ZooL
| Zool: Ninja of the Nth Dimension | |
|---|---|
Amiga cover art
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| Developer(s) | Gremlin Graphics |
| Publisher(s) | Gremlin Graphics Commodore |
| Designer(s) | George Allen |
| Composer(s) |
Patrick Phelan Neil Biggin (CD32) |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, Acorn Archimedes, Amiga, Atari ST, Amiga CD32, DOS, Game Boy, Sega Game Gear, Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, SNES |
| Release | October 1992 |
| Genre(s) | Platformer |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
Zool: Ninja of the Nth Dimension is a platform game originally produced for the Amiga by Gremlin Graphics in 1992. It was later ported to several other platforms and followed by Zool 2 in 1993.
The game is a pure platform game, relying on smooth, fast-moving gameplay. Its protagonist is Zool, a gremlin "Ninja of the Nth Dimension" who is forced to land on Earth; in order to gain ninja ranking, he has to pass seven lands, beating a boss at the end of each of them. The game contains a number of embedded minigames, including several arcade games, a scrolling space shooter and a game accessible only by making Zool play a certain tune on an in-game piano or finding certain invisible warp points.
Zool was intended as a rival to Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog. George Allen came with the idea of Zool as he was criticized on his previous game Switchblade II for having a lack of enemies. In development, Zool could cast spells to get him out of trouble by collecting potions. For example, Zool could escape from pits with high jump spells and cast a shadow spell to make a clone of him that follows his actions (thus doubling the fire power). In the final version, the spells were replaced with collectible powerups. The very early name for the project was Pootz. The soundtrack by Patrick Phelan overlaps with the Lotus 3 soundtrack and inspired several modern electro/techno remixes. The game was heavily hyped upon its initial release, including being bundled with the newly launched Amiga 1200, although not the AGA version with enhanced graphics which followed later. In 2000, the Amiga version of Zool was re-released as part of The Best of Gremlin compilation.
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