Fred! Episode 1: Space Fred! (v2.00 Gold)

Trying my luck in the arboretum again, this time I take notice of the single gem tucked away in a corner that can only be accessed with a transporter.

It turns out to be a good call, as the gem is actually an object that gives one thousand points, fifty gems (which have no use), and twenty health.

Things go much better on the second try. I'm able to ignore plenty of the monsters and leave with a decent amount of health and ammo.

Fred continues on to the next section of the ship, Hallway Beta. This time the paths are nicely labeled for both the bridge and the brig. As a child I had no idea what either of these words meant in relation to a spaceship.

The decor changes again too, with the more circuitry looking background being replaced with just some flashing boulders, which may or may not represent anything in particular.

Once again Snargon makes an announcement, but he doesn't seem too concerned about Fred, not even knowing his name yet. Well, he is concerned enough to send out mutants.

I really like the design on the mutants. I mean, it's ZZT objects so there's not a whole lot of design, but previously "alien" has meant omega character, and the intersection character used for set notation here is a bit like you took that omega shape and messed it up a little. They also change colors along with the background which does give a little surreal touch.

The mutants themselves aren't all that scary however, shooting bullets randomly and often hitting each other.

The path splits again, but the brig seems like the obvious choice to not advance things.

It features some laser based security with blinkwalls requiring some very tight timing to make it through and towards the cells.

In ZZT tradition, you can check out all the imprisoned aliens and hear from them for little messages like this.

Of course, the real purpose of the room is to speak with Fredetta while she's been captured. She gives Fred some info on how to find the key to free her.

Conveniently, the head guard is in the next room over waiting to attack.

The fight is simple and straightforward. Fred clears out a few aliens that happen to be close to the room's entrance, and then can start the assault on the head guard.

The head guard moves around, shooting mostly in Fred's direction with a few shots in random directions. It's basic, but it really doesn't need to be anything more.

Each hit on the head guard produces a message similar to the earlier fight with Snargon, where they pretend Fred isn't accomplishing anything, but quickly folding. The head guard also reacts a little more aggressively after a few hits, spitting out a lion or throwing a star to make things slightly more difficult for Fred.

Again the writing is the best thing about this game with Myth having quite a way with her words.

I LOVE THIS.

I love that she hands you an object that the player probably doesn't know exists, and that she calls somebody a dweeb, and that not only do we get a weird line about disappearing into the mist, but that unlike Fred, she actually pulls it off!

She always was weird.

Not that I knew, but the Orb of Control is needed to complete the game. Heading towards the bridge leads to Gamma Control, where the next battle ensues.

Mixing Star Wars and Star Trek, the next fight is with "Lt. Centipede Head". Take a guess what they do.

They move around shooting and throwing the occasional star while Fred has to deal with mutants as well as robots that explode into walls when defeated. If Fred isn't too careful, he can be trapped by the walls.

After a few hits, Centipede Head quotes The Wizard of Oz before realizing that they're not yet actually defeated and resuming things.

But he's properly defeated moments later and explodes into the key to the bridge.

This leads to the game's final board, which disappointingly isn't a final showdown with Snargon, but just a fight with a bunch of aliens while on a time limit. The limit isn't much of anything since getting hit resets the timer and the "re-enter when zapped" options is disabled for the board. The board contains one last fight with a lot of the standard aliens, all positioned to be operating controls on the bridge.

In order to leave, Fred needs to save the Earth from destruction.

Phew, we almost went through an entire game from the mid-1990s that didn't mention Barney the dinosaur.

The catalog reveals several potential plans to destroy the Earth without even paying for the whole product!

Lastly, in the corner is the control panel to stop it. There are eight choices here, and as far as I can tell, it's just a blind guess. The 40 second time remaining matches the time limit set on the board, but there's no harm in letting the ZZT timer expire, so Fred can take all the time he needs (provided he has the health for time resets).

This would be where I show you one answer at a time, but a convenient programming error causes you to see several at a time. (Each wrong choice ends with a #endgame command, but that doesn't stop code from executing. So picking the first option results in displaying the messages for the first two wrong choices and the correct "Captain Snargon is a dweeb" shutdown code.

Fred becomes a hero and everybody loves him, including Bill Clinton.

The last few wrong options have their own Earth destruction text as well, with the last one resulting in no game over, but no progress.

I'm kind of curious about this bug solely based on there being an old document which incorrectly states that in addition to ending a game, that #endgame also causes objects to jump to the label :endgame. No such thing happens (and there's no :endgame here to jump to anyway. It seems like the command was getting a lot of inaccurate information spread about its behavior, which... is very easily tested?

Oh, and for the curious, one final incorrect password option that also does nothing.

With the planet safe, Fred ventures into one final room which exists solely for the credits and delivering the game over.