Zem!/Zem! 2

Zem! is a puzzle game created by Newt which has a sequel released very shortly after. With the sheer number of abandoned games started by ZZTers over the years, it's a surprise to see this one got one so quickly. It's a game I remember playing in my early years of the ZZT community, and one I can recall enjoying quite a bit. It's also pretty short, and as such I'll be covering its sequel as well. You'll soon see that there isn't a ton to say about the first game in the Zem! series.

The game's title screen features a very low contrast dark red on brown logo, but what does pop out is the additional options to learn about the game and how to play it by pressing arrow keys.

To get a little more technical, when you load a ZZT world, you don't begin playing the world immediately, and instead get to look at its title screen before pressing "P" to play. ZZT has some very peculiar ways of handling input, and on the title screen of each world, when the game is not in its play state, it replaces the player element with something called a "monitor", which is an invisible tile that reacts to the keys used on the title screen for things like opening the world list, or calling the high score table.

One thing that this means is that you're always going to have a blank tile on your title screen. (Such as the top left corner of the title screen from The Evil Saga.)

(It also means you can put monitors on boards in normal gameplay, and then if the player presses a key used on the title screen, they'll be yanked back to it, instantly quitting the game. It's very peculiar.)

So that player in the lower right of Zem!'s title isn't a normal player, but a second "player clone" as they tend to be called. Like monitors, they have their own strange behavior related to ZZT's ways of handling input. Essentially, ZZT always assumes that the first element on a board that has stats is either the player, or a monitor. Many functions of the game take advantage of this, such as when you have an object "#go seek" to move towards the player, it just moves towards the X/Y position of the first stat element.

At the same time player clones also use their own stats in certain situations. In this case, attempting to move up or left will make ZZT run through its list of elements with stats, something like this when you press left

1. Monitor -- Do nothing
2. Player Clone -- Try moving left of your current position, which is blocked, so try sending the element to your left to the ":touch" label
3. How to Play object -- Receive ":touch" event and execute code from there

What ends up happening, is that despite the world not being "played", it can still be interacted with by using a player clone to touch objects!

A lot of more complex ZZT games take advantage of this behavior within the game itself. Some creative use of player clones allowing you to not only tell which directional arrow the player just pressed, but also detect which direction was just shot in as well.

Sorry for the whole mess of words about monitor and player clones, which in fact have nothing to do with how Zem! is actually played!

Zem! is actually a loose interpretation of Lemmings for ZZT. Rather than directly interact with the Lemmings themselves, the player instead controls a cursor which can place blocks for Zem to climb over, or be blocked by.

And here we see the incredible without context message about bird poop on bridges being mandatory in level seven.

A brief disclaimer that this game is in fact not a Psygnosis production! As for Creepers, reading up on it, it sounds more like it's a more child friendly version of The Incredible Machine. I hadn't heard of it prior to this game.

The author's website is advertised, but unfortunately is not available on The Internet Archive.

ZZT's limitations are on full display here. Messages of "Please don't do <X>, it's cheating" can be found in a lot of games where the behavior of ZZT means a lot of things can be exploited. In this case, ZZT only have a single layer means that the cursor can act as a wall like any other as far as Zem is concerned, who has no way to be able to distinguish what elements surround him. Similarly, nothing stops environmental hazards that kill Zem from being able to tell that Zem is what fell onto them rather than your cursor or a wall placed next to them.

There's still some rudimentary anti-cheat code! The game checks both that the exit portal is blocked in one direction, and then that Zem is blocked in the opposite direction to try and verify that you finished a level properly.

Unlike the Pond, zzt.net is partially archived! The domain's had quite a life, being used for writing about JavaScript, Ham radios, and of course ZZT. Here's the ZZT version, which itself seems like the site was never finished. But it does have a cool animated gif of some ZZT tigers.

The Picks section mentions their criteria to get your game added and threatens that it will be removed for excessive vulgar language!

And so finally, the game can begin proper. This game is non-traditional, relying on what ZZTers would call an engine, a system of objects that interact with each other to play ZZT in a way other than the standard "move the player in four directions" way of doing things.

You still control that player, but you'll instead be touching objects shaped like arrows to send commands to a plotter object which will move accordingly. The controls are a bit awkward in that you have to move down once to be able to reach the down arrow and the button to plot a bridge. It's easy to slip up because of this, but it's rarely anything that prevents you from completing a level.

Zem moves on his own, climbing over short walls, and turning around when he reaches a tall wall. He moves fairly slowly to make sure that the player has time to build their bridges. A lot of Zem! is finishing a level and having to wait for Zem to arrive at his goal.

Okay, get ready to speedrun Zem! because there is very very little to it.

Level 2 makes you use the plotter to create a wall Zem can't scale, making him turn around and head to the exit instead.

Level 3 makes you create a staircase for Zem to climb to get to the exit portal.

Level 4 makes you make two bridges.

Level 5 is interesting!

Instead of plotting, you have to push boulders around to make the bridge for Zem.

Level 6 introduces a bird who "poos" by shooting a bullet down the screen. Since your bridges are made of breakable walls, they can be destroyed by this so you may have to repair the bridge.

It also forgets to change the exit message to the correct level number.

Level 7 is the level with required bird poop. Normally the game prevents you from overwriting non-empty tiles, but here you get to use the breakable bridges and the bird poop to dig.

By turning a tile into a destructible one, it can then be shot away, slowly descending Zem.

In the control area of level 8, the game's author makes a cameo. Zem moves so slowly that you're not wasting any time.

This is also the level with the entrance to the secret level. I had to look in the editor to figure it out. It's not actually tied to the gameplay. There's just a dark blue on dark blue passage in the control area you can stumble into with zero hints that it's there.

When I found out in the editor that this was the board with the secret exit I thought it might be something like getting Zem to that lower left area where there's a spot free of spikes.

There's also a Z that flashes once and never again? I expected it to spell out Zem or something, but it's just there for no real reason.

The solution, is stairs.

The secret level is a rehash of the first, with a cameo of one of the characters from another Newt game, "The Punctuation People". This isn't told in game, only if you edit the object is anything explained.

Level 9 has another cameo, this time of the player from the ZZT clone, Megazeux.

And then you build a bridge. I tried to write "HI" before the level was completed with all my spare time.

Aha! Some danger! Spinning red blades are scattered throughout the 10th level.

Build a bridge. Build a wall. Build a bridge.

And don't accidentally build a wall next to a chopper.

Level 11 lets the player know they're almost done.

And then demands long walks off some short piers.

The final level does speed Zem up, but also starts with him trapped behind a hill so you have all the time you need to create a path for him.

The brown bridge falls when something steps on it so you'll need to make your own.

And then, when you finally finished the final level, you'll discover that it's bugged! The exit object's code is blank so you'll never be able to finish the level.

You'll have to cheat by typing a ? to open up the cheat dialog box. From there "zap" will replace the four tiles bordering the player with empties, allowing you to escape into the exit.

And that's Zem! It is not particularly good. The game moves very slowly, and nearly every level plays exactly the same way.

Something like bonus points based on how fast you can complete a level (and a button to speed up Zem), some collectible trinkets, or really anything to add a bit of depth to the levels would go a long way.

The good news is that Zem! 2 is a considerable improvement and gets rid of the plotter system entirely.

Zem! 2, came out barely a month after the original, and offers considerable improvements. For one, the game's title is much more readable than its predecessor's.

The game foregoes the plotter system for a much more traditional Lemmings style system. Though, still in the confines of ZZT this means levels with a single Lemming.

Within a month, Newt's website has been replaced entirely. This time significantly more preserved on The Internet Archive. You can even read the guestbook! Alas, none of the art images seem to be there.

Interactive Entertainment

If you check that page out, you'll find Newt is quite the creative type. There are sections for games, music, writing, and art. He kept himself busy.

The first level begins and things are clearly very different. Zem will still walk back and forth on his own, but this time the player issues commands to him in order to progress through the levels.

Pressing "Dig!" will make Zem begin burrowing down until he reaches an open space or strikes an impenetrable yellow wall.

Similarly, "Bash" will clear a path horizontally.

"Make" creates a set of stairs reaching as high as Zem can climb, unless interrupted with another command.

It can be a bit difficult to gauge placement of large staircases however!

The fourth level is the final tutorial-esque level, requiring you to use every action. (Well, except Nuke which just causes the game to end.)

Though it didn't get a level of its own, you need to use the "Walk" command as well here as Zem will climb right up onto the spikes if the player doesn't intervene and turn him around.

Four levels in and there's already noticeably more thought being put into these levels than anything in the original Zem! game. It's still very basic stuff, but there's definitely more of an understanding that these actions can be combined together to solve more complex levels.

Level five requires the player to tunnel their way under the exit portal before climbing back up.

The sixth level demonstrates some more open ended design as Zem has to mix building, bashing, and digging in one of many possible ways to make it to the exit portal. One of the portals reveals itself to be a fake when Zem reaches it as well!

Level seven introduces optional money to collect for bonus points. Strangely, this mechanic isn't used in any later levels, which is a shame as it would be a good way to introduce some optional difficulty to the puzzles, which while an improvement on the original are still ultimately pretty basic.

Level eight revisits level three, but this time in reverse.

I managed to not build my first staircase where I wanted and fell into the pit. Oddly enough Zem didn't react to being shot, most likely due to being "locked" while falling and this rejecting jumping to any labels in his code for handling being shot until he registered as landed and "unlocked".

My solution lived up to the level's name.

Level nine goes back to a very simple one action solution of making stairs over the lava pit.

I missed a screenshot here, but this level has a big red button down below which Zem needs to stand on before the exit portal will appear.

Don't fall in the water unless you want to write a creepypasta.

This level is nice in that you can't just make some stairs and finish the level even after hitting the button. You'll need to turn Zem around on his stairs and start building more in the opposite direction, climbing your way to the top with several staircases.

Level eleven actually comes with that first staircase already in place. I'm starting to feel like I overhyped this game's improvements in quality over the original with another simplistic level like this one.

In this level, the player is told that Zem will move faster, so you do have to react quickly to keep him from falling down onto the spikes, but once again it's still a basic puzzle.

Fem! She's a girl because she's pink and named for her trait of being a girl.

Unfortunately, the second lemming doesn't really change anything up. There's nothing stopping you from just completing the level without even issuing a command to her. It might have been more interesting if she had a new ability, or perhaps if the level had the two located in different areas.

Level fourteen brings back some more interesting design. The player does have to stop and think about exactly what sort of path they're taking in order to make sure they don't get themselves trapped.

The final level is another letdown. Zem walks to the right so you need to remember to hit the walk command to turn him around.

And just like that the game ends.

Zem! 2 has a handful of reviews on z2 which seem to give it a lot of 5/5 ratings surprisingly. It's definitely an improvement, and going from playing Zem! directly into playing Zem! 2, made it much more appealing, but standing on its own, it's still a pretty weak game, with a fun concept.

There are a few levels which have some complexity to them, but if you play Zem! 2 you'll pretty much just breeze through 90% of it

How do they play today?

Playing the original Zem! is a bit of a mess. Its sequel is interesting in terms of the engine it uses, but the execution of both games ultimately fall flat. With Zem! 2, you'll at least feel like each level is different from the previous even if the solutions still tend to be really simple.

One thing to note is that Zem! 2 isn't actually the last game in the series. There's also the "Zem! 2 Level Pack", which is a series of levels created by other ZZTers, as well as "Zem! X", where you play as a lemming hunter who has to capture Zem in each level. Both of these worlds look to have more well designed levels than the first two games. Perhaps I'll take a look at them in the future!

Where can I get them?

• Zem! -- archive.org / z2
• Zem! 2 -- archive.org / z2
• Zem! 2 Level Pack -- archive.org / z2
• Zem! X -- archive.org / z2