Zool: Ninja of the Nth Dimension is a platform game written for the Amiga by Gremlin Graphics and published in 1992. It was marketed as a rival to Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog. Zool was ported to other platforms and followed by Zool 2 in 1993.
Gameplay
The game is a 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.
Development and release
George Allan came up 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 power-ups. 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 then-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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