in it.

3

The intro to Level 3 consists of the player being shot from a cannon and falling down a hole labeled Barkness. However, he lands in a place with a brown floor; it's POOP ROAD >:(! Kuddy is there, and he explains that "POOP ROAD >:( is the new Barkness." The player then travels through POOP ROAD >:(, fighting builtins like tigers and eyes. The player meets with Nahah, who is (in the game) the leader of POOP ROAD >:(. They decide to rebuild POOP ROAD >:( and turn it into an ice world. Afterwards the player hops in a portal and returns to the "real world."

4

This chapter is mostly about playing games that CJA has already made. The player must first play through EMOBLOCK! and then through Serenity, CJA's entry in a BKZX about serenity. There's more ammo in this version; the lack of ammo in the BKZX version made the game impossible.

5

After killing the boss of Serenity, a short cutscene appears where the player falls and "dies." Four seasons pass and the player awakes as a skeleton. The next screen serves mostly as a transition; however, some of the walls are fake, leading to an optional invisible maze. The door at the end of this maze leads to a "ZZT porn" cinema. The player then progresses through a short, tedious sidescrolling section, collecting "moneys" to spend on a reviving "phenix" down.

6

The next screen holds the first few rooms of USUK!. After that is a screen with only a lemonade, followed by various rooms consisting of emptiness littered with structures and small objects. Eventually the player becomes tired of wandering and has to sleep.

A very unique cinema starts, highlighting the player's journey so far. A man appears in front of the player, telling him that all he sees is a dream, and he can revive him, at the cost of the player becoming white.

The player awakes in a bright white area. He approaches some extra lives, which become guards. He attempts to escape but slips back into insanity.

7

A man approaches the player, who is unconcious in the middle of a snow field. He casts a spell and revives the player. The man explains that a "shremedy truck" crashed in the neighborhood, and the player thereby became insane. He invites him to his house. There, the player and the man talk. The man says his name is Asimov, that the town they are in is Easton, and that he will join the player on his trip back home.

Asimov and the player begin their travel on a foggy road. The clouds clear and the sun shines through, which serves as a sort of metaphor for the player's situation. They then travel more stretches of road in which builtins are randomly scattered throughout, akin to the road to the harbor. At the end of this road, they meet the Easton Tree. Asimov claims that they must RPG fight the tree; so they do, although the tree never fights back.

They reach Cambridge (which is, in real life, a midpoint between Easton and Madison). They kill a lone zombie and continue. At this point, the sun sets.

8

The player and Asimov travel a scary, dark road. After a long travel they see dawn. However, on the path, they encounter two Jermans. They are easily slayed by the player, but Asimov has a bad feeling about this... and he's right: the Jermans have invaded Madison. After killing most of them, the player encounters their leader in his house. After one hit he dies. As a quick ending to the otherwise long game, the player goes to a hotel, and there, spends the rest of his days.

Bugs

ZOMGame was a host to many bugs, most of which weren't actually intentional. Here are some of the killers:

1. Going on the upper snowy path when leaving the harbor gets you stuck on the next board.
2. Going left on the POOP ROAD >:( sidescroller will take you to the title.
3. In the start of level 2, the commands counter is set high and loops without wait 1 commands cause the game to slow to a crawl. You can fix this by pressing TAB, entering "COMMANDS" in the first box, and entering "100" in the second box.

Facts

• ZOMGame has around 100 boards.
• The ZZT porn board is board 69.
• ZOMGame has several spontaneous cinemas inbetween the gameplay sections. Most of its humor is derived from these cinemas. The most famous cinema by far is "THIS IS PENCIL", which begins just as you walk out of your back door. This cinema prompts you in text-to-speech which end of a pencil the eraser is on.
• The ZOMGame status menu keeps track of how many events you have completed, even after the house area, which is the only place where it really matters.
• ZOMGame is split into several archives because CJA didn't use a decent FTP client to upload it to box43, and therefore had to limit the filesize of each archive.
• ZOMGame was made before POOP ROAD >:( came into existence.
• ZOMGame was CJA's first big game.
• ZOMGame is mostly made of an original score, which was, of course, made to sound intentionally bad. However, much of its music is converted game songs and other modules.