Where can I get Psychic Solar War Adventure

Psychic Solar War Adventure 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.

Psychic Solar War Adventure

When picking worlds to potentially feature for Closer Looks via the Patreon poll, I try to pick games which are notable, but not so much so that if they don't get picked for awhile, it won't feel like a huge loss. (Poor City of ZZT has been on there since the very first poll just waiting for its time.) When I decided on Commodore's Psychic Solar War Adventure, I had a hunch with its extremely over the top title screen consisting of two twins riding through the desert in a rocket car while one points both a sword and gun that it wouldn't have much of a wait, and I was right!

I don't think I played PSWA when it first came out, and if I had, I probably quit very early on, as it wouldn't have been the type of game I would have enjoyed back then. Looking at it now though, it's a very technically impressive game, but also definitely still a niche release. PSWA plays like an early RPG taking influence from Wasteland and Final Fantasy 1, with just a hint of thematics from the NES action RPG Crystalis thrown in for good measure.

The title screen without context is different to really take any meaning from other than how cool it looks. The game's text file gives some background which makes its content a bit more understandable.

Story: A century ago the world was invaded by aliens. In the skies a huge black moon appeared and blocked out the sun's light. A ray of light was shot into the earth and there appeared what would soon be known as the Star Tower. The door opened and hordes of alien tripods swarmed out and destroyed many cities and killed many people. The aliens then returned to their moon to exert their influence through the life giving tower, the power and light of which helped replace that lost by the blocked sun. Sixteen years ago, twins were born. Having mental powers similar to the aliens they were cast out of their village as freaks, left to fend for themselves. Now the two, Jack and Jill, have started to become adults. With their growth their powers excelled and it was soon that they realised that they were the only ones capable of defeating the aliens. Meanwhile a distant thought pulls them towards Serpant's Hold, the castle of Lord Falron.

PSWA deals with a post-apocalyptic future in which the planet has been taken over by aliens who subtly control things from afar. The player takes on the role of two twins, Jack and Jill, helping them to develop their psychic abilities and return the sun back to humanity.

The game opens on this oddly simplistic company intro for Mirror Image Games, probably the last notable ZZT company, and mostly because of Commodore's prolific work of exceptional quality. Many MIG titles have opening screens, but there's a standard one where the board is drawn with an actual mirrored board with the company name and an object that acts as the player's reflection as they move downward towards its exit.

I'm a bit unsure as to why it's not here actually! It makes the game start off by feeling incomplete in a way. Still, I'm counting my blessings, as it's a bit annoying in every Mirror Image title to have to run down an entire board just for a slightly laggy reflection effect.

The game itself opens with this wonderful art board from within the Star Tower. ZZT's tiles are all 8x14 pixels which makes depicting curves nicely a major challenge, but Commodore pulls off some stunning perspective here. The tower looks very round with a darkened background to help convey depth. In the center is some sort of portal with a depiction of a star shape within. There's also a glimpse from beyond the Star Tower, with a mountain range beneath a vivid night sky.

A simplified version of the text file's introduction gives out the necessary information to jump right in.

Psychic Solar War Adventure gives the player control on the world map. The actual player is in the bottom right corner surrounded by objects which are used to redirect your input to the red @ which represents the party. The player will be spending a lot of time traveling across the map to various towns, caves, and the Star Tower itself.

The map also features an illusion of waves by constantly changing solids to invisibles, normals to solids, breakables to normals, waters to breakables, and invisibles to water repeatedly. It's a neat visual effect that gives the map a chance to pop out a bit more.

The reasoning behind using an object rather than just having the player move around the map is that Commodore opted to add some simple survival mechanics to the game. Every time the player moves (unfortunately, even if the @ is blocked), a single torch is taken away to represent food consumed. Jack and Jill need to routinely purchase or find rations in order to survive their journey.

As long as we're on the subject, let's explore what the other ZZT counters are used for. Health is Jack's health, and if he perishes in battle it's game over. Ammo is Jill's health. If she dies, Jack needs to get her to a temple to be revived, but the game continues. Torches as mentioned are food. Gems are used as the game's currency. Lastly, score is the party's experience points. At certain amounts Jack and Jill gain a level and increase their maximum hit points which begin at the displayed 35/20 respectively.

By walking up next to a location, the game prompts the player to enter, and if so the left arrow moves out of the player's way and opens up the passage to that location's board.

The first location which the player starts almost next to, is the town of Fish. Each town is filled with NPCs who may offer some advice to the player, a temple to restore HP to maximum, and a food store to purchase rations from. Towns have their own distinct features as well.

Like how Fish is full of cows.

Actually, going by the name of the temple object, cows that are worshiped.

Rations come in two sizes, small or large. Commodore was nice enough to make them both equally valid choices rather than making players always go for a bulk discount. This works in the game's favor as money can be extremely tight early on.

One of the cows out in the pasture is none other than Commodore himself wearing a cow costume. I think he's talking about how he is not going to have sex with a cow. Alright then.

Some of the NPCs are there for flavor while some offer useful information such as how the nearby cave is optional, but has some treasure inside the player may be interested in obtaining.

And the Final Fantasy reference.

Also scattered around are a few crates which can be looted for a few free gems and rations.

The party has no real leads as to what they should be doing. They were drawn towards Serpant's Hold, but the world map is open to explore provided the party can survive.

Of course, there's more to survival than just managing food! Psychic Solar War Adventure also incorporates a random battle system! A re-usable RPG battle system. Something that despite the glut of RPG engines created in ZZT, including many of its most renowned coders, is almost unheard of elsewhere due to the challenges it brings to the coder.

Getting into a fight causes the party controls to lock up and forces the player to make their way into a passage for their encounter.

The encounter board has a lot going on. Up top we can see Jack in green and Jill in red. The terrain is a thoughtful mix of brown dirt, green grass, and yellow desert, attempting to deal with the fact that every single overworld enemy encounter will be fought on this board and thus all terrains depicted on the overworld have to be accounted for.

When the player steps into the lower area, the passage out is blocked, and a set of commands are made accessible. FIGHT, DEFEND, and RUN make up all of Jack's options. Despite the twins both having psychic powers, only Jill is capable of harnessing them in combat, and even then not until reaching level two.

A monster will also reveal itself, comprised of a few objects connected to each other. The art for these creations is very abstract, and you'll never really know what you're fighting until it attacks.

After selecting to FIGHT, the commands are blocked again, and a rather nice sword swinging animation plays out.

If Jack or Jill score a hit, the damage will be displayed beneath the battle scene with each boulder representing one damage to the enemy. Once criticism I have of the combat is that there's no indication of how much health enemies have. The damage variance is also pretty wild which can make it difficult to tell if you're getting anywhere or not.

While Jack swings in an arc, Jill thrusts forward with a spear. It's very easy to do zero damage to an enemy, especially with the default equipment.

The enemies have animation as well for their own attacks, but this is almost always the rightmost portion of the object moving a step to the right, then a step to the left.

The enemies on the overworld are the weakest which means the least payout for winning a fight. An insectoid offers just a single point of experience. According to some tips provided in the text file, Commodore suggests that the first thing to do is reach level two so that Jill can use her psychic powers in combat which include healing. This requires ONE HUNDRED experience. Unfortunately Psychic Solar War Adventure opens with a hefty grinding session which is likely to turn away many players.

As an aside, usually when I play games for Closer Looks, I simply start them up and finish them in one sitting without doing anything else while playing to keep myself focused on the game itself. For PSWA I had to break this rule and opted to listen to podcasts while playing which helped reduce what would otherwise be tedium drastically.

Back on the overworld I head towards the swamp cave as it's the only location that I know of. I make it a reasonable distance, but just two fights is enough to make my party fairly wounded and unable to heal without retreating back to Fish. So I turn back.

And of course I run into another enemy on the very entrance to Fish which suppresses my ability to enter it.

The psychic rabbit is the next enemy to fight!

It's very easy to lose a lot of health in combat due to the very limited damage output the player has at the start of the game. If an enemy randomly focuses on Jack the player is almost certain to have to run back to Fish. If Jill is focused on the results aren't much better as a dead Jill means Jack will be taking all damage from that point and that the party's already low damage is essentially halved.

Still, I make it back to fish and spend my five gems to restore healing. The temple thankfully doesn't charge to revive characters and then charge again to heal them as is common in early RPGs.

Another enemy is soon encountered, the humble slime. Here you can see its head detaching for its attack.

Eventually I manage to make it to the first dungeon, the swamp cave. They might be a bit difficult to see, but there are three brown chests scattered around the cave for the party to collect.

Dungeons are vastly preferential to the overworld for obtaining resources. The treasures mean large rewards for reaching certain points on the map and the different scale of the environment means that food is only consumed every five steps rather than one. The reduced food consumption allows the player to get into more encounters and keep a bigger portion of the money earned from fights.

It's not long before I encounter a swamp ape!

In addition to basic attacks, Jack and Jill can opt to defend themselves for a turn instead. This reduces damage taken if attacked, and while generally not worth using outside of boss battles, can be of some value to just keep a character alive slightly longer. In this screenshot having Jill not attack may drag out a fight, but the longer she stays alive, the longer there's a second target for enemies to attack. It beats a dead Jill and having every attack aimed at Jack at least.

Also this enemy is called a Buzzbuzz.

My strategy works? By the time the fight ends Jack is one hit away from death and Jill can also be seen dead. Multiple saves are kind of a good idea for this game.

I am so boned.

There's a run option, but there's only a 25% chance of it working. It's almost never worth attempting and only becomes less of an option as the party gets stronger.

I get my first of many many many game overs.

I also do my best to avoid cheating when I play ZZT games to write about, but I backed myself into a corner here. Using a cheat to clear the FIGHT flag makes the game think combat is over and that I can walk into the dungeon controls again. How kosher this is versus the alternative of saving and loading repeatedly until I can make it out of the cave without triggering an encounter in the first place is an exercise for the reader.

It doesn't stop on the overworld either. It's a long walk to Fish.

After healing however, I have some fantastic luck and make it all the way to the swamp cave without a single encounter!

I manage to reach one of the chests as well which gives some decent treasure.

One thing of note is that some enemies have chances to just not attack at all. Once psychic abilities are unlocked these are excellent times to try and heal.

The other chest isn't as impressive. A few more fights have brought Jill to the brink of death, even defending she probably won't be able to survive an attack at all.

Retreating again to fish is tough, but I manage to make it back with Jack still okay. There's one more chest still in the swamp cave, but I need some variety. After healing up I try to explore more of the world map a bit.

Serpant's Hold is the next location that can be reached. The game's text file mentions the twins having felt as if they were being pulled towards the castle.

Entering the location brings the player to a side view of the castle. There's a lowered drawbridge, and a suspiciously visible amount of underground, along with a green object that seems to be digging their way through it.

Serpant's Hold is the next town for the player. The castle town features the usual inn and food stores, albeit at higher prices than in Fish.

There's a cat!

But most importantly, there's a weapon dealer offering a steel lance for 150 gems. That's quite a lot of money but it's definitely something to save up for.

One of the NPCs talks about a captured alien being held in the dungeon. This is definitely something to check out.

There's this fountain animation which really surprised me. It makes excellent use of ZZT's charset and looks very fluid in motion.

The rest of the Castle is lord Falron's throne room and living area.

King Falron (whether it's lord or king seems inconsistent!) has been expecting the twins and believes that in order to reach the metallic moon that blocks the sun's rays that the twins will have to make it into the Star Tower.

As an RPG, you can absolutely loot the castle. There are no consequences for doing so. You're the heroes!

A guard blocks access to the jail. Until the player can find a way to get past the guard, they'll have no way to make it deeper into the castle.

The princess is promiscuous. The NPC in the adjacent room to her chamber mentions how you can hear everything that goes on in there through the wall.

On the right side of the room is a small library with a few short books that can be read.

The first is "Commodore's Tips For Playing". It offers some basic advice. Multiple save files is definitely essential if you don't plan on fudging your way around bad encounters when fleeing a dungeon.

There's a joke book?

Some lore on the Black Moon that prevents the sun's light from reaching the planet. It mentions the one day where the Earth's natural moon eclipsed it, preventing it from seeing the Star Tower.

And that was the same day Jack and Jill were born.

The Star Tower is having an effect on humanity, rapidly changing its physiology. Aborted pregnancies is probably not the right term here. Perhaps it should be miscarriages? It's getting into grisly territory here.

There's some music by MadTom here that I don't quite understand? It doesn't look like standard sheet music to me at least, but I am pretty illiterate when it comes to musical notation.

Another scroll talks about the alien attack on humanity that destroyed civilization. It sounds like something out of "War of the Worlds" without the aliens all dying from Earth diseases. The Star Tower itself is a bit reminiscent of Half-Life 2's Citadel as well.

Lastly, is a strange document written in an unearthly script.

Lastly is the seer, Quiznot.

Quiznot's own psychic abilities led them to predict that the twins would arrive at Serpant's Hold and are destined to save humanity from its extraterrestrial rule.

That's everything the player can do in Serpant's Hold for now, but the game has been given some more explicit goals. Getting to the Star Tower is no longer a thing to do because of a text file, but because of a seer's vision. There's some motivation for the twins now.

Back on the world map it seems like a good place to head next would be to the top left corner of the map. This is another village known as Robert.

Robert is up in the snowy peaks of the northern mountains and certainly looks the part! The visuals here do a great job portraying such an environment, and the buildings partially obscured by other buildings help make the town feel like a larger settlement despite being just one board like Fish was.

One of the townsfolk talks about where to get a rocket car which we saw on the title screen. They also let us know that Hale is the village on the eastern side of the map. It will be a bit before the player really has a good opportunity to travel there.

Another NPC mentions a volcano that may have aliens and great treasure. Mr. Riley is the ruler of Robert and collects strange artifacts such as things brought to the planet by the aliens.

This girl offers her own vision of the future, but can it really happen?

Mr. Riley is a nice man at least. It would be easy to make a post-apocalyptic game like this run by cruel people who can strongarm others into doing their bidding, but Commodore avoids it. The world of PSWA may be a tough one, but it seems to have brought humanity together. At no point in the entire game will Jack and Jill fight a fellow human.

The largest building in town is where Mr. Riley lives, but without any reason to speak with him, the party can't enter.

There's another weapon store here, but the owner can't make any weapons after monsters have taken over the mine by extinguishing its magic torch. Jack and Jill receive their first quest! Light the torch to let the blacksmith get back to work and sell weaponry once more.

:rimshot:

Within the town itself is the entrance to another dungeon, the Robert mines.

The mine mostly consists on long corridors. There's some treasure to be obtained just like in the swamp cave, and the magic torch at the very end of the mines.

A new area means a new battle scene and new enemies to fight. Here the party is up against a mole.

The mine is also full of ghosts! This enemy breaks the 3x1 size that's been used throughout the game so far and also is one of the few enemies in the game where you can totally see how it's supposed to be what it is. That thing looks sort of ghost like. Or perhaps more like a genie.

The first chest has some gems.

Another fight with a ghost reveals they have a special attack! They can regenerate themselves to heal some of their lost hitpoints. Typically in ZZT you'd represent hit points by doing thing like:

And thus have to shoot an object 4 times to make it hit the die command. Each hit zapping a :shot label and making it so a later one becomes active instead. ZZT does have a #restore command to undo zaps, but this always undoes everything, so it would be a full heal. I was really curious just how Commodore coded this engine because the longer the game went on the more impressive it became.

For now, just know that this isn't how the engine handles enemy health.

Like always, the party gets worn down pretty quickly, but the mines are significantly more rewarding than the swamp cave. There's no world map to traverse on the way out so it's massively easier to make it out alive. The close proximity also means that retreating to heal feels like a brief diversion rather than having to give up on your dungeon dive. If you give Psychic Solar War Adventure a try yourself, skip the swamp cave. It's a red herring.

Honestly, the game should probably have started the player in Robert instead. It's still a slow grind for experience, but it feels so much less punishing. The game does warn the player that they don't need to go to the swamp cave, and that they may want to gain a level first, but the way the map is set up makes it such an obvious first dungeon that it's very easy to get suckered into it.

Eventually I hit the 150 gems needed to purchase a lance for Jill and do so immediately. This game is slow and a boost to offense can only speed things up. I'm still only halfway to the second level!

The attacks for Jack and Jill always have the same animations regardless of weapon. The steel lance increases Jill's average and maximum damage a tiny amount, but it makes her as strong as Jack is now which means with a bit of luck some fights can end before the enemy even gets to attack.

The deepest portion of the mine is blocked by some gray walls which require a lever to be pulled to remove them. This level mechanic is used in a lot of dungeons since there really isn't too much else that can be done to make them dynamic feeling.

Even a small boost to power has a snowball effect on my progress. The party takes a very long time to really get moving, but any boost to its rate of acquiring resources is worthwhile. Spending a bit of time in the mines I finally reach the game's second level with 100 experience points. To reach level three I'll need to obtain 250.

Level two means that the four different psychic powers Jill can use in combat are now available, including the coveted heal skill. Not only that, but both characters receive a boost to their maximum HP which means longer trips into dungeons before having to fall back.

Needless to say I immediately try to heal in the next battle, only to have it fail! Since the game has no magic points, psychic powers are instead balanced by having a success rate. This rate is simply +25% per level. This means that Jill's abilities are going to fail far more than they'll succeed at this point. The potency of the hurt/heal powers also increases with each level as well.

When Jill can concentrate the border of the screen flickers cyan and the spell takes effect. Here her health has doubled from 10 to 20 with the use of HEAL.

The benefits are enough to make it safely to the magic torch. This completes the quest for the blacksmith and also disables random encounters in the mine. If you really want to grind it may be wise to hold off on finishing the quest since most places aren't as close to a source of healing as this one.

It also makes grabbing all the chests I missed earlier a cinch to get.

I had to check if this was a Dark Souls reference but Dark Souls came out 4 years after this game.

The next weapon upgrade is for Jack this time and costs even more than the steel lance. I'm close to having the money and would've stuck with the mines to hit 200 gems if I hadn't accidentally saved them.

Still, for now there's nothing more to do in Robert. I heal at the inn and head on back to the outside world.

It doesn't take long to begin to outclass the overworld enemies so I use them to try out the HURT power. I wound up doing 3 damage which is as much as a decent attack with Jill's lance. The all or nothing damage of HURT makes it really not worth using.

Another ability is SLEEP which causes the enemy to miss it's next turn. This one can at least come in handy since a successful hit means Jack and Jill get a free attack next round. Alas, as is often the case in RPGs, bosses are immune.

The psychic rabbit has a chance of hitting both Jack and Jill with a single attack though it isn't indicated any differently than a normal attack. If you aren't paying close attention it's hard to notice.

The swamp cave becomes much more viable at level two making it easy to make it to the final chest.

The sudden influx of gems means I can afford Jack's weapon upgrade.

It took me long enough, but I eventually remembered ZZT has a speed option that's almost never used. I crank it up to maximum (minus one since that runs the game at an uncapped speed) and greatly speed up the pace of the game. It's a bit surprising Commodore doesn't recommend this since it works wonders to make PSWA more appealing.

Oh, hey. It's the Star Tower we've heard so much about. Maybe I'll take a quick look around.

The tower has several statues lining the entrance, but the giant door cannot be opened even with Jack and Jill's abilities. The party is forced to turn back until they find a way inside.

Continuing my journey to the east, I reach the final village of Hale. Weirdly, Hale doesn't have its own board. Instead everything is done by selecting options from a scroll window. It's a really strange decision since the ZZT file has more than enough room for another board. Perhaps Commodore didn't want to delay the game any more. It's a rather late release after all.

The market offers two new items, climbing gear, and the rocket car mentioned earlier. Food also can only be bought in small amounts which can be kind of annoying since there's no other place to get food on the game's east coast. If you need to stock up in Hale it'll take a bit of menu navigation.

The tavern appears pointless at first. No health is restored or rations given for making a purchase. There are three drinks and all three offer the same message. The fact that all the messages are identical means that there's no real reason for anybody to ever think to purchase four drinks, but if you do...

This quest is optional, but there's no real hint that it's available. Perhaps if Hale was a full town there could be NPCs that talk about how there are benefits to being a regular at the bar. The only reason I found it was because I was checking the code to see the differences between each beverage.

The quest does give me something to do though! I walk all the way back to Serpant's Hold with just enough food to make the trip. I figure it's a good time to see what happens if you don't have any food as well.

Starvation simply makes it cost 1 health from Jack and Jill every step instead of 1 unit of food. It's pretty easy to avoid having to deal with as long as you're not too stingy about saving for better weapons and equipment.

As a bar regular Maxwell is happy to let Jack and Jill into the jail as long as they keep quiet about it.

Like the Robert mines, the Serpant's Hold dungeon is accessed from within the town making it easy to retreat from. Also like the mines, there are a few paths that lead to treasure chests if the party is willing to risk any combat going down the optional paths.

The white smiley faces in some of the cells don't move. They're probably skeletons more so than they're prisoners by this point. The white lion however does move around in its cell and presumably is the captured alien. I was pretty eager to get a chance to speak with it since the creatures are so enigmatic in game.

The battle scene for the jail consists of a shackled skeleton and rows of cells.

Meanwhile the enemies can be pretty deadly. The first fight was enough to nearly kill Jack off. Jill's healing can help, but it's still a gamble as to whether or not it will do anything.

The jail also contains these pointy hat wearing gremlins. They have an alternate attack where they take food which can be a nuisance, but is definitely preferable to killing off anybody in the party.

After having made a retreat to heal at the castle inn, the next trip was a bit more successful thanks to some treasure collecting. In order to progress the party will need to buy climbing gear back at Hale which was going for 200 gems. The requirements in food to make it there and back to the rest of the visitable locations means extra funds needed for rations as well.

Generally, each branch of a dungeon is its own trip. I was in decent enough shape when I got those gems, but just walking out from there put Jack and Jill in a more dire state.

On the next dive, there's no need to explore a side branch and I made it to the other side of a locked gate. This serves as a shortcut and makes the following attempt one that can pretty much resume where this one ended.

Seeing how low on food I am, I opt to dance around in place to grind out a few more gems and experience while I can before stocking back up. The battle check and food check happens even if the @ doesn't actually move so it's possible to just pin your party up against a wall and walk into it repeatedly to grind out encounters.

Finally, well rested and fully supplied, I make it to the cell with the alien in it. Alas, it turns out to be nothing the player can interact with. It's also almost certainly not meant to be an alien since none of the aliens the player will encounter in PSWA are anything other than dark green smiley faces.

Still, there's something to the dungeon to give it some purpose other than as a source of treasure. It has an empty cell with a tunnel dug from it by a former prisoner that can be followed to go deeper underground.

Following the tunnel takes the player to the outside view of the castle, but this time underneath it. Before there was a dark green object and the tunnel wasn't completed, but now it is should the player choose to explore it.

The tunnel leads behind the castle where its flag can be seen as well as a nice view of the eclipsed sun that has been blocked by the metal moon. The tunnel meanwhile contains some sort of craft. Perhaps the alien crash landed and was captured, only to tunnel their way back to the ship?

I am very excited to explore this UFO, meet an alien, and don't pay very close attention to Jack currently having only 15 HP left.

Stepping into the UFO brings the player immediately into a boss fight with an alien!! They're big, green, and have some sort of large gun. The ship has a pretty cool background with the tiling dot pattern. It's simple but still looks sci-fi to me.

The alien has a special two turn charging attack. In my current situation, I opt to heal Jack having no idea just how much this will hurt him, but fearing the worst.

The good news is that Jill is able to concentrate and Jack regains 10 HP. It's also worth pointing out that towards the end of the jail there I broke the 250 experience barrier and have reached level three. So now in addition to increased hit point, Jill has a 50/50 chance of successfully concentrating. With a decent HP buffer, the party's chances of surviving in dungeons increases dramatically.

The alien's charge attack is actually fairly modest, dealing just 9 damage to Jill. A bad attack from a regular enemy can do 6 or more so perhaps she just got lucky rolls here.

The decent odds of success with psychic powers makes the barrier power viable. Using it successfully acts as if both Jack and Jill used the DEFEND command to reduce damage. Since ZZT has no concept of division, the defend code involves manually checking if the target was defending and if so, skipping dealing damage once.

Jack still loses 10 HP while defended with a barrier so I think Jill was just rather fortunate earlier.

A later healing attempt fails at an inopportune time as I have to decide whether to heal Jack or use BARRIER.

I decide on using BARRIER and Jill concentrates successfully.

It pays off immensely! Jill manages to block the hit entirely! Enemy attacks are handled with two checks, one is randomness that determines if damage is taken followed by a defense check for the rest of the damage. A good roll of randomness combined with defending makes it possible to take no damage on an attack.

Things worked out for Jill, but I just cannot get a HEAL to go through on Jack.

The situation begins looking pretty dire.

But Jack pulls through by finishing the fight himself! The party is generously rewarded for beating this boss fight, 75 gems and 50 experience.

The UFO itself is pretty sparse. There's only one object that can be interacted with, some weird alien item.

Of course, the party still has to make it back alive.

The level three party has 60 and 40 HP respectively, and their combat prowess has improved immensely since the start of the game. At the same time though, so far everything they've done has been optional. You don't need to go to the Robert mines, swamp cave, or castle jail. The party is still no closer to stopping the alien control than they were when they first started.

The purpose of the alien artifact isn't stated, but if you paid attention to the description of Mr. Riley in Robert it's known that he collects such things. In addition to paying a decent amount of gems for the item, he points out that the volcano would be a good place to look for more provided the party has some climbing gear.

This of course means a trip to Hale to buy some. I could afford a rocket car as well at this point, but the last thing I wanted was to have to grind rather than make progress.

Moving in front of the large mountainous region instantly activates the climbing gear and allows the party to explore the volcano. If the party doesn't have any climbing gear no message is displayed, but there's an object within that can be seen on the world map to guide the player towards it.

Mount Simal is the next dungeon and the first one that isn't optional. Although it should be a natural cavern, there's evidence throughout that there's some other presence here with locked doors and pipes scattered throughout the tunnel.

The little security droids running around also would imply that the party isn't alone in here.

The droids have a beam attack that hits both Jack and Jill, but unlike the alien from earlier there's no windup to the attack. Since it can happen at any time it's a bit riskier to use BARRIER rather than have both Jack and Jill attack.

Realizing my odds are 50% and that I'm dealing with random encounters and not a boss fight, I decide to try using SLEEP, but the droid still resists it. Probably because it doesn't ever sleep.

Money starts getting handed out more liberally now. Just the walk to this chest nearly doubled the amount of cash I had since buying the climbing gear in Hale.

Another enemy in the volcano is the halfbreed which seems to be holding a gun. I suppose it's intended to be half human half alien, but the concept is never really elaborated on.

They can be quite dangerous though. Jill gets herself killed and Jack has to hike back to town. Hale seems to be the closest, though I haven't counted out the steps exactly. It's still a considerable walk to any town so having Jill die is something to really try and avoid.

I also arrived in Hale entirely out of food and used most of my new riches on buying an absurd amount of it.

But it took no time at all for the party to nearly be wiped and another trip to be necessary!

The volcano is extremely deadly. the security droids multi-target beams and the halfbreeds strong weaponry make it very difficult to keep up the healing needed to stay alive.

The tunnel is very linear as well so unlike previous dungeons where there are branches with treasure to go for every trip into the volcano plays out the same until you can brute force your way through.

Thankfully hitting 500 experience is enough to reach the fourth and final level, giving Jill a 75% chance of healing successfully. By this point even the difficult encounters here are mostly mitigated by Jill's healing.

Jill also finds the Holy Partisan, her ultimate weapon. It's a useful upgrade, but with healing being something that can be depended on now it doesn't get as much use as it would have just a little bit earlier.

At the back of the volcano is some weird structure. A level inside opens up the doors that blocked the last treasure chest and make the rightmost room with the circular walls open up a little bit. It doesn't do a lot to speed up travel, but it helps.

There's a large hole in the top corner of the dungeon which can be climbed out of as an alternate exit to the dungeon.

It's not free to use however. The climb is interrupted by another boss battle. The art board is our only other look at Jack and Jill outside of the title screen, and is the only decent view we get of Jill since she's mostly obscured on the title. I really like the ASCII hair she has. Hair made out of text is not something I can recall seeing before in a ZZT game.

Of course, there's no time to talk about character design when there's a giant purple worm on the warpath. I do like the slight shift in perspective here. Even though the objects are still all positioned where they always are, the ledges turn the same layout into a vertically oriented fight rather than a horizontal one.

The emperor worm, as its called, has its own charging attack similar to the alien at Serpant's Hold. It hits pretty hard, damaging both party members for 12 damage, and it can't be defended against. It would be nice if I knew that while fighting the worm, since I was definitely spamming BARRIER whenever it began to prepare its attack.

Still, compared to the alien it goes down easily. Its regular attack hits one party member for slightly more damage than the gas does. Despite warranting an art board, there's little difference between this fight and any random encounter as far as strategy goes.

Defeating the worm brings the player back outside, but there wasn't any progress made towards getting into the Star Tower despite completing the dungeon. There was another chest though, so it seems like heading back inside would be worthwhile.

Entering after beating the worm means that the @ object will be at the end of the dungeon, so the player has to navigate them backwards. I also realized that Jack was pretty hurt and that I probably should've healed in a town first.

The last chest which was locked prior to hitting the lever is the important one, filled with some weird documents. No clue what to do with them though other than maybe take them to Mr. Riley?

But I am also absolutely loaded with money now which means it's time to get a rocket car! I figured it would be necessary to complete the game, but it's really a disappointment. The rocket car just makes it so you consume food more slowly on the world map and reduces the encounter rate. At this point in the game there's very little travel left, and spending 300 gems on food instead of a car would've worked just as nicely. The rocket car makes for a very cool title screen, but in the game itself it's pretty pointless.

I walk from corner to corner only to discover that the documents aren't intended for Mr. Riley's appraisal.

Fortunately, the actual place to use the documents is one town over in Serpant's Hold. Quiznot very quickly discovers that it's a code, and instantly cracks it. The code to enter the Star Tower is encoded on a golden needle and will allow the party access to their ultimate destination.

As Quiznot expected, the needle causes the entrance to the tower to open. Jack and Jill venture inside...

The Star Tower has a golden sheen to its walls and appears to be a sort of maze.

It's as dangerous of a dungeon as you'd expect with enemies standard attacks doing 14 damage to Jill here.

There's a new treasure here, a potion of skill which gives several experience points when consumed. This is the sort of treasure that would have been useful in any other dungeon prior to this. I can't imagine getting to this point and not being at the maximum level.

The dungeon has its own new mechanic with these red and blue sensors. When the player passes along one, the corresponding colored wall becomes passable and the other becomes solid. The path is pretty straightforward with very few spaces where hitting a wrong color is even possible.

There's also this little fellow running around. Gold scorpions run on their first turn and no matter what combination of tactics I tried I was never lucky enough to actually defeat one. I imagine they're the equivalent of a metal slime from Dragon Quest and offer some good rewards for actually defeating them.

The first floor of the tower also has this cute little Tankbots. I really love the design on these.

Oh, and of course there are also Starmen.

Who, like the ghosts in the mine are able to regenerate their health.

Unlike when fighting the ghosts though, SLEEP is an option now and one worth using. Since enemy attacks are chosen randomly, it may be worth using HEAL instead since the party can possibly avoid damage automatically.

Starmen have the biggest variety of attacks, with a multi-target beam as well. It only does a few damage to Jack and Jill and can be easily outhealed. Starmen are definitely the encounter you want to get here over Tankbots.

Reaching the center of the room leads to a teleporter which will take the party up to the next floor. The top of the room also opens up the main doors allowing an easy escape if the party needs to rest at an inn.

The second floor is more of a maze than the first and has multiple levers to pull in order to open doors to make it to the next floor. Like all scary late game dungeons however, there's a branching path which leads to a weapon of considerable power.

Jack's ultimate weapon, the Star Sword is obtained. Since Jack can only attack he benefits from his new weapon much more than Jill did from the Holy Partisan. It's definitely worth the diversion to obtain it.

The Star Sword is very powerful, capable of maxing out the damage bar with enough luck, but due to the way that the damage calculation is done, it's not very likely. Still, six damage pretty huge.

The enemies on the second floor are the same as the first, so there's nothing new to add there. The second floor is just survival, and with the best weaponry in the game, 75% chance of healing, and a considerable HP pool, Jack and Jill won't have any trouble getting through.

At the end stairs is a warning of a big robot boss. It's strange to me that this is the only boss the game gives you a warning about.

The giant robot is called Starcrash and guards the top of Star Tower. As with every boss they have a charging attack to use barrier against. It's the easiest boss fight yet with how powerful Jack and Jill have become. The fight itself is over quickly, but it's worth taking a moment to realize how this fight takes place in the same location as the game's introduction. There's an attention to detail here in doing so that demonstrates the level of quality you can expect from a ZZT game by Commodore.

The fight ends quickly (and the party has 1 more HP than they entered the fight). With Starcrash gone the twins are safe to open the portal back to the metal moon and fight their final battle for the future of humanity.

Alas, the portal is located elsewhere. Jack and Jill have to walk all the way back out of the tower first.

Back on the map a new glowing purple spot is revealed just south of Serpant's Hold. I head to Fish for one last rest before heading towards the final dungeon.

Unlike the other dungeons, the trip to the Metal Moon is a one way journey.

This absolutely caught me off guard. All the other locations are accessed by a passage and I had just assumed that the portal would be a secret invisible passage that would reveal itself. Instead, the player is pushed against the right edge of the map and has to step onto a connecting board which happens to be the Metal Moon dungeon.

By making the entrance to the final dungeon play out differently from all the other entrance, it marks the trip as an important one.

The Metal Moon is also unique in how it uses the #change command to create a scrolling background effect that looks lovely. It's the same as used on the world map to represent waves in the ocean, but here its used to create an otherworldly feel.

The pulsing walls even appear in the battle sequences. And speaking of appearing, there's suddenly a visible ! that starts running across the screen. A simple mistake, but one of the objects for the game's battle system was accidentally left visible for debugging. The object is used to track the enemy's health and honestly having that information available to the player is really nice. I kind of wish it had always been visible, or perhaps Commodore could have made a psychic ability to reveal it.

The mindflayer enemy regenerates as several other enemies have before it. Now the secret of how Commodore is increasing enemy health is made obvious, simply having the ! object move to the right instead of the left is the same as healing. Another still invisible object on the far left edge of the screen checks if it's blocked by the ! health object, and if it is then the enemy has been defeated.

The next mindflayer encounter is a bit rougher. Its beam attack hits hard, 15 damage to each party member.

The last enemy to encounter is the larva. Nothing special about them from what I saw.

Just outside the final room of the dungeon is this strange device which serves as a free healing device. This way Commodore can be sure the player is at full health for the final battle.

The twins reach the Overlord who has been responsible for all of this and the truth is revealed. The Metal Moon and its effects on humanity were all so that humanity could become more powerful. If the twins can defeat the Overlord, they can take control of the Metal Moon and rule a world of their own.

There's no dialog spoken by Jack and Jill, so the way they react to this isn't dealt with by the narrative. Whether they want to free humanity, rule it themselves after having been ostracized for their powers, or rule another world is unknown, but no matter what they decide to do they'll have to defeat the Overlord first.

The Overlord is a massive three headed creature who dwarfs the alien fought at Serpant's Hold. The final fight is visually animated in its background, possibly attempting to pull off something like Earthbound's visuals to the best of ZZT's meager abilities.

The Overlord hits like a truck. They can inflict 25 points of damage when undefended with just their basic attack.

They can also critically for 36 damage if the target doesn't defend! This Unlike the previous alien fight, there's no telegraphing these attacks. The Overlord's offensive ability can easily kill Jill from full health with some bad luck.

Bad luck like not being able to concentrate when it's needed most. I lose Jill and figure the fight has been lost. The battle has just become a damage race and Jack will die if the Overlord gets to attack twice.

But once again Jack will not back down! The Overlord is defeated and withers away with the twins earning their Pyrrhic victory at the last possible moment.

Psychic Solar War Adventure draws to a close. First with the Metal Moon bursting apart and bringing the light of the sun back to humanity. Commodore again excels with these starry night skies creating swirls that look curvy and not blocky. The Star Tower is a mere arrow on the Earth's surface and the twins are caught directly between it and the sun's rays.

It starts out nicely. The Metal Moon is destroyed ,and the aliens are defeated. But then the effects of the sudden outpouring of psychic energy kick in.

Humanity is given the very same powers Jack and Jill were exiled for, and for much of humanity, the sudden influx is fatal. The planet being covered in psychic energy isn't a protective coating, but a violent one, creating a devastation not seen on Earth since the aliens and the Star Tower first arrived. Once again humanity finds itself needing to rebuild.

The next board is a forest at night with the Pearl shimmering in the sky. The ending isn't a happy one as mankind freed from their alien oppressors get right back into oppressing each other.

The twins are gone, having left the Earth for the stars. It's unknown whether they left out of choice or not. Really it's a pretty depressing ending all around.

Final Thoughts

It's really tough to decide where I stand on Psychic Solar War Adventure. Its reusable RPG system is one of the most impressive things I've seen in ZZT. It's certainly technically impressive. Despite how popular RPGs were among ZZTers, there's really nothing to compare Psychic Solar War Adventure to fairly. At the same time though, there are a lot of little issues which really add up.

It's slow and repetitive yet it's still difficult to really play up those flaws because they don't feel like mistakes Commodore made so much as issues that just can't be avoided when creating something like this in ZZT. The game speed can be turned up which definitely helps, but the fact is you're fighting enemies that all boil down to basic attacks, multi-target attacks, charge attacks, and healing. The game's combat is somewhere between Dragon Quest 1 and Final Fantasy 1. There's more to it than just hitting attack over and over until you need to heal, but there's very little more to it than that.

The psychic powers feel underutilized and unbalanced. Early on spells like HURT and SLEEP can be useful, but the low success rates make it a gamble that isn't worth taking. By the late game these powers can be used reliably, but then you're better off just keeping your party well healed or defended. Even though the HURT power is capable of doing more damage than Jill's Holy Partisan, running the risk of doing no damage at all isn't worth choosing it over having her simply attack enemies directly instead.

The game suffers from a painful early game requiring luck to stay in dungeons for more than a few battles (or even make it to them in the first place). I think if the game started out in Robert rather than Fish it would've felt better. Other balancing issues in the early game include the complete lack of powers for Jill and how extremely RNG heavy everything in the game is. Too much of the early game involved reloading saves trying to get a more favorable outcome.

Perhaps starting the party off at the equivalent of level two would have helped. Ideally, compressing the experience required to level to reduce grinding or adding more levels with even ones offering just HP boosts and odd ones offering the bonuses to psychic powers would go a long way towards making the player feel like they were growing more powerful by playing the game naturally rather than stopping to run into a wall to eke out some more experience in a dungeon. It also falls a bit flat towards the end. Bad luck can still get you killed, but at level four any sense of danger when not fighting a boss is gone. While I was thankful to reach my party's maximum potential at 500 experience, beyond that point gems and score were both pretty pointless. By the end of the game I had over 1100 experience meaning more than half of it was wasted. (The rocket car feeling so pointless didn't help either.)

Lastly, the ratio of mandatory to optional content feels off. Although nobody would ever play through the game in such a way, to actually complete it you need 200 gems for the climbing gear, to grab the documents in the volcano (you can skip the boss), and then to go through the Star Tower. Most of the game's content is optional so it doesn't feel like you're making progress towards achieving your goal beyond making your experience increase.

Where this is perhaps the most obvious is the jail sidequest. At best, somebody will drink each of the three drinks in the pub and call it a day. To think somebody would pick all three options, see three identical results, and then go back and try one again seems really unlikey to me! It's such a shame because I feel like the jail dungeon was the high point of the game for me. It was a moment where the game creates a moment of excitement with the knowledge that an alien will soon be discovered, combined with the jump from level two to three where the party hits a balance between its power and its vulnerability. There's still enough to keep the player on their toes, but reloading a save feels like something that happens because the player made a mistake rather than the game giving them some bad dice rolls.

The flaws of the game seem readily apparent to me, and I feel like Commodore would have noted them as well. Whether he was purposely going for the rough difficulty curves of early RPGs or simply decided it was better to release a still impressive ZZT game in 2007 to a community beginning to wither rather than run the risk of it never seeing the light of day (or worse yet, being released to silence) is unknown.

Though, now that I've finally got my venting out of the way, I can also sincerely tell you that Psychic Solar War Adventure is one of a small handful of ZZT titles that transcends the medium and can both be judged against games outside of ZZT as well as hold its own against some of them. Were this a standalone title I don't think the greater gaming public would have been praising it endlessly, but I think it could stand on its own. It comes off as a very primitive cross between a roguelike and a traditional RPG, but it ultimately works.

I had to put myself in the right position of lying in bed on a laptop while listening to some podcasts, but that was enough to keep my interest. There are points of genuine curiosity as the player is taken along on the twins' journey. You can't help but wonder what will happen when you meet the alien in the jail or just what will be waiting for you in the Star Tower. I'd have a hard time telling somebody to go load up the game and sit there for 6 hours and do nothing else, but if you're got something to listen to that can let you still be entertained while dealing with the game's low points, you can definitely find yourself engrossed in Commodore's ruined world. (Maybe edit an object somewhere to #give score 100 at the start too... and perhaps keep in mind the typing ? to open the cheat prompt and entering -FIGHT will make the game think you're no longer in an encounter.)

Commodore has been featured more than any other ZZTer so far on this project, with the an early Worlds of ZZT livestream being his first full release of The Living Dead followed by an article covering his 2009 experimental sidescroller, CAT, CAT, THAT DAMN CAT. His works are varied and some of ZZT's most impressive in my opinion, and just looking at his released games there were almost certainly be several more playthroughs of his games in the future. The flaws are easily observed here, but it's just as easy to observe Commodore's dedication to creating ZZT games that go above and beyond their expectations. If you can get yourself started, I highly recommend spending some time on this one.