Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 429: Zool

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

What is a Zool? Why is there so much fruit? And why do you tilt "up" to jump? All these questions and more answered in a double-feature podcast featuring a chat with Dave Bulmer and a backup interview with the Zool ReDimensioned team! Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts

This week in Retronauts, you've got to be cruel, to be kind. Cruel is the villain from Zool. welcome to another episode of Retronauts presented this time by me, Stuart Gibb. This is my third episode as presenter. And as I said, last episode, I think you'll agree that this is going to be the best one ever. That's my plan. That's my general goal here is every single time I host, I want it to build on the previous best episode, which of course was always going to be the previous time that I hosted. I think that's fairly basic stuff. I think that's what we all should be striving for. And if we're not, what are we doing here? You know, today's episode, I am

joined by, I'm trying to think of a good way to do an intro here, and a host of Sonic the Comic, the podcast, and a music doing man. And I would say general internet producer of amusement. Is that, do you think that's any good? You're having difficulty saying what I do, and that is an experience that I experience. I'm trying to categorize it well. Well, anyway, it's Dave Thorner. Hello, Dave. Hello. Hello. I'm someone from the internet and when I think of something interesting I do that. Yes, that is what you do. Actually, that would be a good start if you would like to tell us

about the things that you do and have done and are planning on doing in the future. Oh, right. Oh, flipping heck. Okay, where would I see myself in five years? You mean? Let's pretend this is a job interview and you've just been asked that stupid question. Right. I'm not going to pretend that because I would have to come up with some nonsense to pretend that I'm a grown-up. No, what I make, so at the moment I'm most known for a podcast, as just mentioned, Sonic the Comic the podcast, where there's a lot of people, and I'm a big fan of this podcast, but it is quite American. And a lot of sort of American game nostalgia people don't know that everything that they know about Sonic the Hedgehog is sort

of a retcon and that it had a very different life originally and story behind it. And me and my associate Chris McFeeley from off of Transformers The Basics on YouTube, analyze that by covering issue by issue, the old British sonic comics that came out, which were the best ones, and were very different from what a lot of people think they might have been. And also, we do lots of general context, but let's face it, bareface nostalgia for what it was like to be a child at that time. And that's why I'm here. I'm here in that capacity as a sort of remembering what things were like in the 90s correspondent. Indeed. Well, I saw you stream the Zool rebake, Zool Reader mentioned. And I thought, hello.

A man who knows things about Zool and or has memories about Zool, and therefore this has happened. This is all led to this. I have, not only do I have memories of Zool, but I have memories of Zool from the UK, which is where you have to have been to have proper memories of Zool. If you, no offence, but if an American starts selling you memories about Zool, they're wrong. Just like with Sonic, although with Sonic, you have to at least sort of, you know, massage their egos about it and say, Like, well, you're right in a different way, but they're wrong. But with Zool, you can just straight.

And it's like dizzy. You can just say like, well, now, that's very nice. But I'm from the UK. So let me just step in there. And that's what I'm here to do, just to help out. I mean, you don't. You're in the same situation as I am, but now you've got backup. I'm in a similar situation.

And yeah, and finally, there is a gun to my site, basically. You are a gun. Right. Zool, that's what we're talking about. Zool, Z-O-L, he is. a ninja from the nth dimension categorically not an ant. This is an idea that was falsely put out there

by Gaines Magazine's who weren't paying attention and I actually have this from the horse's mouth so to speak when I did interview Ian Stewart that's going to be on the back of, one of the founders of Gremlin graphics and that's going to be on the back of this episode. That was always

fairly clear to me. I liken it to the fact that I on my podcast we covered a sticker album that came out around the time of Sonic 3's release. A Sonic That's so you. Yes, yeah, we did a read-through of a sticker album. And we did, what could I say?

And in it, this is when Sonic 3 came out and they described Knuckles as a, quote, monkey-like creature. That is why Zool is an ant. It's because people who don't actually know what the thing is they're covering are still having to just make it up. In

their defense? What's a ninja from the own dimension exactly? I mean, it's some sort of alien. To be fair, there's not much of a frame of reference. You look at Zool and you think, if you didn't know what Zor was and you had to give him a species. If you had to give him a species

and you were affected by the fact that Sonic had made there be lots of animal mascot copies type that characters. Yes, you mind the fact that Zool is there to essentially copy Sonic. Yes, he is. Although I maintain it isn't a copy of Sonic

As some people think they misinterpret that But it was there as a sort of Sonic busting mascot type creation That yes you're affected by that You think it must be an animal I guess that's because it's got a black segmented body Yeah exactly It's not a flipping horse is it I mean it's not a flipping horse no

Had he been a horse thing This would be very different We may be talking about a much larger reaching and more successful Far better game Yeah so yeah it's all the massive horse yeah oh boy

and at the beginning you can choose to either have music or clopping sound of it yeah now is that clopping in the internet parlors no god no right

I hope that I know what that means and that you said it there's no element of this that I don't like oh that's true I've already dragged this down into the gutter I'm usually quite high brow

I mean I would wager they're probably oh no I was about to say there probably isn't that much as all pornography but there probably is. Let's just move on. No, let's not move on. Let's not move on. I've drawn Zool pornography.

Dave. And my geography teacher saw it. And she thought it was funny and cool. She laughed and went, that's very good. God's sake. Because it was, what it was, was it was a sex scene between, obviously, Zool and Zoos, more on humans. later.

Of course. But it was amusingly covered up by a big thing that was like, you know, censored. We won't print this muck around here, Ed. Even though it was just the drawing I'd done in an exercise book. I mean, obviously everyone wants to see it. Don't they? But, God, I think the podcast has already peaked. It's only all downhill from here.

Okay, Zool. Zool certainly has. Whoa, hello. Zool, the ninja from the endth dimension was originally made for the Commodore Amiga, the beloved little box of joy, the Amiga, by Gremlin Graphics back in 1992. The best computer that's ever been? I'm not going to challenge that, because that would lead to a road that none of us

want to walk down. But then following the Amiga version, it was ported to lots and lots of other systems. In theory. Inferior systems fair play. The Amiga original, as has the usual, as referenced earlier, it has the whole, do you want to have music or sound effects choice at the beginning, which is something that I have unfortunately never quite been on board with because why would you not choose the music, you know? Well, yeah, it's something that I struggle with myself because both options are very good in that game. It's true. Really, the only thing you can do. And this something I am genuinely, and I was thinking about this only today in 10-2. Anytime I plays all from now on, it will be with the music playing on YouTube in the background and the

sound effects selected. That's very clever. There, you've got it all then. Alternatively, you could play the Acorn Archimedes or the Amiga CD-32 versions, which allow you to have both. Well, yes, but I can't imagine the music is correct in either. I'd be surprised if the Archimedes version didn't have more or less the same music. Oh, did they tend to do that? They did, because I had lemmings on my, I had an Archimedes for some reason. I don't even know how I got it. Oh, you. And I, I know, I had an Acorn Archimedes and I had lemmings on it and it was the same as

the Amygote. I had a friend who had an Archimedes and when he told us, it was, the reaction from everyone was pure incredulity and mockery. Not because we, not because, understand, we had anything against the Archimedes as a system. No. Because we thought he'd just made it up. You know, it sounds made up, doesn't it? Yeah.

I have an Acorn Archimedes. Shut up. Well, he didn't say Acorn. He just said Archimedes. So it was, you know, it's like saying, oh, yeah, no, I've, like, we were talking about computers. It was like, well, of course, I've got a Sophocles. Yeah, I've got an H-D Pythagoras.

Yeah, you're just saying words you think sound clever now. That's not a, that's a, and then when we went around there and he had it, he really had this computer for somehow the Lockery only increased. Well, because he was like, no, look, here's what it does. I can make a picture of Big Ben come up and go bong. You know, oh, can you? Oh, well done. Brilliant.

Yeah, sort of, yeah, I've got an Archimedes at home. No, you don't. It runs a operating system called Risk Os. No, it doesn't. That's obviously untrue. It's got Mad Professor Moriarty on it. That also sounds fake. He had something where there were little rats running around or something, and, well, whatever.

The thing is, this is the only thing I will ever allow to be said against the guy. He was a great guy, brilliant friend. He was great. Had an Archimedes. But this one, he had this one like arc against him. A boffin. It's a school computer. It's a computer that we had at school.

Oh, is it? It's like the BBC micro, you know. Oh, yes. This was a machine that was essentially aimed at education. You could play games based on the look-and-read serial Jordi racer. Yeah. If you weren't cool enough to play through the Dragon's Eye, obviously. Yeah, obviously.

And, you know, Granny's Garden. And, you know, let's face it, you don't know what that is. But that's not a mark against you because most British people still don't know what that is. No. No, exactly. Who's read Stig of the Dump all the way through? But we've played the BBC version at school. Yeah, exactly.

We've played, and on our comedies, you could play the game where you talk to the little lad in the Blitz, to the little lad in the war in World War II. You can say, hello, little lad in World War II. How is it going? great. There's bombs and just people are getting shot up. And honestly, it's a trial. It's a real trial. Let's hope it all ends soon. Yeah, how's it going for you? Oh, is it still an hour till lunchtime? Oh, no. Oh, boo-hoo. Any bombs? You really used to have a

go, you didn't he that little lad. Yeah, it's like, oh yeah, so I see you're upset because you've been packed like peanut butter sandwiches instead of marmite sandwiches, yeah. Yeah. My house just got like flattened by a big bomb. Yeah. It's not exactly comparable is it. I mean, the fact you're even talking to me is a bit of it in positions, quite frankly. I've got things to do. And, you know, if we've got this power to reach across time, maybe

you could go ahead and, like, you know, Yanga's all out of this. There's hell. Zool. Also on the Archimedes. And Amiga CD-32, as mentioned, that's the only way to get both sound effects and music unless you're playing one of the console versions. But if you're playing the console versions, what you're getting

is a completely different game. Yeah. As we discovered, didn't we? Well, yes, because I was under the apprehension, the misapprehension, indeed, that kind of apprehension, that the remake Zoolreidimension was based solely on the Amiga version.

Why wouldn't it be? Why wouldn't it be, exactly? But then, no, I found out this way that the Mega Drive, SNEs, etc., versions of Zool are entirely different in their level way out. I think the basic gameplay is more or less the same. More or less, yeah. There might be maybe slightly less momentum

or slightly more momentum. Well, there's a key difference, which is that they're optimized for controller use. So you can see why that would be the one that they went. Yeah, absolutely. Zool is 100% a joystick game, and that's why I actually haven't played it since the Amiga, because I don't have the ability to plug a joystick into my computers.

Exactly. And if you're not tilting up to jump, then what are you doing? What are you doing? By the way, by the way, digression, but I won't hear anything against that. There's a lot of fun is made by the sort of unusual people. who were raised on the nez. I tried to say that in a comedy disparaging tone,

but I think I went too far. It came off as real hate. Yeah, I love the nez. But if you were raised on that, then a lot of people don't understand the opt-to-jump thing and think it's inherently bad. It was, however, inherently good.

It's very tactile. It's a better representation, physically, of what you're asking the character to do than pressing a button is. Because pressing a button is, like, It's like you're controlling a machine or a robot, whereas with a joystick, you're that way, that way, this way. You're tilting him. You're flicking him up. Yeah. You're up and he jumps. It feels like the same thing. Yeah. And honestly, Dave, I need you to stop talking about flicking Zool up because this is getting out of control. Okay. Well, it's just my geography teacher was very impressed. Well, good. Bully for them. Bully for them. But I see what you mean. It's almost like you are physically grabbing hold of Zool and yanking him around. Yes. And that's what, that's how this game was built.

whereas the console version when that turned out to be the recent remake it was like it's not unacceptable it's just a bit weird it's what it's a bit like is if you know if they did a remake of I don't know Sonic 1 and it turned out

to be that weird version that somebody made to run on anise oh yes well that's not that that isn't it then but I feel like I should talk about what you actually do in Zor to some extent because I feel like a lot of players will not have even touched Zool with a 10-foot Zool pole. Yes, we've got too much rambling.

Let's actually tell them what we're going to talk about. What the aim of Zool is, essentially, being a European sort of platform, and I don't mean that like a dirty word, because that tends to come up quite a lot. You have to collect a certain number of objects before you can leave a stage. Now, my understanding is, in the Amiga version, it is just the general collectibles, 100 small candy canes, you know, like that sort of thing. because this is one of those platforms where let's say there's just a long line

of collectibles, you jump through them, lots of numbers come out and they go big, bing, bing, bing, bing like that. It's that kind of game. It's a collecting things adventure, which is near that, I find, when the game is not just to get from one side of the level to the other, while you do have to do that, you also have to make sure you collect those hundred cakes or whatever,

because if you don't get them, you're not going to be able to leave. And to some extent, I can see the frustration at that because it is a bit of a hangover from even older microcomputer games like Manic Minor, I think, where you had to collect 10 items

in order for the exit to open. It's a similar principle, though here let's say if you needed 200 music CDs, there would be like 600 in the level anyway, so it really isn't that much of it in position to click. Yes, I suppose that's, I can see that. I've realised as you're saying this

that my memory of Zool 2, sorry, memory of Zool 1 is actually a bit hazy, and I don't remember whether you have to collect a number of things or not, but I believe you that you do. The thing is it's been affected by that remake, and so I've sort of forgotten what was from what. But the thing about this game, as with so many other of these, apparently much maligned European thing collecting games, is that the collecting of the things was itself very satisfying. You know, I mean, I challenge anyone who's played a Mario game and didn't feel bothered if they let me. left one coin behind on the screen, which they could have got.

It just imagine it as that. Zool in particular, along with, say, James Ponto, Robocod, stands out on the Amiga as like one where the things you, the little bits and bobs that you're collecting are really moorish to collect. They look good and you want them and you just want to grab them all. Well, it's very nice because each level is based on your different sort of theme. They're all very unusual themes. There's not like lava level, ice level.

There's none of that. No, no. You've got sweets level, candy level, if you're American. You've got a fun fair level with like a coconut shy and like balloons and crown faces. And there's a stage, a music-based stage, which means you're running on stereo CD players. Yes. And there are all the enemies change to be based on whatever theme you're in. And all the items you collect change as well.

Yeah. It's not just sonic where you're collecting coins or ring. every level it's level one you're collecting small dolly mixtures you're collecting candy canes you're collecting cakes you're collecting jellies in level two in the music level you're collecting CDs music notes tapes all that sort of thing it's great and that was at a time when to me the CD was an aspirational product I didn't have a CD player so to see all these little CDs lying around with that beautiful rainbow shine on them and gathering them all up along with little tapes and little guitars and microphones and pairs of headphones, woo, woo, lovely.

And you've got enemies that are sort of anthropomorphic drums, and when you, when you shoot them, your projectiles bounce off the drums and make a drum noise. How good is that? Yeah. Who could not like that, really? Only a fool. A fool. And we're not talking about fools. We're talking about Zools. Yeah. Oh, boy. Good episode so far. And a game that may be more familiar to console players is a cool spot, which came out later, I believe that was 93.

And that actually does have a similar feel, in my opinion, because it is a collecting game. and it has levels made out of, like, hardware, like woodblocked tools, and that is something that comes from Zool, I believe. Now, I don't know whether a CoolSpot was a UK developed or European developed game, so I'll have to look into that. I would speculate that it was. Well, I believe that it was. I think, well, wasn't it made by the people who also made,

what am I thinking of? You know, shiny. It's a shiny game, right? I think it was made by Dave Perry, yes, the Earthworm Jim fellow. Now, was he British or not? I don't know. His name is Dave, which suggests maybe yes. Do they not have those in America? I don't think they have them.

I mean, let's look at yourself, for God's sake. You're living proof. No, quite. I'm living, in the sense, I'm living proof of part of what you're saying, yes. The far from the point that you're making. But I don't know. I mean, based solely on what I understand about the different level design philosophies and game design philosophies of platform games based in both.

the UK and in America, I would argue that CoolSpot has, if it's not made by a UK team, it's got that DNA in it. Dave Perry is from Northern Ireland. There we go. So yes, his whole thing would have all been about Amigas and Speckies and all that sort. Brilliant. Yeah. We intuited that because his games felt native at when we played them.

Yes, because there is a level on Cool Spot where mice throw pieces of cheese at you. That is the most British thing I can imagine. Yeah. And even like, even though one of his games is Disney's Aladdin, like nevertheless, but yeah, you know, you know what I mean? Nevertheless. No, I get it. I was actually, this is, this is relevant. I was playing Business Aladdin, the American Mega Drive game the other day. And I was thinking, there are a lot of odd little things in this game that make it seem British. Yes. Like the fact that when you throw an apple at the guards, their trousers fall down. Their trousers fall down. The fact that it was a really good game. the fact that you can make Aladdin put Mickey ears on and then one-up appears and it goes bleh Yeah, the fact that one of the sound effects is the fact that in the background of the second level there are tents that have the sort of gendered male and female

toilet signs on them And then one for genies And one for genies, yes, see That's us, man, that's what we are bringing to the table Yeah, right here Um, toilet-y, pooh-o-oil-humour, pants falling down And boos wheeze and six So Zool

Critique of Zool really I mean I think it's got any of Poo's Wies or Six in Zool I don't know but to be fair It may have buried secrets because there are a lot of sort of hidden levels and extra little bits and bobs There is a schmup level As people tend to say these days I believe

I think they do yes A shoot them up level a shooter a space shooter level Where you are horizontally flying in Zul's ship and blasting baddens. Well, and furthermore, I remember at the time the legend was that that level was set inside Zool's body. Yes. And it's all body stuff

in there. That's a very unusual digression to the game, in my opinion. Yes. Nothing in the rest of the game is anything like that in any regard. And I believe that's one of the ones you can unlock by playing the piano in the music stage, which is wonderful. I love secrets like that.

Well, the one that I knew was that there was just, this is how we discovered, in fact, that I was not remembering the layout of the level because it was a game I'd never played, is because there was just a certain corner that if you jumped onto it and you'd go into this level, you didn't have to do anything at all, other than that. And that was the only one I knew, so I didn't know about the tune you can play or anything. No, I found a few of the secret levels in the remake, but I have not found any of them in the original, despite having now played the original quite a bit. And I would like to get back to it as well, because I liked it. But the original Amiga version, has that the console version doesn't have, in my humble opinion, is it feels handcrafted. It feels like a guy made it. Yeah. Because the level design isn't extremely polished. It isn't uniform. It's not careful.

It's just like, oh, wouldn't it be cool if this happens now? Yes. No, that's exactly it. Whereas I go the other way. Zool is a game where cool stuff happens. Yes. On the console is like a committee polished version of the concept. I agree.

personality. That is exactly how I feel about it. And I don't think that Mega Drove's all is a bad game per se. I just don't think it's as interesting at all. No, no, quite. It's not. It's a perfectly good game. And I have nothing against the remake other than the fact that it's of another game. Yeah. It might be worth

mentioning before we talk about the tie-in to this game. It might be worth mentioning the Chup A-Toop connection. Oh, got to. Now, I thought they were called chuppa-chups until they did you interview. But apparently no, they are called Tuba-Tubes. Are you sure? Because the reason I think they're called chuppa chupps is I remember chuppa chaps, sweet friend, which was an advert where presumably they say the brand more or less correctly.

You would imagine so, yes. Maybe, but then it's possible that I was myself imposing that pronunciation and he actually says chupychupes, sweet friend. If anyone knows how you pronounce chupichops slash chappichops, please get in touch and let us know because it's now up in the air. I was corrected thusly in the interview section, but now I'm. now it's been thrown into disarray. Yeah, sorry. No, obviously we have to go with the person who's, I mean, let's... We'll go with that.

We'll go with chup chutes for the time being. Yeah. I mean, that person's older than me, for one thing. I mean, Cheaper Chupes, to me, I believe they are a European sort of thing, and chup sounds more European than chup, I think. Yes, I think it's, yes, is it a sort of chewing, sucking noise where... I think it could well be. I don't know.

All I know is there was a lot of them in Zool. There's a lot of Chupichup's logos and breakable chupichupes logo. that have things in them. I think that might be in just Zool 2, actually. And, you know, maybe it was... Sorry, wait a minute. Sorry. Did you just try and say that the Chupacupes were only in Zool 2? No, I said that the breakable boxes that were their logo are the ones that are in Zul 2.

Okay, good. We were going to have to have a battle. There was going to have to be a real word fight there. Yeah. But no, it's not necessary, because I know for a fact they're in both versions. It's fine. It would be a really weird thing today. Like, I would more expect someone to say that they were only in the first one, because nobody knows anything about the second one. Yeah, nobody even has played the second one.

No, I'm the only person, and that's why I'm here, really, but we'll get to that later. We will. Actually, I was looking on, I was doing some of my research for this, and this was mentioned on Wikipedia, so it might not be true. But it said that Zool 2 on the Jaguar sold 11,000 copies, and I was like, I don't know if that's a lot or a little for the Jaguar, because I don't know who owned a Jaguar. No, I don't know, and I couldn't compare that to Amiga sales. No idea. But I just thought it was interesting to note that that specific sort of amount, you know, 11,000 people. And it gets you get me thinking, like, is that a shitload or is that not, none?

Yeah, you've stayed. What they've done there is they've, somewhere, they've found out the information and they've gone, who? I had better read that through you, Wikipedia. Type, type, type, type, type. Citation needed. They may not know themselves what it means. No.

Nobody on Wikipedia knows what things mean. They only know facts. I went to, I was out at the pub quite recently and there was like a meetup happening with an internet community that I'm part of and on opposite table to us there was a Wikipedia meetup happening and yeah and I was quite

refreshed and I began heckling them with vandalism I had done to Wikipedia I just wait wait here's what you should do if that ever happens again while they're there you should be secretly vandalising the entry for their group on Wikipedia.

Yeah, that's not bad they did. Oh, God. While their backs are turned. They were all very, very kind about it, though, because I was very jovial in my saying, yes, the So Solid crew did gain lots of extra members, didn't it? For quite a long time. But anyway, though.

Yeah, anyway, that's enough of that, because there's nothing to do with Zool whatsoever. Right. Um, I think that's about all that can be said, honestly, about the original Zool. Because as much as it is a fun, fast-paced, action-packed, climbing, shooting, what is he throwing jelly beans? Oh, I don't know. He's just shooting little dots. Because I always thought

they were jelly beans because of the sweet environment, you know, because when I, I didn't actually in fact, that's a question I'd like to raise. How did you first come to play Zor? How did you become aware of the existence of this man, Zor? Yes, I will tell you exactly how.

I was about 10, and this was about 1992. And at that time, Something that people who were interested in nostalgia gaming but wasn't necessarily there don't always appreciate is that back in those days, we, and maybe I, perhaps I only mean the UK here,

didn't quite have the like release day culture that we have now. So when something comes out, if you don't have it within, I don't know, four years, it hasn't necessarily gone away and it's still fine to want and to get the thing then. I got my megadrive in 1994, and that didn't seem to me like I'd missed a boat at all, even though the PlayStation was coming out. Like, that was just kind of how things were.

So the situation I was in in 1992 was that, like, my entire gaming situation at home was ZDex Spectrum. That was it. An early 80s machine. And then my friends who had anything at home, you know, I had one megadrive friend. and mostly people just had ZX Spectrums. That's kind of where we were. It was very rare to have anything more. And into that environment, my best friend at the time,

whose computer up till then had been, whichever one it was that old people used to have, where it was either a green or an orange screen with a floppy disk slot in the side of the screen, but for the really big floppies. I see. It was for doing sums on them. You do sums on the media

work processing, and there were a, He had, like, two games, one of which was a sequel to Talsetti, which I had on the spectrum, and one of which was Samantha Fox's strip poker. I see. And I had another friend who had that. That was his computer. Like, this was what the environment was like. Gaming was a very dull monochrome thing.

And then this guy got an Amiga, 1,200 as well. Oh, my God. AGA. Yes, and I don't, that's a graphical chip set that made it look better. And I don't know why this happened. I don't know what whimsy his dad got in his mind to buy a new computer for the family. But suddenly what my friend had was like, well, just a miracle, just something that could create magic and miracles. And he had Zool because it came with Zool because they all did.

That was the point of Zool was to be the thing you had on the Amiga. And so I went around there and played on it and just couldn't believe any of the senses that my body was telling me I was experiencing. Like the speed of it, the look of it, the music, which is the, that's the part you can still sort of experience today. You know what I mean? Everything else is compromised because we don't have CRT. There's going to be zool music and dispersed throughout this podcast. Of course there is. But yeah, just to go from beat, beat, beat blurb. And by the way, there are some beautiful music made on the AY chip over on the spectrum. I've done it down by saying beat blurb. But that was the genius of it was that it was that it was all instructed out of that. Yes. And, you know, same on things like the Nez, really, although we didn't, did we have that yet? Yes, I think this same friend may have had one of those by this time. I had one Nez friend. He was my one Nez friend. Yeah. It's just a question of what came first. Well, yeah, when he got his Amiga, it was like someone had pushed a symphony orchestra into his house or something. It was an incredible change from what we were used to. The quantum, I mean, that said, if a context saying,

not obviously your context. Jaws is very different, but going from the Commodore 64's, like, Sid-chip, the S-D-S-D ship, it's maybe slightly less of a leap. Yes, because that is very famed for its music. The Sid-chip was absolutely wonderful, and I, yes, and I was unaware of it, and I didn't have a C-64 or a C-64.

Yeah, I didn't know it was a thing until, like, way later anyway. But it was still a significant difference because what that was doing was extremely high-level beeps and blurbs. Yes. They sound so great, whereas what the Amiga was doing was it was entirely sample-based. So, interestingly, although the first sort of crop of games basically used that sampler to sample C-64 bleeps and things, and, like, there was a lot of games that did that. Stuff like Zool was, it was like it listening to a keyboard demo. In those days, you used to go into a, you know, a toy shop or whatever and press the demo key on a keyboard.

And just listen to music that. And then get told off for your mom's. Yeah. mine was very patient. She would leave me there and use that opportunity to go and shop for something sensible. But no, this was like that. It was, we hadn't really had a sound like this before because it was made out of like, oh, here's a sample of an electric guitar going and they built music out of that. Here's a fluty sound. Here's a slap bass sound. And here is a sound of a guy going, and then a smashing glass noise. That's like the first thing you hear

in the original Zool is that and then in the background you've got your it's great. It's really cool. But that's the thing. And by the way, I should have said this in the intro. I am here

in my capacity as the one guy who's furious every time he's trying to find a copy of Zoolophobia, which is the title screen music from Zool 1. And everyone on YouTube has uploaded it playing at the wrong speed. That's unacceptable.

everyone because the original dot mod file that you know that the music was that it ran from says in the samples like there's only what you could name all of the samples and only one of them is named I believe and it says change speed to 168 or something like that it says what number it is and that is how to play the music properly if you just play it by itself it plays too slow evidently something in the game not in the music module made it play at that speed is there it doesn't work so there isn't a correct speed version of this song on YouTube at all?

There is, but it is showing the title screen, and I will... Oh, I see, because I saw a... I mean, I wonder if it's a 50 hertz thing, like a Powell thing. No, I know. I don't mean that in a bad... I mean, as in it was meant to be like that. I know. Look, it could

be. I mean, who in the 60 hertz region is running an amiga anyway? So, this wouldn't have been something they could say it. But no, because that normally sped things up. Whereas, yeah, no, it's... I will make sure that you have a copy of the correct I'm excited to get zolophobia yeah this is going to be good

what it's supposed to go like I'm like you with your zoolophilia what it's supposed to go like is doodle da da da like that but what it goes like on YouTube is because that's one sample it plays the same right

no because that's the thing it just plays and that's the problem the samples are all in the wrong so there's one bit where it goes like And if you play it wrong, it's like, bow, wow,

no, I can't do it because it's so wrong. It's like, Beowah, bow, well, it's wrong. It's really,

never mind, anyway. I hate it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's rubbish. I'll send you the proper sound. I hate it.

We should talk about Zool 2. We should definitely talk about the sequel to Zool. The sequel to Zool was developed by a team called the Warp Factory, and it was released in late 1993 for the Amiga, which must make it a fairly late Amiga game in general in terms of its mainstream sort of success. Right. Well, I won't listen to that kind of blasphemy.

Okay. Let me rephrase that. A late game for the Amiga in terms of the ignorant populace ignoring, not giving it its dues. I mean, Worms was the end of 1995. Really? Yeah.

It was as late as that. We can safely say that that was a mainstream Amiga release. I am talking. bollocks in that case, and I apologize. I genuinely didn't realize it went. The thing is, it was, no, what Worms was, was it was the last, it was the last Amiga game of note,

and yes, it probably came out quite a while after most people had stopped being interested in Amiga, and I just have to come to accept that. I just, I do. Worms even got this director's cut, which is exclusive to the Amiga until, yeah, yeah. And it had many of the features that many people associate with Worms, too, or Armageddon.

I know, I don't. Nobody knows about it. most people just write off the Amiga and don't bother learning about it in history, but that's what we're here to correct. The Amiga Mini that's coming out in April has got it on it. Okay. Yeah. I'm excited about that.

I'm quite excited about that. The small Amiga. It's starting to think if it's not been done already, there must be a general Amiga episode of Retronauts. Going to put that one on the old back burner. As all two was also released again on CD 32. It was released on the Atari Jaguar, of all things, and it was released for MS. DOS.

I know that because I had the sold-out software version of it, and it didn't work. Ah. That's why I was not able to play it. Oh, that's a shame. It's disappointing. The Jaguar version, having looked into it, and I have played the Jaguar version on the emulator a little bit,

it seems to be, I would argue, the most polished of the versions in that, you know, you can get both music and sound effects. It seems to have the full graphics of the Amiga version and everything. Fair enough. I can't agree about it. But unfortunately, to play it, you have to either have a Jaguar or emulate the Jaguar, neither of which are easy to do.

It also introduces, well, not introduces, brings back in a major capacity, Zool's. I don't want to say this, because it sounds kind of... Zool's sort of female counterpart and or girlfriend and or the girl version of Zool. I don't know what Zuz is. I don't know what her, like, role is. I mean, I know what her role is in your drawing, but it's not dwell on that any further. There's simply no... Why do you keep bringing it up, Dave?

I know, I know, and I'm insatiable. But there's simply no, like, point in not acknowledging what Zuz was there for. It was just, okay, we'll make a girl one. Yes. Sonic 2 had tales. Yes, the girl version of Sonic. The girl version of Sonic. And so Zul 2 needed one.

And it just because, I don't know, maybe this is the era that it was, the done thing maybe had become, all right, well, girl version then, so that it's not just two boys. Yes. Maybe that. I don't know why they did it, and I don't know to what extent, and it's difficult in related media about which we'll talk later to ascertain to what extent. Zuz was meant to be an alternative for, for instance, female players, or was she meant to be a sex pot? It's genuinely difficult to tell which of those things.

Well, in-game, my understanding is that she has a different attack. She has a melee attack with her electric. whip thing that she has. That's what I have read. That's right. And also, apparently, she can take different routes because they're able to each break different parts of the environment. That may be true. I can't now remember. I have looked into this extensively, and I

can find nothing to back this up. Right. Because there's not... Maybe one of us should have tried playing it. I have tried playing it. I have extensively searched for different routes through this game. I have even looked at long plays of this game. Oh, I see. And I cannot find any evidence that this is true. I'm not saying it's not true.

It sounds a bit like someone, yes, who just is assuming things based on knuckles. There is not a lot of information about this game's production out there on the internet. There is basically what in old magazines, which have been scanned like Amiga Action, and there is Wikipedia. And having looked at these Amiga Action scans or whatever that mention this feature, they do so in a preview context. They do not say this about the finished game. So I am not convinced that is true.

Right. That's just something they wanted to do, but couldn't. Yes. I think that may be the case. I can't confirm it, though. So it remains a bit of a Zool mystery. I'm going to keep checking, though. And I will find this,

and then we will do a three-hour follow-up episode. But there's a thing. We'll do a follow-up episode where we've actually gone and played the game instead of just relying on nostalgia. Well, speak for yourself, then, because I have, in fact, played the game. Other than Zuz, it also introduces the two-headed dog,

Zune, who I believe you've only played us in a breakout-style minigame, is that? That is literally the only point of Zoon, I think. Yeah, Zoon is a two-headed dog, and therefore makes a decent... What's the word? Paddle for a breakout game? Yeah. And the villain, the big villain of the series is called Krull, K-R-O-L.

And you don't actually fight Krual, I don't think, in any of the games. You may fight him in the remake. Cruel, as far as I'm aware, has only appeared once, or at least across the two games. Yes. And that is in the form of a postcard that came with Zool-2. Where he was depicted simply as a pair of eyes. looking out of some sort of ridged meat.

Some ridged meat. That's my memory of it. It's not very clear. I don't have it to hand. Because in Reader mentioned, the final boss is a pair of eyes in space, which I think may be supposed to be cruel. That'll be that then.

But is that in the Mega Drive game or not? I don't know. I haven't. I don't know. That I didn't check. I'm going to just quickly go to a Mega Drive long play now while we talk and find out. Yes. Because I need to talk about the actual villain of Zool 2,

which is a square. Yes. It is a block named Mental Block, which is A, funny, and B, slightly distasteful. Yeah, it's not the sort of joke we would make now. No. But in 1993, it was very funny. It is extremely, yeah, in 1993, everyone was ringing each other up on their wall-mounted landline phones. Yes.

And talking about how funny and clever it was. Yo, Dave Meister. Dave Meister. Yeah. You hear about Mental Block in Zool-2? Hmm. It's deaf. D.E. F, they used to say that.

Yeah, no, they did. Yeah. It's death, definitive, or definitely very good. I don't know what it actually means. Oh, is that what death meant definitive? I thought it meant definitive. Oh, that would be good. Yeah, it's D.E.F. Definitive. I never knew.

No, I didn't know. And then, you know, you would go back up into your bedroom and you would go on your fruit of the loom jumper. That's what you do. No, all I ever knew about it was that dope, death anyway, was okay when your DJ plays the K. Yeah. of what the kid has to say. Now, in terms of gameplay, Zool 2 is not that different to the original Zool, but I would argue

it is quite a bit more polished. So this is the thing. Zool 2 is generally kind of maligned, I find, because people will say of it that no one played it. And I don't know if that's the case or not, but I think that Zool 2 is like the Sonic 3 of Zool. I think it was very polished in all of the ways that matter to a child. with an Amiga, which is that it looks

better. And it does. They, you know, Sonic 3 style, they really kind of added a sort of roundiness to the sprites and made them more like they were drawn by cartoonists and illustrators. Yeah, the Zool's all Sprite in the original game is very

deluxe paint looking. Yes. Yeah. It's extremely dumpy. But in Zul too, he looks a lot more edgy and cool. I think they actually did get a Disney guy in to redesign him. Really? I read that somewhere, yes, but I don't remember their name. Well, now, this is, this was reflected in the actual

physical packaging as well, because the original box for Zool has a drawing of Zool on the front, which was very kind of, like a designer did it rather than illustrator did it. You know what I mean? It's made out of shapes. And in the manual, there was

a comic that illustrated the story behind Zul, because of those days, manuals used to have to come with a story. Here's the story. Here's the story so far, because we couldn't have... And of course, back then, games used to also come with manuals, which is... And because it was a big box game, as we call them now, a game, as we used to call them then. And it came with this manual in which was this comic of Zool. And it was, again, drawn

kind of crudely of him landing in Sweetie Land and getting on with his adventure. Well, in the version of Zool that I had, because I got it, as I got my Amiga quite late, summer of 93, so too did I get my copy of Zool quite late. And if... had box art, redesigned box art and manual comic to be in line with the artist doing the cover for Zool 2 and the comic that I believe came with that as well. So, yeah, it had this design change, although none of the contents of the game, you know, didn't change the title screen or anything like that. No. Yeah, so as he had had an upgrade on the boxes themselves, so too did he have an upgrade in the sprites and other in-game art by the time of Zul 2. Don't know who did it, though.

I've been desperately trying to find the name of the fellow who redesigned him because I had it earlier. Oh, did you? I didn't write it down because, again, extremely clever, borderline genius man. This is good. We're making a really good case for this more British version of veterans. Yes, I've done what can only be described as a week. Oh, I found it.

Okay, there we go. Everything's come up great. He has been redesigned by a man named Alan Barton, who did work on Tiny Toons, Roadrunner, Daffy Duck cartoons, Disney's Jungle Book, Sylvester the Cat, and apparently Batman Returns. He worked on all of those. And of course, Alan Barton was half of Black Lace, whose hits included Agadou and Superman.

That's true, but it'll be another one. Or is it? What if it's not? If it's not, we've just cracked the code. I imagine if Zool was redesigned by one of the guys who made Agadou. That would make me so happy. I can't even explain. That's the kind of thing where you'd have to just go and lay down for a bit to recover from the sheer joy.

And we broke that exclusive. Yeah, that's the... Let's just pretend it is. We've really... We have really, I think, now made the gates for this more... Yeah. Retronauts. A UK Retronauts exclusive.

Alan Barton from Black Lace. It is responsible for redesign of Zool. If that's incorrect, please don't tell us. Yeah. We've ever tell us. We lots remain in this blissful world, but we're in that's true. Mr. Editor, if you'd like to sink

in a little bit of Agadou now, you're very welcome. Agadoo, too, do, push pineapple, shake the tree. Agadoo, too, do, push pineapple, dried coffee. To the left, to the right, jump up and down and to the knees. Come and dance every night, sing with a hula melody.

Agadoo, the very first record that I owned. because it came on the TV and it had dancing pineapples and I was on Amid of it. And my dad, who is all, you know, he's into all like prog rock and stuff from the past. He, and this is just the mark of a good parent, he had to personally trudge off to the shop and queue and openly with his face and everything,

because he couldn't do it. You couldn't buy things on the internet in those days. He had to own up to wanting to purchase this record and he had to do that with his face, with his presence, with his actual face. There in the room. But not only that, It was the first record.

This is the way he tells it. Agadu was the first record he ever bought because he wasn't allowed to, like, have his own records back home. And then by the time he had his own place, he was just sort of into tapes by then. So, yeah, I'm sure he had albums, but I think it was probably his first thing. It could be worse. The first record I bought was Earth Song by Michael Jackson. Oh, gosh. Yeah.

And you know what turned out, he didn't even redesign Zools. I didn't have not so much No Anyway moving swiftly on from that man As good as all two is And it is good It is a good platform game Yeah

I would say it is very similar To the original Just again much more polished More enjoyable way Bigger levels Better level design Lots more fun collectibles Even more collectibles

Are everywhere Yeah Oh yeah So So moreish to grab those things And you can't You can barely take a step Without collecting about six things

And that game is great No, it's great. And this is the thing, this is why I hesitated when you said that it's one of these games where you have to collect a certain number of things. I don't think I've ever got to the end of a level of Zool and had not already just incidentally collected all the things. Well, it's exactly what you were saying. Why on earth would you not want to collect the things? They're all there and I'm running around and collecting them. Yeah. It's what they're for. Yeah. One thing I will say is the final level of this game, which appears to be set in some kind of thought scape. Okay. So this is it's worth mentioning the, we've already mentioned the sort of conceptual nature of these levels. You, I think, took that to another level again. Like, it had, so yeah, Zul one, no, we've already said it wasn't your simple ice level, lava level. It was a bit more sweets level, music level. But in Zool, too, they were even more abstract. The first one was called Swan Lake, I think. Yes.

Or some pun on Swan Lake. It was Swan Lake, yes. Yeah. And so it was just the bird stuff. So there was like, you know, bird feeder things hanging down that you collected. And all of the collectibles were like little. rubber ducks and worms for on ends of hooks. And there

was eggs on mountains in the background. Yeah, and you could bounce on them. Fried eggs. Bounce on fried eggs. It was all like that. Yeah, rubbery fried eggs. And the Zul two, oh no, I was about to say something musically about it. I'll say that in a minute because that's a topic. But yes, the final level

was called mental blockage. Hence mental block. I don't know which one came first in the development. And it was so it was just about cerebral things. So it was like crosswords, crossword puzzle you were running about in. There was, you know, Shakespeare quotes and E4MC squared. And there was a head with the brain bit divided up, like of one of those phrenologies. Columns like Greek, like, the necropolis

sort of thing. You know, quills to collect and, and, and music. Because that's cerebral as well. So it was a little bit of music, even though they famously had had a fully music level already. And yeah, that was the sort of. So it was a lot. It was way more abstract for levels in Zaltu, and it made them so much more fascinating. But the thing about that level in particular, I really, really want to mention is that I feel like the aesthetic of it is part of what people on the internet now call aesthetic. It is very vapor-wavy. It's got a pink background. It's got big columns everywhere. It's got a big head. It's got like an anatomical model of a human head in there that you can. And it just makes me think about the whole vapor wave thing. And, you know, if only it was slightly out of focus. and then we'd be laughing.

But, you know, considering the tallies that we had back then, it probably was. It was. That's the thing. And I was laughing. That's exactly what was happening. I was sitting there going, ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, playing on Zool 2. Because I was having such a nice time being, you know, whatever I was, 12 or whatever it was. It's good.

This is the thing. It's good. Like, Zool, he runs around. He's really fast. He's skiddy. It was one of the first games I'd played that had that Mario one style skidding in it. Yeah, the momentum. On a home computer.

And in fact, you could turn that off. Yeah, you can just switch off if you hate it. Apparently, that was, I read that in an interview with Ant Stream Arcade that Ian Stewart did, that was like a QA, that was a testers thing saying, like, please let us turn off the momentum. Really? Yeah. It was nice of them to, you know, kaltow to those tools. Of course, that should have been called Ninja of the Endth Dimension Stream, not Ant Stream. You're absolutely right, yes.

And Zool had laser blades that he could pull out of his fists and do a spree. spinny move. That was another thing's all could do. He could climb walls. I don't think we've said this. He could stick to walls and jump up them. Not climb, but not like knuckles, but jump. Yeah, he could do a sort of a Mega Man X hop except without sliding down the walls. He was very clever at sticking to walls.

I think in the remake, you can just climb, and maybe that's maybe in the Mega Drive version you could. I'm not sure if that's the case, but you definitely can in the remake, yeah, they changed it so that you can just climb walls now. Yeah, whereas that was a proper little twitchy joystick thing. Yes.

on the on the amiga and uh i'm just basically i'm going back saying anything we didn't say that i think is important zool one had two versions it had the amiga 500 plus words which the amiga most people had and that just looked normal like a game and they had the 1200 plus version yes no 1,200 version which was the a ga chip set allowed them to do more graphics so what they did was they put these ridiculous backgrounds in that made the game worse um yes that was very common though with Omega 1200 games like the 1200 version of Robocod

it adds some new levels but also it adds these ridiculous backgrounds of like huge fully coloured objects that obscure the view yeah repeat so in Zool it's repeat patterns

of you know seeds and music stuff bananas strawberries strawberries Okay, back to what you were attempting to talk about, Zool, too. Yes. It was good.

But it felt like a proper modern platformer on the Amiga. It felt like it just felt completely up. to date for what games were at that time. And I've always been a bit bugged by anyone who didn't appreciate it. Because it was good. And now, I love how this podcast is just screaming. It's good. It was good. Right. I played through to the end of Zool 2 because I was loving it so much. And that is rare. Not my approach to games was just to, you know, knock them on, play about a little

bit. Oh, now I want to play this other game. Stick that in. I never I've never had this thing until now, until the current crop of games where I feel like I should finish a game and I feel bad if I don't. That wasn't what I did. And yet, this, Sonic 3 and Knuckles, I don't know, like Yoshi's Island.

You know, there were a few, the best games were the ones that I actually bothered to finish. And Zool 2, one of those games. Yeah. It was music, right? Yeah. So the Zul won music. it wasn't even just that you could select music or sound effects.

You had something like five tunes in the game, and you picked which one you wanted at the start of the game. And that was what you had. And they had names like, you know, rock or rave or green. Green. I love it. That makes me really happy. People keep explaining what that was a reference to, and I can never remember now.

Was it a reference to Percy from Blackadder 2 and his lump of purest green? It was not. No, it was like... There should have been. Well, there's another... I want to say, like, there's another musical genre that's a colour,

so bluegrass, maybe. Maybe that was what it was. But it was like that, and for some reason they just changed the name. I can't remember. There was a reason why it was called green that someone's explained to me over and over again recently.

Oh, I know. It'll be Ben Padden. Oh, Ben Padden of, formerly of Ports Centre. Yes. brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, yes. Whereas in Zool 2, they did the more modern thing where each level has its own music. And the music in Zul 2 didn't follow that, like, oh, do you want a, what's your musical genre?

Do you want rock? Do you want pop? What do you want? No, it was like everything in the UK music in 1993, which I think is when it came out. It was 93, yes. It was 943. Very late 93, yeah. I just, 1993 was the best gaming year.

and you can quote me on that I'm going to quote you on that well anyway by then music in the UK was all just electronic dance anyway so that's all they did and they but they made it really interesting

it's got to my for my money the best like oh we're doing an Egypt level so we have to do the obligatory Egypt sounding music that you're going to find on the Amiga

in a competitive field you know there's the Lemmings 2 one there's Super Frog oh now wait minute. That's the best one. Yeah. I've validated your point. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry of what I was even thinking. I apologize. Mr. Brimble.

Do forgive me. But yeah. All right. It's the second best one. It might even be the one that stands up the best now because it's got a real good beat to it. But yeah, no, the Super Frog one will have the best tune. But really good. But it was just all strange. There was something odd about all of the tracks. They either did something that was quite interesting sample-wise or they would play with the speed a little bit or they would have just odd sound effects going to the background. The opening, the tune

that plays when the game boots can only be described as just farts. Okay. But I don't mean that in necessarily a bad way, but there is quite a lot of like, boop in it. There is another way that it can be described. And that is as the perfect sequel to Zoolophobia. So Zoolophobia

when that, so Zool was the, it was meant to be a showcase for Amiga gaming. It was meant to be their mascot. And And so it was showing off stuff that Amiga could do. And so it was, it did go heavy with the sound effects. It did have Zool going and the smashing noise and the little, many samples, only samples. And it had this cock crowing sound in it as well.

That was part of the music was this cockcrow, which was, the music would stop, the cockwood crow, and then the beat would come back in again. So the Americans, we're talking about a rooster. Oh, shut up, Americans. We're not talking to you. Yeah, this isn't for you anymore. Sorry, Americans, yes, I meant a rooster. But they, so, and that was that. That was like, look what the Amiga can do.

We can put these interesting, funny things in. Well, Zool 2 was just like, right then, right then. We know how to do ProTracor these days. We're going to really go to town. And so they, the title music to Zool 2 is the same tune as in Zul 1, although not Zoolophobia. it's the one that played in the in the levels which there's a couple of levels had the same tune remix.

And it was full of all these like whoosh, bang, splat, farty noise, do you know, rule on the edge of the table and memorably there was one really good bit where the music does sort of calm down a little bit and

you hear the rooster. It's like, yay, it's the Zool Rooster. And then you hear a man shoot the rooster to death in the the second to my mind funniest way anyone has ever shot to death a rooster

in an audio what's the first I'd like to make the first was and you're gonna think I'm joking but I'm not on a tape of

Mr. Blobby's stories for God's sake yeah in which there was Mr. Blobby wakes up and you know Noel Edmonds goes Mr. Blobby

woke up and to the sound of the growing and there was this cockadoodle doo going on and then and it was

as with this it was someone having fun with a sound desk at a bank of sample And Mr. Blobby goes like, oh, blobby, blobby. And then you hear him fire a dart. And the cockerel noise, that's what I should have said, cockerel, stops and is replaced by the sound.

And imagine this but sped up, so it sounds a bit Alvin in the chipmunks, the sound, that was the funniest death of a cockerel on any kind of audio thing. However, this one was pretty good, and I invite you to play it. Beautiful. Ooh, Woo. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Beautiful. This episode's turning out there everything I ever hoped for, honestly. It really is. Now, I feel like we've talked about Zool a lot.

I think as for the remake, that has been gone into quite extensively in the interview. So I think we should put that a very brief. I mean, I would like to say Zool Reader mentioned, which came out earlier this year. It's a remake of the Mega Drive version of Zool. The changes, so to speak, are all quality of life changes like the way that you, I think the way that you regain health has been changed. So it's easier. you have more health, you can now climb walls, as we discussed. You no longer have to collect items to exit the level in the normal mode.

You have to do that in the harder mode. And the view has been zoomed out, which in my humble opinion is just a better experience. Yeah, I agree. Now, having said that, very recently, they have patched the game and added the option to have a slightly less zoomed out view and a normal zoomed in view. Oh, right. Okay. I made it more like the original optionally. But I don't know why you would do that

Because the way that they have done it Makes the game so much more playable Than it was on the Mega Well, yes, it does But you know, that's why Because we've already established that like You don't have to actually do anything To finish the levels anymore

Like Not on normal mode On Ultimate Ninja mode You still have to do that But you also retain the other kind of quality of life Things like the save feature Which is I think is nice I'm happy with that

Oh yeah, no problem with that And it's nice that they've hidden like there are three things, big things in each level that you now can get and it gets tallied like you have found all the things you have part times to be you have developer times to be all the bosses have been redone. Sure, yeah

yeah. It's a, I would argue it's a very good remake for purists. Oh, it's a very good me. If what you want to play is the Mega Drive version of Zool, then play Zool Reimensioned. Yes. Definitely, definitely. If you are nostalgic about the Amiga version, it's weird.

The experience I had, streaming it with a very hazy memory of Zool and thinking that that was what I was playing because they used the correct music from the they do and that puts me on the wrong foot I thought that like ah here we go to yeah I wasn't collecting any big polos and I wasn't the way you know I understood

why you're like where are the polos where were they that was a key thing in Zool and also the collectibles were like you know a couple of different suites instead of I now recognize you know polos like it felt compromised but I don't know how much of that is because the Mega Drive version was compromised, you know? There's also, it's worth noting that Zool Reimension features, no Tuporchupes, no chupes.

Well, that's the thing. Of course it doesn't. And I was expecting that and I was sad about it, but I was expecting it because we've already had a penguin-less version of Robocod. Yes. Oh, yes. That's... Now, by the way, we should have said this before. When we talked about the Tupor-tubes, that are everywhere in Zul 1, or at least certainly in the first level, As the game goes on, it gets hazier in the old memory because I never used to get very far. But there would be lollies to collect.

There would be just Tupy Tupes, logos everywhere, big ones, small ones. Yes. That was just part of the game. That was normal on the Amiga. That was not unusual, and we didn't think it was any weirder than like, if you're about to, the Americans get at us about this, right?

They go, it's really weird. It's really weird. We're Americans, and it was really weird. this is how we sound. It was really weird that you had sponsorship in your games, to which I say, I tried to watch some Transformers recently. And the weirdest thing about,

like, watching American cartoons in their original format when they're released in that way, is that, like, the cartoon will end, and then it'll go, you know, we'll be back after these advertisements. And then it comes back for the end credits. Yeah. There's an advert break before the end credits.

It's supposed to come back. It's very bizarre, yes. That's obscene. And that's obscenity. I agree, okay, it's weird that we had sponsorship in our games. But I'm just saying we're on a fairly even playing field here. I would agree with that. I mean, with other than Zool and its chutes,

there's also, as mentioned, Robocod with the penguin chocolate bars. Yes. James Pond 3 lets you go to a whole penguin world. Oh, wow. Okay. And there's also not one, but two games based on Quavers. Yep. Based on Quavers.

Yeah, pushover and one step beyond. That's a kind of crisps. Based on quavers, which are curly, choosy crisps presented by the humorous character of Colin Curley. Yes. Now, none of this alarms me in any way. I am just like game based on crisps. Of course there is.

See, there's something slightly different about that because the British gaming world was that if a thing exists, someone would probably make a game out of it. There was a Mr. Blobby game. was an Ed's the Duck game. He was just the hand puppet, not even puppet, hand puppet that used to sit next to the presenter of about two hours

of children's TV programs in the after school. Yes, he was, he was a, was he Broom covered or was he going live? Or was he He was Broom cupboard, okay. Because Gordon moved to going live to make life. Yeah, yeah. Shortly before his sad death. Go on. Sad demise. There was

there was a Tewitt's game, which was Pac-Man, because the Tewitt's adverts were a riff on Godzilla. but also and King Kong it was like stop motion animation and so there was he was climbing the tower and eating Tewitz

and helicopters were coming along so his game on the spectrum was helicopters instead of ghosts going after the Tewitz monster eating Tewitts were a small square chewy sweet but I don't remember

anything like that until this kind of sponsorship until the Amiga and let us not there'll be people jumping up and down and shouting forget Superfrog which was a

oh wait what was it called What was that drink called? Lucasade. Luke is eight. I was going seven up, no. Right? No, yeah, Luke is aid. Now, that's interesting that you mentioned that because we talked about

CoolSpot earlier and that was also sponsored by Seven Up in itself. Yes, but we didn't know that because cool, this is something that I figured out on my podcast because we'd been confused about this for years. Yeah. Cool Spot famously the spot from the Seven Up logo. Yeah. This confuses people like us because we go, was he? I thought he was just from a Mega Drive game that was like one of the main Mega Drive games.

Well, it turns out we, he was not in this country, a seven-up character. Seven-up stuff was in fact removed from our version of the game. Yes. And it was just a game about a little red spot. And he was a gaming character and that was who he was. And he had Fido-Dido. Yeah, he had a game too. Who had a game?

Yeah, of course. But that's interesting about the cool spot because that explains a lot because, yeah, no seven-up. And also, instead of collecting, when you collect letters in the bonus stage, in our version they spell out Virgin which is the name of the company it's not like having a go at you the player but in the original version it is the phrase on cola

which I think is the catchphrase of 7 up it's uncola or something like that right yeah see getting to the bottom of this stuff I'm so glad that I'm so glad that BS I just spouted out of the top of my head as if it was definitely true

about them editing out the 7 up stuff in the UK version it turned out to be true good I thought it was, but I can never trust my own. There are other sponsored American games as well, like Checks Quest, for example. But again, yeah, Mick and Mac Global Gladiators. It's an unexpectedly good game based on McDonald's. But the thing is, there are three McDonald's platformers, and they're all awesome. What's going on there?

Well, I'll tell you what's going on. One of them is made by the guys who made all these games we keep talking about, like Coolspot. Dave Perry returns. Yeah, I think, I think. The good version of Dave Perry, not the evil version of Dave. Not that one, no. I keep saying things that I've found out in the course of my time doing Sonic the Comic, the podcast, and I don't know if they're true. And I'm coming on a more prestigious podcast, and I'm just saying them as if I'm an expert. They might be true or it might be misremembering. My memory's bad. Unless it's of something that happened in 1993, when I'm your man. Yeah. Unless it's something that your geography teacher was impressed by. Yeah. Yeah. That's how I measure. Yeah. If my self-worth was boosted by it, I remember it. And so I'll remember this, if it turns out I was right on it.

rationales. But I think at this point, we should offer any final thoughts about Zol and then consider wrapping things up to prep for the more interviewee portion of our podcast. That's going to be seconded, right? So you've had me, me and then someone who knows what they're on about. Yes. That's good.

Basically, I'm having you on and then I'm having someone come on to debunk everything you've said as being bollocks. No good, yes. That's the general plan here. I didn't want to reveal that because I was hoping it would drag you through the mud in the media, but we'll see what happens. So final thoughts on Zool, any thoughts about Zool? Do you think Zool has a future?

Do you think there's going to be a Zool 2, read a mentioned? It's really good. It's good, right? It's good, isn't it? There was, here's something we ought to say, there was going to be a Zool 3, and it was going to be 3D, and then it all kind of went to pot and turned into the Ninja Bread Man, which also didn't do very well. Oh, yes. I forgot about that. Yeah. I mean, I didn't know about it at the time. I was just, I was frankly just grouchy that someone had taken the name the Ninja Bread Man, which I think. It's too good. I think I'd made up and was going to use and never got round two or something. I was like, oh, damn it, that's really good.

That's the worst when that happens, yeah. Yes, isn't it? And for something that was, as I understand it, a big flop, and now I find something of a compromise, when it could have been Zool 3. No, there's not going to be a Zool 3, because we're way past that point now. Will there be a Zool 2 redimension? Well, I hope so, because I don't think so, but I hope so. The ending of Zorri Dimension sort of implies that they want to do it. Yes, I know, but the ending of the Power Rangers reboot movie had a green coat and someone said, is Tommy here? And then it ended, and then that was the end

of that series. These things take place. That's true. Now, nobody come at me with that thing that I know you all want to say about how the end of the Mario movie had a teaser for a sequel. It didn't.

That was just a joke. You've got to learn to tell the difference between these things. I'm not sure anyone was going to come at you about that day. The Super Mario Brothers movie is very good. Come at me as hard as you want.

We'll come back to this at some point in the future. It's a great film. Will, there is actually, now that we mentioned it, I say we were wrapping up, but there is something very important, I feel like we have to talk about. Oh. You know what I'm talking about.

I know exactly what you're talking about. Zool, there was, I believe, a planned merchandising blitz. And there was a marketing blitz because there was a lot of print commercial for this. There was a lot of Zool prop. There was a lot, like, there was a special level in Zol for

the Gainsmaster TV show. It got a lot of press. It did very well review-wise. The Antstream interview I mentioned earlier sort of implies that the high review scores it got may have been something to do with the marketing in a slightly cheeky way. But also, at the part of this monetising blitz,

they released two Zool novels. They did. It turns out they did. Now, what's really weird about this is that I was proper ear to the ground about this stuff. I've got the Lemmings of Venture game book on my shelf right now. I've got the four Martin Adams' Sonic the Hedgehog novels.

Proper novels about Sonic the Hedgehog. I've got them. I didn't know about this. And I was a Zool fan. And I was a Zool fan in 1994 when these books came out. Before?

Yes. Why? Why was that when the marketing blitz was for a game that came out in 1990s? Well, I think it may have been in order to tie into the release of Zul 2. well we've established that came out in I-3 yeah we did that's true but then the ports didn't come out till

no the ports yes of course I keep forgetting that things that don't matter yeah okay so there was a marketing but apparently I remember these words coming out of my mouth I never heard about a Zool watch so I must this must have been on my other podcast I must have found out that there was supposedly Zool merchandise oh yes it was in the review of Zool in Sonic the comic

where they said there's even a Zool watch And I'm like, is there? I never heard of that. Well, I never heard of this. Zool rules and Cool Zool. Those are the two books. I've got one of them. I haven't been able to find Cool Zool. But Zool rules, oh, you better believe it. You bet your Bippy that when I heard this existed, I went straight onto eBay and I purchased a copy of this book. And that's the only one I've ever found. I haven't found Cool Zool. So if you've got it, I don't know. Get in touch, please, or scan it, because I really want to read Cool Zool. I was already aware that

there's all rules. That's the thing. So there's no surprises are going to be coming my way now. But when I heard, when I discovered that they've had this book, I felt like imperative that there at least be an extract from it read. Sure. Because let's face it, this is going to be great. This is going to be really, really good. And I'm really looking forward to it.

Who wrote Zul Rules? Who's the author? This is written by Ian Edgington, who is a storied comics guy. He's done like X-Force. stuff, I think. I don't actually know. I don't actually know, but he's a well-known British comics guy. Yeah. This is what I'm here to tell you about, right? This book's quite good. Oh, wow. Like, I don't know what you're expecting, but it's not, it's not a terrible book. This is a book that's a, this is a silly writer having a lot of fun, and that can be good. As you read it, and I've read, listen, I won't pretend I've read the book, but I've read half the book. I've read half the book. I've read it. I read it.

about two hours before we started recording this. Okay. Prior to that, I'd read the first few pages. And from those first few pages, you get the sense of what the whole thing is. What it is, is it's a guy who is into, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. There are references to Python Wayne's World.

What else does he do? Renan Stimpy. He's just throwing in silly things that he knows about, and he's just stitching them together into the book. And it's written in a really interesting kind of hitchhiker book for kids sort of way. So here then, if you will permit me, is the opening paragraph.

Well, actually, there's a little intro. That is just a comedy way of telling you what a book is. But I'm going to read you this. I think you'll find it interesting. I'm ready. I'm excited. Okay, listeners, retronauts listeners, this is a, I hope it's a world exclusive. There's a war going on everywhere, all around you every day.

Usually, wars are caused by people deciding it's better to hit someone than to talk to them. But this war is different. You won't read about it in the newspapers or see it on the TV news, but it's happening all right. And if you know what to look for, you'll see the shrapnel. Have you ever put your favourite comic down, only to find a few minutes later, it's not where you left it? Or have you been ready to smeg the end of level bad guy on your games console? When the system crashes and your high score goes down the toilet. Call it bad luck, call it fate.

but the more you think about it, the more you realize it's happening all the time, and not just by accident either. What's causing these bad vibes are mystical shockwaves from a war in a place called the nth dimension. Oh, wow. The main villain behind all of this is a character called Cruel, that is K-R-O-O-O-L. He, or rather it, is an immeasurably powerful and malevolent force on the edge of existence that has watched with envy and waited with impatience from before the beginning of time, probing and testing the walls that keep it on the outside of the universe,

trying to force its way in just for an opportunity to spoil your day. He intends to do this by creating a thing called entropy. Good God. This will turn everything in the universe back into the energy that it's made from. Krul will then take that energy and fill his face with it all until, he's fit to burst. But don't expect a huge invading army to come storming through from the nth dimension. Cruel's far too sneaky

and sly for that. He's slowly worming his way into our universe by taking away all of the fun. If you don't have fun, then you don't really feel like doing much. And if you don't feel like doing much, then entropy sets in and that's just what cruel

wants. His mouth is watering at the thought. If cruel had his way, we'd all be wearing sensible shoes instead of trainers, eating green veggies, instead of burgers, and no one will be playing computer games at all. But Cruel realizes that total entropy must be accomplished in stages. And on your world, the attacks have just begun. The problem is Cruel's not alone in this evil mission. He's being aided by a sinister, shape-changing cube known as mental block. Not only can the blocks are alter his own form,

but he can twist people's imaginations as well, transmogrifying. No, I said that wrong. It's transmorgifying. Obviously, it's meant to be transmogrifying, not the only special mistake I picked out in this. Anyway, transmogrifying the fab and fun things in life into dull and tedious stuff with an evil being older than the universe waiting to suck you dry and a maniac shape changer, hello, and a maniac shape changer hopping around in the background looking like a demented washing machine, things might have looked a bit grim, but a hero came forward to fight for everyone's right to have fun and excitement. He's a brave warrior, a party hardy guy, a dude with mood, a pan-dimensional ninja warlock with a snappy dress sense, and his name on the

souls of his shoes. He is the one, as per the cover art. He is the one, the only, the fantabulously cosmic, Zool. Zool isn't alone either. He's brought some buddies along to help him kick Krull's butt. There's Zuz, the ponytail princess of power, who's breathtakingly beautiful, devastatingly smart, and who can shoot the eyebrows off of a big alien bean fly at a thousand meters. And then there's Zoon, a dog with a split personality, because he's got two heads. one at either end of his body. One ends brainy and smart. The other isn't, but that doesn't stop him from being loyal and brave as he helps his friends save the universe from cruel and his hordes of terminal party poopers. And so, the adventure begins.

It's rather good, I thought. I rather enjoyed that. It's good, in it? Yeah, it was quite enjoyable. There's one other bit that I want to read to you, just a sentence, really, just because I liked it, and I think you'll like it. I'm excited about this sentence. Yes, here we go. The fast food world is where all the Nth Dimensions Hardy Party Revellers go when they want to get a quick snack. All fun food originally came from there. You've probably heard of a few, like pizza, chips and burgers. But have you heard of wangers?

Have you heard of them? Oh, you're actually asking me if I've heard of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm asking you and I'll write it down. I'm going to tell Ian Edgson whether you've heard of whey. I haven't heard of it. Wangers. Okay, so Ian Edgington, if you're listening to this, we

haven't heard of wangers, please illuminate it. Please elucidate. And I think that wangers is an excellent way to bring this podcast to a lot. And on that wanger? Yeah. So, I think the best thing to do at this point would be to

say, Dave, where can people find you on the internet and the things that you do? Okay. Well, if they just want me to, if they just want alerting to everything I'm doing as it happens. They want to follow me on Twitter at Demon Tomato Dave. I also have a YouTube channel, also Demon Tomato Dave, one word, where I do, oh, all sorts of daft stuff. You'll have to just go and see. There's like video essays, there's a cappella songs. It's all sorts of

silly thing. My most famous acabella song is, well, there's two, Mario Land with lyrics and Ocarina of Time with lyrics, both of which aren't on my channel. They're on Brentle Floss's channel. A couple of old medleys I did based on old video game songs, and I'm still quite pleased with those. But yeah, go and follow me, Demon Tomato Dave on Twitter. If you want to hear me rambling on like this, then Sonic the Comic, the podcast already mentioned the what is now alternative, but me and my co-host, Chris Bofili, know the true and real and IDST forever. History of Sonic the Hedgehog is being examined over on Sonic the Comic the podcast, along with just general 90s nostalgia. We put all the adverts on and that sort of thing. I think you're going to have a nice

time. That's very, very produced. I have another podcast called Serious Disney, that I do with my friend Johan Rana Singh, where we talk about the Disney, because, you know, we grew up with a lot of Disney videos and we talk about all those odd remakes that they're doing now, those weird live action remakes. But we kind of take them like seriously. We sort of give them the time of day and review them properly. So, you know, when they're good, we'll say they are. And when they're bad, you will find us something like five-hour Beauty and the Bees special that came last Christmas that was quite a production.

That's most of the things, I think. Yeah, demon tomato, Dave, you'll find me. And I can assure you, if you follow Dave on Twitter, you will see lots of good things. I guarantee that you will... No, this is true. You will see lots of things that are funny and interesting. And refreshingly good.

And refreshingly good things that are bad and cruel. Yes. There's very little negativity, and I respect that. If you want to find what I'm up to, You can follow me on Twitter also at Stupacabra. I won't go into all the detail of all that some different podcasts I do. There's the Dillcast, which is reviewing every single Dillbert strip, but most of it's just an excuse to sort of a ass around for an hour.

I also do Adi Mani chat, a number of podcasts called Ars Albania and lots and lots of retronauts. As for Retronauts itself, if you like Retronaut and you would like to hear more of it, you can support Retronauts by going to our Patreon page. Patreon.com forward slash Retronauts. And for a mere $5 per month, which, let's face it, is nothing. It's nothing. You'll receive two full-length exclusive episodes per month,

and you'll get early access to the weekly episodes on Monday. And you will also receive mini-podcasts and writings by Diamond Fight this week in Retro, which I might add are very, very good. And I hope that that's everything, and I haven't forgotten something because otherwise Jeremy Parish will hit me on the head with a hammer. With his Bomi-knocker. Yes. So once again, thank you very much.

Sorry, for anyone who didn't read that particular book in infants class in school, that's not rude and it just means a mace. Yeah. Boy, anyway, yes, thank you for listening to this episode of Retronauts. And I know it's been very British. I hope it wasn't too British for you. I hope it was. Now I have to edit out a third of it.

Yes. So thanks very much to Dave. I told you. I did learn you. Hope to see you on here again. And it's always a pleasure. Do take care. And thank you for listening.

Restaurants, listeners. We love you. Bye-bye. Thank you. Yes, hello. today. I'm talking about Zool Reader mentioned from Sima Digital Academy and let's see who am I speaking

to. Should we go in alphabetical order? Hi, I'm Ian Stewart. I'm the founder of originally Gremlin graphics that then went on to become Gremlin group. Who were the creators of the Zool games in the early 90s? Fantastic. I know who's with you today?

Cool. And I'm Rob for now. I was one of the interns at the Sumo Digital Academy who worked on Zoolry Dimensions. And, yeah, I was one of the developers who helped bring it to life. That's great. Thanks. That's fantastic. Now, I think I'll start by asking about the Sumo Digital Academy because I've had the sort of, the briefest sort of explanation of it, which does sound, I have to say, it does sound quite fascinating.

So if you could go into any sort of more detail, I'd love to know exactly how that came about and how that was for you being part of. Sure. So the Sumo Digital Academy, so we were part of the first cohort that went through it. We started in September last year, so exactly about a year ago today. And it was made specifically to try and provide kind of additional routes into the games industry. So rather than having to have, you know, some sort of like portfolio or some kind of games or computer science degree, it was kind of open to people from other disciplines.

Like previously to this, I used to work in marketing and I did a huge. history degree, which isn't exactly the most typical way into programming. But this was set up to kind of, you know, give us that kind of year to learn and hopefully get something, you know, to show for it at the end, which is kind of what it was. Yeah, I mean, I would say you absolutely have something to show for it there, because, I mean, not that I'm going to sort of keep talking, obviously, but having spent time with Zora Dimension, having played through it, I found it extremely polished, like, extremely good. I like, I thought it was great. I mean, I'm predisposed to like games like that anyway, but like not that I'm putting any sort of aspersions on a bit. If someone had told me

this had been created from scratch in a year, you know, that's impressive to me personally. Oh, thank you. Yeah. It's obviously the first kind of game that we all worked on because none of us had any C++ experience coming into this. We might have had a bit of, you know, kind of technical kind of coding experience. Yeah. But yeah, we literally started from scratch. Like this time last year, we were doing, you know, C++ tutorials. But thankfully, with kind of all the teaching we had, all the kind of contacts across Sumo and like, you know, former gremlin people, we were able to, yeah, kind of recreate it in a way that I think both retains the kind of original charm of the game, but also opens it up to kind of entirely new audiences who may have never heard of Zool before last week. Absolutely. I'll ask a bit more about that later. I want to just go back a second. because I do want to focus on the new version,

but I've got to ask about the original as well, at least a bit. I suppose what's the impetus for Zool? Like, where does he do? Was it the character first, or was it just to make a game that was sort of a mascot game? Or where did Zool come from originally? I've got to think back now about 29 years.

Yeah, it was a well ago, yeah. It was a culmination of the desire to produce a fast-paced platformer and just getting some creative heads around what type of character we could use and what sort of world the character would need to be in and that's where it really started and took many hours sat down with with artists programmers you know back in back in the day we're only small teams not not 20 30 40 100 people you know it's a team of four people and that was about it. Yeah.

And, yeah, the character developed as the product developed. And with the art side, a guy called Aid Careless, that's where he was born. And he sort of grew from there. And the world, the endth dimension grew around the original character. Is there much, with the nth dimension, is there much in the way of that sort of scene setting that isn't featured in sort of the game itself?

because the game is, from my sort of experience, it's very focused on sort of playing it. It's not so much on sort of the story around it, though it is there at the sort of the fringes. And that's not a criticism. That's what a lot of games were like and still are. But was there sort of a lot more of that that didn't end up in the game

or did that find its way into sort of, because I know there was a little tie-in novel, at least one based on the character as well. I wonder if it ended up in there or if that's something that you had sort of put on. It was something that, whilst in Zor 2 you met some other characters

like Zoon and Zos the whole intention was to build a world that we could then open up into sort of many products that never actually happened and unfortunately that's not to say it never will happen I'd love to see that go forward

from this and maybe we can talk about that a little more but I think the the end of dimension is yet to be explored I've got to ask because this is a very personal question I think well at least from my perspective I have seen for some reason I have it in my I have it in my head

that Zool the character is both a sort of a ninja of the endth dimension and also an ant and I don't know why I think he's an ant because I've not seen that backed up in any sort of media was that actually a misconception or is that something that exists entirely in my head no that's a total misconception it's not he's never been an ant okay that's never been an ant

And ants have six legs Yeah, that's true, they do And yeah, there's a lot of things that ants can't do That's all very capable of I think that's, yeah, I don't know why I had that in my head But I had to finally put that one to rest Because it's... No, I think this is down to unimaginative

reviewers that... I bet I read it in Sega powers or something. You would have, yeah. Just one quick glance, there he is, that's an ant. I'm very sensitive about this. I apologize. I mean, no offence by that. because that's why I want to dispel that

on to fall in this arena while I have the floor to do so. We can put that out there. Zool officially 100% not an ant, no ant DNA is a ninja from the end of dimension, not an ant. Absolutely.

That's now black and white. No one can take that away. Thanks. I'll calm down a little now. Okay, I'm glad because I would have pushed this into a kind of angry area, you know. But, okay, so what with Zol? the new game, the new version of Zool,

was all redimentioned, available on Al and Steam, very good, by the way. It's based on the Mega Drive version, is it, the console version, rather than the original Amiga version. Is that fair to say? Yeah, yeah, it's based on the Megatry version. Yeah. I'm going to ask what prompted that choice. Now, again, I don't mean this in a critical sense,

but I think the Amiga version is the sort of iconic version, because most of sort of Amiga friends that I have to associate the character with the Amigo, is it simply that the Megadred version is sort of a more, polished, more sort of, what will you tell me? I shouldn't be telling you that, obviously. I don't disagree with what you're saying, to be honest. Like, yeah, when people mention all to me, they always say the Amiga one. And so, you know, us releasing the Megadrive thing has been, you know, commented on. But the reason why we did the Megadry version, at least part

of it was kind of what we had available. So for the Megadry version, we had a complete surviving archive of the code, the actual, like, level editor and the tools from the original Megadry version. So we had those accessible, which definitely helped speed up some of the kind of, you know, converting the levels to actually something that we could play. Well, for the Amiga version, as far as we know, none of that has been archived. It could be out there, but it could also just be lost to time somewhere. So that just, you know, sped up massively. But also having, you know, played all the different versions and there are a lot of different versions that will have their own kind of unique quirks. Yeah. I probably would say the Megadry version might be the most polished one,

It's got like an extra world. I think the graphics are slightly more kind of expressive, especially for the enemies and some of the other versions. And also like some of the backgrounds, while they were quite kind of notorious and, you know, iconic with like kind of order kind of just stuff going on. Oh, yeah. The AGA version of the Amiga game has some insane backgrounds going on.

Oh, yeah. It's so mad. Like you can barely focus on the actual platform. It's fantastic. Yeah. But I know that's like part of its charm and like, you know, considering did we want to like kind of bring the back of a sort of extra? but, you know, the Megadry version, I think, just had it all kind of the most polished.

So it's kind of a combination of, you know, that sort of like expediency and just the fact that we thought is the best version to take back. So I know that the new version reader mentioned, it's been adapted in sort of several ways to be more sort of, I guess, palatable. That's not to imply the original is unpalatable. But for modern sort of gamer sensibilities, it's definitely an adjustment. and the new version, I think, is a lot more sort of accessible. So I'm sort of wondering what the sort of process behind that was and how the sort of decisions were made that kept the feel of Zool without completely, you know, while changing it to make it a little bit more sort of modernised.

So what were the changes that were made and, you know, how were those decisions reached, I guess? Making the decisions was a really kind of, or maybe not difficult, but something that we thought about a lot kind of over the course of the development. because, like, through making the game, we became so aware of, like, you know, the kind of the history it has, both of, you know, as, like, a cult following for people that played on the Amiga and also, like, it's ties of, like, the city of Sheffield, like, we went to the National Video Game Museum as, like, kind of a group thing a few weeks ago, and they were selling Zool shirts there just completely unprompted. And so it's like, you know, this game means a lot to, you know, a lot of people and to, like, you know, the city that we're in. So we're constantly thinking, you know, we want to change things because, you know, we want to make our own mark on the game. And there's been like loads of modern platformers in the 29 years since all came out that, you know, we could take aspects from and maybe just, you know, make it play a bit kind of more smooth. But at the same time, we didn't want to make it so that people that play the original

would like really notice the differences and it would potentially ruin their experience. So there were some major changes that we made, most notably being the camera being zoomed out. So in the original, we've zoomed in so closely that normally the only way you'd see a hazard is when it hits you and it, you know, takes off a bit of your health bar, which, you know, it's not ideal if you're not kind of, you know, used to that sort of punishing gameplay. I found it it changes the way you play the game quite significantly because you can keep much more momentum going now rather than sort of edge forward and firing your sort of, the sort of gumbulls. I'm not actually sure what it is that Zola's firing. I thought they were sweets because that's what the the licorice, all sorts of firing at you in the first level. But I'm not really sure. Is there an official explanation for what it is that he's throwing at his enemies?

I wish there was. Thankfully, the original manual does actually give you quite a lot of, like, interesting insight to the law. And so, like, there's a beastapedia in the game, which does include some of that, especially like enemy names and kind of there's some of the enemy bios. But nothing concrete on what he's shooting. It would be a plasma from the end's dimension, I think. Yeah, well, there we go, yeah, once again. Yeah. See, once again, I feel like by calling them gumbulls,

I feel like I've done it a disservice. It does fit with the team of the first world. Yeah, that's what I thought. And they're firing the similar sort of things at you. I just thought, well, these best be suites, but then why would they hurt you? I guess tooth decay, that's about all I can think of. Yeah, maybe plasma gumbals then.

Yeah, see, that works. The best of both worlds, I think. Now, and the boss battles have been almost entirely overhauled. Is that right? Yeah, I think almost every boss. Some of them more than others have been pretty majorly changed, yeah. Yeah, because there's some of those multi-phase ones as well, and I've got to be entirely honest with you.

I don't think I reached the later bosses when I played it on the Mega Drive or the master system, which was the version I had as a child. So I can't comment on that, unfortunately, but it seemed like the multi-phase kind of boss battles were something you generally wouldn't get that much of back in the day. So they seemed very fresh, I thought. Yeah, there's two kind of ones which have pretty distinct phases. And that was something that kind of, yeah, just came out of development.

So while for like most of the enemies, we try to replicate the original behavior as closely as we could, you know, while fixing a few kind of minor issues here and there, the bosses, because they were probably some of the more kind of straightforward parts of the original. So, like, you know, it might just be they do the same attack pattern each time. We, as we were developing, we just decided, you know, let's try and make them a tiny bit more interesting. And so it wasn't almost like a competition, but we were like, you know, between each other just trying to see, oh, can we make this boss a bit better? Can we add this thing? Can we add that thing? And so eventually kind of culminated in that we had, you know, this final boss that has this like really kind of distinct epic final phase.

It's like a proper ending to the game. So, yeah, that was probably the bit that we changed the most. But as far as I can see, people do kind of have enjoyed our new renditions on them, which has, yeah, made us quite happy. Yeah, I thought they were really enjoyable. I mean, when I got sent it, I pretty much blitzed through the whole thing in, like, one sitting in a few hours because I was just really sort of taken with it. I still haven't done the harder mode that's included, though.

Could you tell us about that as well? Yeah. So there's the redimension mode where you can double jump and you don't need to collect any collectibles to finish. And then ultimate ninja mode, you can only jump once and you have to get a certain number, just like in the original. That was kind of our way of coming up with a compromise between, you know, the way that we kind of wanted sort of play and the way that's like a lot of people that have played the previous one or like people associated with the original project wanted the game to play. So like we personally had the double jump. in from the start. And we thought, you know, oh, this is fantastic to kind of, you know, navigate around the levels. But it definitely does mean that, you know, you can be a bit more sloppy in terms of how you approach it. And it does lose kind of a bit of the feel from the original. So having those both options felt kind of like the best of both worlds. The harder mode, what was the name of the hard of again? Master Ninja, was it? Ultimate Ninja. Ultimate Ninja. I apologize. Ultimate Ninja mode. Though it still has the kind of quality of life

improvements and it's still, I would say, easier than the original is, but yeah, it does recapture the, it is more accurate with the single job, but like the falling platforms that don't just immediately vanish, like they did in the original game, that sort of thing. So, sort of jumping forward a bit, I don't want to spoil it, because we're really, we're talking about something really sort of law-heavy here, obviously, as we've established. Can we expect Zool-2 to be redimensioned at any point? Oh, I haven't quite got that far yet, to be honest. It was pretty early days. Is the Jaguar's source code knocking about somewhere?

Yeah, I think somebody had brought the, but. I think two people bought the Jaguar version. Oh, yeah, maybe one of those. We can get a hold of one. Maybe we might be able to crack one of those to use the code, but no, I think the just if I can step back just a while and talk about the academy.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I'd love to know as much about that as, yeah, the guy running the academy is Jake Habgood. Yeah. Jake used to work for me at Gremlin. He then went to work at Sheffield Hallam University where he's running a degree course for computer games and he subsequently ended up at creating the Sumo Academy.

Now, I've got a long-term professional relationship with Jake and he's used my IPs over the years at Sheffield Hallam on a number of occasions. I'm an alumni of Sheffield Hallam, so I'm always happy to help out there and he's always treated the IPs with respect Can I ask which other IPs we're talking about I think you'd be interested to know

Yeah he's done They did some Zool work a few years back I saw there was a plush toy wasn't there It was a cuddly toy that came out Yeah there is Yeah if we're on video I could show you one I remember seeing them a while back There was also an Alfred Chicken one

It was all the Amiga players coming out to play it was great that's right um so jacob approached me and asked me if i'd be happy if they used zool within the academy and because of my relationship with sumo and the guys there who i have to take my hat off to have done an absolutely amazing job um i like to support sheffel companies sumo is probably the closest one to me other than another company i started after Gremlin. So it was great to allow them to release some younger minds onto the product just to bring up to date somewhat. And we've yet to decide as to whether it goes any further

with Sumo or I have to decide whether I take the IP any further outside of Sumo. So there's lots of opportunities going forward. But I must take the hat off to the work that's been done there and the guys that have worked on the project, done a first-class job, and, yeah, very pleased with it. I can only agree with that, again, based on my sort of time with it. It's a game I've been back to quite a few times. So with the Academy, is this going to be, is this something that's going to be continuing?

Yeah, so the idea was we were kind of almost like the trailblazers for it. So throughout a lot of the year, we didn't entirely know what we were doing, and a lot of the kind of processes were put into place. But going forward, so I think from October, the Academy is launching a new program that's a kind of diversity internship that is meant to be helping people from underrepresented backgrounds kind of get their first taste. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. Which is awesome. That's a, I think it's a three-month internship. But then after then in January, the next cohort, which will be a full-on apprenticeship, which like Jake's tireless work in getting this game program. apprenticeship approved through, like, all the systems, I think finally went through a few months ago. So that's starting in January. And I think it's going to be a year to two years process

with, you know, the students coming through same as us. And I think the idea is that they'll end up taking up a similar project to what we did. So whether that, you know, that it could be sort of, it could be something entirely different. Like, it would just be speculation at this point. But I'd hope that they would, yeah, have their own kind of project to work on and, yeah, be able release something at the end of it. Now, so where are people coming from to sort of enter this sort of program? Is this something anyone can, like, like a better question, how did you get involved in it? How did it start for you? Well, so they just listed it as kind of, you know, a listing on a job website. Yeah. So it's just, okay. Right. Yeah. And I think, yeah, the idea is that

kind of anyone, as long as, I don't even think you really need any experience. You always need some sort of, you know, interest in wanting to pursue because, you know, it's a year commitment. Yes. But outside of that, like, it doesn't, they're not really looking for anything. And so all of us, yeah, while we were all graduates, we all had very kind of disparate degrees. Yeah. But we had no experience of C++ before and that was totally fine. So I think really anyone, yeah, I think the only people that maybe isn't best suited for is people

would have literally gone through specific, you know, game-focused courses because, you know, they already probably do have the experience in the portfolio to have a stab at getting a sort of junior role. But, yeah, otherwise, anyone. How many were there on the, on this, on the team overall this time? So there was five of us. Oh, well. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's old school, yeah. Back to sort of, like, in a way like the original would have been developed, although it may have been even fewer. I can't remember the exact number it was given. I think the original was only two people, at least within kind of ports, and they did it in a really short space of time as well, which is just, yeah, unbelievable to hear that when we spent a year toiling away over this. But, yeah, there was only five of us, and it was really nice in the end because, like, we had a really kind of tight-knit group and kind of all learning from each other and all in the kind of same position, despite, you know, being different ages, having different experiences and everything. So, yeah.

Ian, if I can ask you, how does that compare with your experience working on the original game? What sort of time frames were you working with? What sort of pressure were you under with that? Very different times, obviously. Very different tool sets available to you. But we were lucky that the people that Gremlin attracted

initially were both programmers and real game enthusiasts. And George Allen, who is the main code on the product, is still making games today. You know, it's, my fact, I think he's got a release coming up fairly shortly, which has got a little feature of us all in it. Oh, now I have to know, unless you can't tell me if it's under video or something. Let me check just so as, yeah, I wouldn't want to say anything that was... Yeah, of course, absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. So the time that we allowed on a product or, you know, it was, it was really how long is a piece of string. Yeah. The product was completed when we decided how many levels it would satisfy the audience and how well the game was playing. Yeah. The processes that the games were put through at that time were nowhere near as rigorous as they are nowadays. No. Well, something I find personally interesting about the old Amiga Zool. because I went back to that recently prior to this

sort of discussion. I was quite fascinated how it doesn't have the sort of platform game conventions that sprang up even quite quickly. Like, even small things, like the fact that the game starts with you on a slope at an angle is really unusual for a platform game.

So it just feels like it's just very sort of rich with ideas, which I did appreciate. A lot of Amica stuff felt like that at the time I found. Yeah, I think we were probably leaning on what was happening on the sake of megadrive at the time and endeavoring to give a similar experience to the Amiga users.

Was it always planned for consoles or was it Amiga first and then that sort of came about later and if so? No, it was it was Amiga first. Yeah. And how did that come? Because it was on more or less, it felt like it was on more or less everything. It was on Master's Systems, Super Nintendo.

Yeah. I've probably older computers as well. Yeah, the what used to happen generally back in the day because porting wasn't as quick as it is nowadays. You know, you were working on 6502, Z80, blah, blah. You know, it was, depending on the lead platform,

depending on how successful the product was going to be, then you would then make a decision as to whether it's worth doing those conversions or not. Yeah. And it was definitely worth it. Yeah. And then for the cost, Was the Megadrive version then sort of become the new lead version, so to speak?

No, I don't think it ever did. Okay. The Amiga was, because it got taken up by Commodore packaged with hardware, etc. Yeah, yeah. It became quite substantially the lead version. Yeah, of course, yeah. I remember it very fondly. There was a very iconic sort of cover art on the box with Zool like kicking his way through.

like the sort of jet black kind of void. But I remember it being, I remember the double page spread advertisements in magazines like Sega Power. Look, this is coming to everything. It felt like a big marketing sort of blitz. And of course, there was the whole endorsement via chopper chop, slody pops as well.

Would it be too tried to ask about that and how that came about? I'd struggle to remember exactly what happened. Yeah. But, yeah, we just needed some collectibles in the game, and one of our marketing people obviously ate a lot of chupp-a-chaps. So we approached the company that, I think it was Spanish company, that had chuppa-chaps at the time, or shupas-ships, as they called them.

Yeah, that does sound a bit Spanish. Yeah, yeah, it was never pronounced chapa-chaps. That's a typical English version of a word that could sound much better. Yeah, yeah. So Shipper Ships was pretty popular and they were doing lots of promotions in the UK.

You get the stands by the counters, et cetera. And it was a good marriage as far as that was concerned. And... Well, the first level being based around sort of sweets confectionery that really sort of sold

the Shupichubes thing. It did, yeah. Which was it was the sweets level there first? Or was that entirely inspired by the... No, I think the sweets level would have been first. Oh, yeah, okay. good. That's good to know. It's like a chicken and egg

scenario in a way. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, that's not, that wasn't an entirely unusual thing for sort of British platform games because there was things like pushover that was sponsored by Quavers and James Pond was sponsored by Penguin biscuits

of all things. Yeah. Super Frog was Lucas A. There's a lot of that around back in the immediate. Yeah, it was yeah, it was I'm trying to try and think about it. We had a Tewitt sponsor as well. some stage. That was in a sort of it was basically a rip-off of a

rampage game. Oh, the monster from the advert back in the day. I remember that. The big chewis lizards. I remember that now. Yeah. I didn't know he had his own game. This is what makes British games so great. We had the game and then we added the tuits to him. That's fantastic. But it was the early days of that type of promotion. Yeah. And I have to say that the

Chuby Ships, people, I can't remember the name of the company is that produce them but we got so many lollipops honestly I swear there's probably boxes if I'm still laying about

yeah and I'm sick of the sight of them yeah I wish I'd take him some shares in some of the major dental companies yeah oh my gosh yeah having said that the Kola lollipol is the best one

oh yeah I can only agree with that based solely on the sound I mean, it just sounds excellent to me in a kind of lollipop. But, I mean, they stuck around for Zool, too. They were there all present and correct there as well. So, you know, good for them. Good for them. They knew they were loyal.

They were loyal. But they, things have moved on that they, they weren't particularly interested in being included in read I mentioned. So that's a shame. That one puts a bit never to be seen again in the Zool game. I'm going back to read a mentioned, Rob, could you tell us about the new features, like the new sort of incentives, because, of course, the original version was a more straightforward, you know, get all the items, get to the end, but in this, there have been, like, sort of new goals and

achievement standard. Could you tell us about those at all? Yeah, so just we, we thought, like, you know, these levels and these worlds were actually, like, a lot more interesting than I think the original game maybe gave them credit for. And so there was plenty of room to both, you know, put some, like, big hidden collectibles around that made it more of, like, you know, a kind of secret finding sort of puzzle platformer type thing. Then also, uh, have some emphasis on the speed running thing. So quite a few of us on the team are quite interested in like, you know, kind of speed running games and the community around that. And games like Celeste and stuff of like, yeah, a big inspiration for kind of how we wanted to turns over to something slightly

more modern. So yeah, we added the kind of speed run times. We added the collectibles. We added the like, don't die in a level when you get a badge award thing. Yeah. Yeah. We thought they added just something else like, you know, whatever you want to do in the game, really, is kind of there for you. I noticed that there was an achievement. I'm not 100% sure this is still in the game, but I noticed there was an achievement for beating one of the developer times or something along those lines. And I couldn't find the developer times. I wondered if there is a way to display them off. It's just a matter of practicing and practicing and practicing. Yeah, so it is just the matter of practicing.

So they were all, Owen, who is the lead programmer, and by far the best at the game, he can really zip through some of the levels. It really put us all just shame. But basically his best times were put in as kind of like, they weren't like, we never put like you had to get under this time, but it was meant to be, you know, if you were quick enough, then your time went gold

and you got an achievement for it. This is like kind of a secret thing to do. Yeah, that's correct, because I was trying to get the one on the first level because I was doing what I thought were flawless runs and I apparently wasn't even close. But then I did discover a pro strategy, which is that if you slide down the hills, you can get your

top speed up quite a lot. So, yeah, there's something else where the spin attack in the original, you could basically just hold down a spin attack and jump into enemies and the game became almost trivial. We changed it into some more of like a kind of a ground pounds type move. But if you do that from enough of a height and then you jump, you then kind of get a burst to speed. So you can do it.

So you can kind of chain these spin attacks together and keep your momentum going and beat the first level in, I think, around 18 seconds. or something ridiculous like that. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. Which, like, yeah, we kind of hope that if there is a speedbunk community around that, they'll start using some of these. And I think some streamers have started to discover some of the secrets we added in.

Yeah. Yeah. Can you tell us about any of those other secrets or are they to remain hidden away? I have to say, I did find a couple of secret levels in the game when I played through it. Yeah, so the original secret levels from the game, which were these kind of this side-scrolling shooter type thing. They had some secret warps in the original Mega Drive ones, but they were like completely impossible to find without having some sort of guide.

It was like, you know, jump into this very specific ceiling thing. And you literally could never find them. And we only found them because one of the developers who originally worked on it gave us documentation that told us this is where the secrets are. So we added in, we basically changed their location so you can find them around the game. And what was really cool was two other interns who joined us quite late, who are slightly more kind of early on in their process, Bradley and Hattika. They basically did the side-scrolling levels entirely by themselves and programmed them into the game.

So, like, that's fantastic to be able to give them a credit on it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they're quite well-hidden, but you shouldn't be able to find them if you had poke around. How many are there in the game? Is there one per world? So there's four. That is four, okay, I found half of them then. I found the one with the piano, which has the hint in the level, which I won't ruin.

And I found one other, which I forget. I think it was under the music level. You can double back under the music level when you've beaten the boss. And there's a walk down there, but I almost immediately died. So I didn't get to finish the one. Yeah, I think that's a toy one. But yeah, there's a, the toy world. I can reveal are the tool worlds and the sand world.

They're in there somewhere. So good luck for the world. I'm going to find them. You can bet I'm going to find them. I want to ask about one incredibly weird specific thing that caught my interest, if that's okay. And this is really weirdly specific, so I apologize. At the end of World One, once you beat the big B boss, there's a single collectible above the exit that you have to climb up and get. And then you get an achievement for it.

And I was wondering what the story is with that. I am so glad you asked that, actually. So if you actually look at the Beesopedia, this collectible has its own entry. Oh, it does. Okay. That was, yeah, quite a funny inclusion. So in the original level codes, like the level maps from the original game, that collectible was there for some reason.

And we've absolutely no idea of why. And we asked George Allen, who was the program on the original, and he didn't know either. So it's just there. Yeah, we thought, like, why not, you know, reward players' curiosity by giving an achievement for it? I love stuff like that. I just shows just kind of goes above and beyond. It's like not only if there's been recreated, it's been recreated, but also the idiosic. have been acknowledged in a way that's not, doesn't depreciate the game.

It's just a fun thing. But I'm glad to have, I'm glad that that's been resolved now. Although, of course, if it was in the Beastipedia and I missed it, I'd do apologize. There were some other kind of small things where we found in the actual kind of like object descriptions for all the enemies in the game. Some of them had really interesting names. So there's this kind of this red character who's in the tool world who he splits into two, just fairly kind of innocuous enemy. It was called Chris. We don't know why it's called Chris, but yeah, he's given a name.

I think it's the only one at which is cool. And then the boss of the Fairworld, which is this absolutely terrifying kind of clown-type thing, is known as Gaffer. So we just affectionately called the whole project Gaffer for the majority of the project, which is quite fun. But yeah, it was a nice kind of throwing some recognition on those kind of really, really obscure things that probably no one notice, but meant a lot to us as we were, the other thing. Are there any other sort of Easter eggs in the game I could ask about, or have we covered that sort of pretty thoroughly now? I think there's probably most of them.

There are some of the secrets and some of the places of the big collectibles that kind of mirror certain secrets in the original. So, like, there might have been a random kind of gap in the levels that, like, was maybe intended as a secret, but never actually was made to do anything. And we, like, repurpose that as somewhere that, you know, the secret could hide. So we did try to, yeah, kind of bring those kind of things to life. that, yeah, check the miscadipedia. I'm going to plug it as much as I can. I will say now, I've got to mention this because, again, no one, I haven't been doing Retronauts as a presenter for that long,

and no one but me is ever going to bring this stuff up. This is minutiae because I spent a fair amount of my playthrough and then a second and third time through trying to find the Gamesmaster secret room because back in the day, there was definitely a secret room dedicated to Gamesmaster, either the TV show or the magazine. And I realize now that was probably in the AGA version the whole time, and I wasted my time looking for it. But if anyone knows where the Games Master Secret Room is, I would really love to have that information back in my life. Sadly, that's not something we brought into this version.

There are a few things that we really wanted to, like on the toy world in the original, there was like a kind of an arcade cabinet type thing that you could control and you could play with Inzo. But that actually wasn't in the original Mega Drive one. And even though we had this kind of, like, etch-sketched arcade thingy, we just didn't really have the time or, like, you know, the resources available to bring it to life, which is a shame. And, like, yeah, these other secrets from these other games, we did try and acknowledge them in certain places, but, yeah, we only had kind of so much time and so many resources to. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think considering the time that it was done in, it's pretty full-futured, pretty impressive project. I liked that you had If you could tell us about the accessibility options

that would be great because that was another feature I appreciated it Yeah that was something that from early on in the project We were really determined to get in like as much kind of accessibility features as we can inspired by yeah like in Celeste How you know you can put on any of these options To beat the game like no matter

Kind of you know how you want to play it So yeah from the start we wanted to put in stuff That just made it easier so you can play it through Invincible if you want to do and maybe a cakewalk or you could have infinite jumps and yeah we just thought like that would be more accessible really and there were some other things

that I think we're looking at that may or may not go in such as like ways to adjust the contrast so that things are easier to see yeah really kind of as much as we can do to kind of support it for as many in like a future patch now I'm conscious of time

there's a couple of other things I'll bring up quickly now what was it brilliantly I've immediately forgot what it was I'll come back to that. Ian, we talked very briefly about, well, it's been alluded to or mentioned at least briefly, the chance of possibly a new Zool game, not necessarily Zool 2, but something new featuring the character. Is that something that's sort of on the horizon, or just a sort of twinkling eye, or is it something you're interested in producing? Yeah, a bit of all three, really. You know, part of the process we're going through now with the work that the Academy of done is to really identify whether, that there's an appetite for the character

and the games featuring their character out in the marketplace. And I think we probably need just a little while longer to assess the reaction. And I have to say, the actual reaction has been fantastic. I'm very, very pleased with that. But as to whether that transferred into sales,

then, which is obviously the important thing. So I can employ more of these graduates, et cetera. I say we, I'm talking about Sumer. So you may have to wait a little while until you hear anything definitive as far as that's concerned. I'll urge listeners to go and buy it because it's tremendous.

I remember the other question I wanted to ask now. What are the odds, realistically, that this thing is going to hit any other platforms like the Nintendo Switch, for example? Is that remotely possible? I couldn't possibly say. Okay. At least on the Academy's end,

maybe that could be a future project for other cohorts going through, porting it to other systems. I mean, we'd love to get on the switch, obviously. Yeah, of course. Yeah, it would be a perfect fit, yeah. Yeah, but it's just, I think it's just totally down to what the Academy decides to do in the future.

Yeah, absolutely. Or if you know, one could do it themselves, of course, but yeah. And that's why I couldn't possibly say. Oh, okay. So that wasn't, that wasn't just being quite, you literally couldn't possibly say. Well, no, no, no, it's, I think, I was just teasing there a little.

Just for at it, just a call out for George Allen here. The name of his new game coming out is called Grim Earth. Pretty cool name. So watch out for that one. I will, especially if Zool is somehow involved. There you go. I will keep an out for that grim earth. So that's Zool Reader mentioned and Grim Earth.

Mostly Zoolweider mentioned today, which we've discussed in reasonable detail. I think that's a good place to leave it for the time being. But I will ask both of you, where can our listeners find out more about you, upcoming projects or what you're up to in general if you want listeners to come and find you doing those things? Well, the Academy, as far as that's concerned, if anyone's interested, they should obviously contact Sumer and Jake Habgood. As far as I'm concerned, upcoming projects, I didn't answer fully. question earlier, is there anything else going on? I do have a Hogs of War game that again

started with some students. It's basically the Hogs of War reheated. Oh, fantastic. Which I'm working on with a number of people that came through the university and that's probably six months away, but I'm enjoying the process, so that's good. Now I desperately want to ask you about Rick Mail, but I think we're out of time for that, perhaps later. for another day. Yeah, perhaps another time. Well, that's fantastic. And Rob, how about you?

Where can people find out about you or what you're up to? Yeah, so, as Ian said, check the Academy website for, yeah, any, any updates from that. And definitely, if anyone was interested, apply for the next cohort, which I think applications will open, yeah, towards the end of this year to start in January. But for me personally, I mean, you can follow me on Twitter. I just started a working out, which is Rob CF3, or just search Rob. for now on Twitter and you'll find it. I'm delighted to say like

on behalf of all the other interns. We all started permanent jobs at Simo working on some factory projects today. Yeah, thank you. It's been really cool. Seeing us all kind of, yeah, make that step forward. But yeah, I'm sure we have to keep you updated

on any future things, which we make. Yeah, that's grand. That's fantastic. This has all been grand. It's a really pleasure to talk to both of you. And I urge everyone to keep an eye up for Zorro to mention because it really is very good and keep an eye out on Simodigital Academy as well.

And thanks very much for coming to Retronauts. Hopefully we'll talk again at some point. Thank you, Stuart. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Stuart. Thank you. Thank you.