Zoom the Super Bear
Release type: Shareware
Release date: 1994 (original release)
Levels: 10
Author: A-J Games
Registration bonus: Zoom II: Enter Zip
Registration price: $30
Related games: A-J's Quest, The Return of A-J, A-J 3, Zoom II: Enter Zip
One of the larger recurring themes to my Andrew-Jonathan is Cousin Zoom, a timid librarian with a prophetic name. For reasons unclear, A-J’s grandfather is a wizard. Some wires crossed, his cousin found himself in the wrong place at the right time, and he became a superhero.
In developing the character I know that I was conscious of the SuperTed cartoon. My spin was a little different, though. Although Zoom gets the disguise right — he not only drops the Clark Kent spectacles; he dons a Zorro style mask — he keeps the same name in both guises. He also becomes a hazard to friend and foe alike.
Inspired by Taito’s Superman Arcade game, I chose to do something a little different with RSD’s engine. I alternated side-scrolling action levels with overhead shooting segments, and I ramped the difficulty way down to make the game accessible.
The lower difficulty worked together with some new concepts to gloss over some of my earlier awkwardness. Flight removed the logical problems of platform mechanics, and a bulky sprite with full player control improved collision in the shooter levels. The engine was still awkward, but the game worked within its box.
Zoom cohered well enough that people seemed to actually play it. Although I have no metric, it seems like the most widely distributed of my games. Often people would describe it as a children’s game, presumably because of the bear. That always confused me, as even with its lowered difficulty the game was still pretty tough.
Around the turn of the millennium Zoom turned up on a few major download sites. I recall that ZDnet gave it three stars out of five, which although unremarkable made me rather proud. By that point the game was five years old, running in a weird engine, and far from my best work — but someone who reviewed this stuff for a living still found it adequate. So, hey.
This game underwent a bunch of revision when Game-Maker 3.0 came around. In particular all of the menus and interfaces got an overhaul.
Story
"Hi. I'm A-J Bear. This is the story of how my cousin became super.
"It was all an accident, really. Unbeknownst to Zoom, Grandpa Merlin was busy conjuring a spell in his den.
"When Zoom came in to watch the telly, Grandpa was distracted and his spell went awry, throwing Zoom across the room.
"Grandpa rushed over to him; he didn't have any idea what would happen. He didn't even know what the spell was. When Grandpa pulled Zoom to his feet, Zoom woke.
"To spare your ears, I won't go into the details, but the spell gave Zoom super powers.
"Grandma made a simple costume, a blue mask and a red cape with a big, yellow "Z" on it.
"He's not here right now -- I think he said he was gonna go find some kind of card.
"He'd better get home soon, though, or he'll be late for work at the library."
Instructions
- F1=Help!
- F2=Status Screen
- F3=Toggle Music
- F4=Toggle Sound
- F5=Save
- F6=Restore
- F8=Turn on Joystick
- F9=Calibrate Joystick
- F10=Message from Recreational Software Designs
- ESC=Quit!
WHEN ZOOM IS FLYING:
- 8, Up Arrow=Speed Up
- 2, Down Arrow=Slow Down
- 4, Left Arrow=Veer left
- 6, Right Arrow=Veer Right
- Space Bar=Fire a Ray of Magic
WHEN ZOOM IS WALKING:
- 7, Home=Fly Left
- 8, Up Arrow=Fly Upwards
- 9, PgUp=Fly Right
- 4, Left Arrow=Walk to the Left
- 6, Right Arrow=Walk to the Right
- 2, Down Arrow=Fly Downwards
- B=Fire a Ray of Magic to the Left
- N=Fire a Ray of Magic to the Right
ITEMS:
- A drop of honey refills your hit points by one point. The big `100' floating around gives you one hundred points, and the zoom doll gives Zoom an extra life.
MONSTERS:
- The Crabbies move in a set pattern, a diamond. They're pretty easy to get rid of.
- The Flaming Turnips, those orange balls with boots and shades, move VERY randomly. If you can hit them, they'll die instantly.
- Watch out for Flying Dirt Clods. They get weaker every time you hit them, but it takes multiple hits to dispatch them.
- Pretzels are wimps. Just shoot 'em.
- The Polygon, Green takes two hits. After the first one, it gets annoyed and starts to chase you.
- The Clouds are as easy to dispatch as the Pretzels.
Credits
Games:
Game Testers:
- M.O.S.H.
Game Engine:
Special Thanx to:
Background
Mostly a sort of side-scrolling platformer, although there are some ill-functioning vertical shooting segments. A side-story (or gaiden, if you prefer) to the A-J's Quest series, which I took as my namesake at the time. I think this is actually a bit better than the main series, with the exception of the (incredibly complex) third game.
As with Friction, this was on ZDNet from around 1998 through 2000 or 2001 or so. Maybe it had something to do with C|Net's buyout? I honestly didn't pay much attention to that deal. Also as with Friction, this game managed to gather three stars (out of a possible five) by whatever internal monkey did the official reviews for these things. I don't think too many people actually downloaded either game, which might be a second explanation for why they're no longer around.
Links
Downloads
- Zoom the Super Bear (? kB)
- Level 1-1 map (58 kB)
- Level 1-2 map (68 kB)
- Level 2-1 map (31 kB)
- Level 2-2 map (29 kB)
- Level 3-1 map (34 kB)
- Level 3-2 map (115 kB)
- Level 4-1 map (26 kB)
- Level 4-2 map (75 kB)
- Level 5-1 map (18 kB)
- Level 5-2 map (22 kB)
