Closer Look: Edible Vomit

Where can I get Edible Vomit?

Edible Vomit is available on z2 as well as playable in browser via Archive.org.
You can also explore the world yourself on the Museum of ZZT Public Beta.

Edible Vomit

Before I even start, let me apologize for not thinking to write this article prior to the one for Forrester, because I could've released this game about a drug addicted ferret's search for the perfect drug on 4/20.

Of course it's easy to joke about, but the reality of Edible Vomit is a bit less pleasant. Draco was a very well respected ZZTer. Edible Vomit is probably his most iconic work, but his Teen Priest series were also major titles within the ZZT community. Teen Priest 2 especially, with some ZZTers leading campaigns to have the game banned from the archives for its crude and often sacriligious humor and explicit sexual content. Of course, in the Lord of the Flies community of ZZTers, these moral crusaders never got more than ridicule, beyond a few people opting in to supplying voluntary ratings for their own games or assigning them to ZZT games they'd review in various ZZT magazine worlds.

Edible Vomit however, is a journey into a young Draco's thoughts on drugs released sixteen years prior to his passing away from an overdose. That alone is enough to make it something worth visiting, but even without Draco's misfortune, Edible Vomit is a important release to the ZZT community as we'll shortly see.

The game's title consists of a large dripping eye floating in space between two planets. Not surprisingly, Edible Vomit is filed on z2 under the "trippy" genre, a type of ZZT game that tends to have lots of strangely colored visuals, puzzles which couldn't exist in reality, and plots which tend to frame the games' worlds as a dreamlike state.

Edible Vomit's main menu credits the game once more, and offers the usual passages to the game's introduction and more detailed credits. The player is also introduced to Freddy the Ferret quoting the most iconic of FishIg phrases.

(FishIg has gone undiscussed so far in this series, and thankfully Edible Vomit isn't the place to get into it, but to sum it up quickly: FishIg was a form of typing named and popularized by Fishfood and Lord Igsel consisting of all caps, and extensive deliberate typos. "YAY SIRS" and "OHH DEAR" becoming catchphrases themselves.)

Draco credits a few friends, and some inspirations, both Clysm and Tucan are listed here for their own trippy games, "Kudzu" and "Pop". The ZZT community built off the works of others and was able to explore the concepts introduced by them without having to worry about somebody accusing them of ripping them off.

We also get a discography! It's always fun to get some insight into a ZZTer's musical tastes at the time.

Returning the main menu, let's look at Edible Vomit's introduction

Freddy's laced meth begins to have some unexpected effects on him. The board flashes bright colorful shapes, a face, and some bats as Freddy starts his trip...

Welcome to the world as Freddy now sees it. The sky is a reddish purple or just not there at all. The ground a dark blue. Buildings made of mushrooms, a planet in the sky, and an almost but not quite Prince-like symbol.

The two mushroom houses can't be explored, one hints at opening with its m00n shape, but how exactly can't be determined.

South of the homes is an orchard full of otherworldly looking fruit. It's a quiet and empty grove, with nothing for the player to interact with.

The next board has some more mushrooms, but also somebody for Freddy to talk to.

Freddy's friend and deal Skankk is fresh out of the good stuff, but he does have a lead with this Jimmy the Rat character who likely has something that can satisfy even Freddy.

Skankk is blocking the entrance to one of the shrooms, but the other can be examined.

Its occupants are busy at the moment.

At this point the player has multiple paths they can choose from. There are exits to the east and west, not the south despite the path appearing to be clear.

To the east is a very large purple wall.

Specifically, the BURR-LYNN WALL. At this point I turn around, not thinking there's anything I can do here, but the brown mass to the northwest can actually be walked on to head north.

Meanwhile to the west is a purple bunny pacing back and forth extremely rapidly and blocking the path.

The bunny needs something to mellow him out, but for now there's nothing to be done.

Following the path north leads to the temple of love. The strange coloration of the building helps this board stand out against the more muted geography around it. There's a locked door on the left, but the temple itself is open, and the player can see a second passage on the roof hinting that they'll make it up top at some point on their quest.

The temple itself is overrun with vines which grow around the walls and windows of the building. There's a steep set of stairs and more to explore to the east.

The large target (or maybe it's a red eye) on the floor can be walked on, but doing so ruins it as much of it is made out of forests which disappear when the player steps on them.

Things get pretty gruesome in the rest of the temple. First thing to do is find out what happened here.

Despite decapitation, and the removal of his limbs, the wounded wanker is still alive for now. Freddy may be searching for the perfect drug, but he's more than willing to help this guy out.

Of course, there's no rush. Upstairs half of the room is cut off by heavy winds, whoever is on the other side will have to wait until the wind stops or Freddy finds a way to stop it himself. The wind animates, cycling through the usual normal and breakable wall characters to give the wind a sense of movement despite it being rigid on the board.

The only other way to go is through the red passageway up to the roof of the temple.

There's not much to see on the roof, just exploring the three statues up top that couldn't be examined from the ground level.

With the roof explored, there's no place readily apparent to head towards next. Now would be a good time to help the decapitated man.

Back in town, Freddy won't mention the wounded wanker to Skankk, but the door with the moaning people inside is now unlocked giving the player a new location to check out.

The home has a single occupant, a table with some stuff on it, a large bed, and some more ambiguous furniture against the walls of the mushroom. Let's try talking to this person and see if we can help that guy in the temple.

Stinky's drug use has well surpassed being dangerous, and has reached a point where it goes without saying that he won't be around for long with his habit. Freddy's attempt at getting help probably aren't the best, but Stinky leaves (by animating and vanishing on the spot) leaving Freddy to check out the rest of the home.

There's a straw on the table which Freddy can nab. A decade later we'd see this line referenced in Commodore's CAT, CAT, THAT DAMN CAT.

Also on the table, to go along with the straw is some cocaine.

But it's not coke that Freddy is searching for.

Hey remember when I said there's a locked door outside the temple of love? There isn't. It's a large eyeball that looks identical a standard ZZT door. One of the dangerous of having such a limited amount of characters and colors to work with in ZZT is creating an object that shares its design with something built in. With something like a door, it's very easy to turn folks away from trying to interact with the object because they'll see it as something they know can't be interacted with.

Although at this point it's just as good as a locked door to the player, as none of the ways to interact with the eye do anything.

Back in the temple, the decapitated man is gone, and Stinky is nowhere to be seen either. Freddy makes no comment on this, but with the head out of the way, he can climb up one of the vines on the wall now.

Climbing the vine leads to a different roof. This time with a clear view of the BURR-LYNN wall. The night sky is full of stars and a large red planet.

For some reason you can walk off the roof and onto the background. This is probably unintentional, but there are moments later where some breaking of perspective is deliberate.

As mentioned earlier, the wall itself has a somewhat hidden passageway to the north. At this point it becomes necessary to make any more progress.

The map of the game stops making logical sense here, as this board is both to the north of the wall, and to the west. ZZT's support for arbitrary board exits like this don't get used very often since it can get very confusing very quickly, but here there's just this tiny pocket of the board that can now be accessed.

And now Freddy has a hammer.

Turning around and going back through the temple of love again to get to the roof, Freddy can now interact with one of the statues.

Freddy knocks the statue down, obscuring a window meaning he has somebody else to talk to now.

There's a very young child here smoking a joint that's completely ignoring Freddy.

Like taking marijuana from a baby, Freddy snatches the joint without any resistance from the child.

Really makes u think...

The bunny happily takes our stolen weed and calms down, unblocking the path to the west. Freddy is complemented on his abilities to solve problems.