What I thought of Zoombinis.

My god. What I have I done?

I just wanted to play a fun childhood game. You know the wacky adventure where you make a pizza for a tree stump? All fun and games. A little edutainment.

I started off as the hero. I gathered a little group of oppressed zoombinis who were just looking for a way out. All they wanted was a better life. I made sure all the zoombinis looking for freedom were at the gathering point, and signaled them forward into the unknown on a zoombinian ship.

They made across the sea and then it was up to me to guide them through the strange new place they had made landfall. The landscapes were beautiful, with a painted quality that always seemed to be dripping in stylized light and shadow. In the first impression, the red seas were behind the exploring zoombinis and giving way to lush green grass and blue skies.

The first obstacle to the zoombinis were the sneezing cliffs. While the implications of animate cliffs with allergies is something that should be considered, in the heat of the moment I was more focused on moving the zoombinis forward like they wanted. Like I wanted. Perhaps, in hindsight, I should have considered what this bizarre welcome would mean.

Things went well for a time. The land played mindgames, but they seemed like mere trifles. The hungry stump was appeased with a pepperoni pizza. Loyalty in this land was cheap.

But I got cocky. I thought I’d showboat for my zoombini followers. I don’t know why I already had their faith, but perhaps I wanted them to be impressed. In the cyclopean structure containing the Lion’s Lair- some sort of ancient statue animated by magicks most likely learned and forgotten by a civilization older than zoombinis had recorded history, I moved too quickly. I was careless in what I thought would be a simple task and ended up damning most of the zoombinis to be lost forever within the halls of the this accursed place. A voiceover assured me that they made it back to safety, but how could I believe those words which were likely nothing more than an inner monologue rationalizing failure?

I was rattled. I lost another zoombini crushed to a pulp under a crystal, then two more sucked into a black hole as I misread a sign on the path. They were doomed to a time dilated spaghettiafication by my hand.

Two zoombinis made it past this final trial.

Those two traumatized survivors rolled in hollow victory towards the supposed new Zoombiniville.

This wasn’t the beginning of a new chapter for the zoombinis, it was a sentencing to a slow oblivation. Perhaps some day in the far future, some new peoples would find what was left behind by these two zoombinis and brush it aside as some minor oddity. Some speck of history. There weren’t enough zoombinis to construct any monuments or great structures. They could only look on and dream of what could have been.

Overall, this is a fun and faithful recreation of the classic game that includes some truly fun background art, and over the top voice acting that will amuse all ages. I would recommend this to both parents looking for something to entertain young children and as a little hit of nostalgia for the parents themselves.