Line #5 VideoGame/Zortch


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zortchtheimage.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:A breakdancing brute would be one of the more ''ordinary'' sights Zortch would ever witness....]]
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4	-> ''You are in a fine mess, human...''
5	->-- The voice that contacts [[IdiotHero our heroine]] throrough the game.
6
7	''Zortch Maxinum Against the Alien Brainsuckers'' - [[OfficiallyShortenedTitle more often known as just]] ''Zortch'' - is an {{Retraux}} FirstPersonShooter developed mostly by a single Hungarian developer Mutantleg, responsible for all of the programming including the custom engine made for the game, released in 2023 for Windows. The game stands out amongside the other indie FPS of its time through its frame of inspiration: While [[VideoGame/{{Dusk}} your]] [[VideoGame/{{Hrot}} typical]] {{Retraux}} shooter would use either [[VideoGame/{{Doom}} early]] to [[VideoGame/QuakeI mid]] ninteties shooters as a basis, ''Zortch'' takes a bit after the ''late'' 90s shooters, most notably ''VideoGame/UnrealI'' (through the colorful and large envoriments, weapons featuring crazy {{Secondary Fire}}s, enemy types that are around as agile as the player and even the look of the protagonist being similar to ''Unreal's'' default player character) with slight touches of ''VideoGame/{{Turok}}'' and [[SurrealHumor an absurdist sense of humor]] akin to ''VideoGame/{{MDK}}''.
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9	Zortch Maxinum is not having a good day. Accepting a vacation to a faraway planet, she finds herself captured by the minions of brain-eating aliens who seek to make her their next meal. With the help of a strange voice guiding her through their complexes - and a [[WalkingArmory shedload of fancy guns]] - she's determined to get off this rock.
10	----
11	!! Tropes present in ''Zortch'' include:
12	* AbsurdlyShortLevel: [=E2M2=] is the shortest level that isn't a BossOnlyLevel, being mainly a preview for the Bloop gun with a handful of Bloops themselves to try the new weapon on.
13	** The fourth episode's levels are generally shorter compared to the rest of the episodes, with each of the non-boss levels being not longer than ten minutes at most even with secret hunting.
14	* ActionGirl: The PlayerCharacter packs six different guns, a whole lotta explosives, a ridiculous sprinting speed, and a surprisingly effective kick.
15	* AirVentPassageway: Zortch gets to crawl through plenty of vents throrough the course of the game, and some of these tend to contain secret items.
16	* ArtificialBrilliance: Unlike a lot of first-person shooter enemies, the enemies in ''Zortch'' tend to play smarter, repositioning themselves to get better shots at Zortch or to make themselves harder to hit. This is best demonstrated by the Pudding People.
17	* AsteroidsMonster: A floating multi-eyed blob creature splits into two when killed up to three times, and Creeps will split into two a variable number of times. The FacelessEye enemies also do this once, with the split having yellow eye color compared to the green of the prime incarnations.
18	* AttractMode: In a similar vein of the [[VideoGame/QuakeI first]] [[VideoGame/QuakeII two]] ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'' games, a gameplay demo is being played in background for the main menu.
19	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Zortch escapes the Brainsuckers' planet safe and sound, but also learns the sad truth behind them and wonders if they, too, are victims. [[MoodWhiplash This is all followed by Zortch leaving a negative review on the tourist agency that brought her onto this entire mess]]]].
20	* BlobMonster: The most common enemies are Pudding People, purple humanoids who are actually amoeba-like blobs in metal exoskeletons that give them their shape. Apparently they've started to believe they're human, too.
21	* BoringButPractical:
22	** The humble double-barreled shotgun is good for most situations in the game, with a decent clip, abundant ammo, and great stopping power - a sizable chunk of the enemy roster goes down in a single double-barrel shot.
23	** The not-quite-as-humble cute little submachine gun can stunlock particularly tough mid-tier enemies, and its alt-fire is a scope that takes out foes from a distance. This is ''extremely'' useful for dealing with Floaters.
24	* BossOnlyLevel: The fourth level of each episode is a short walk to the boss arena.
25	* BottomlessMagazines: Out of the weapons that aren't the wrench nor handheld explosives, the lack of reloads only applies to the Bloop gun.
26	* BrainFood: The Alien Brainsuckers [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin sure do love themselves some brains]]. [[spoiler:They originally did this out of desperation, but became physically and culturally addicted to human brains]].
27	* BreakingTheFourthWall: A ''literal'' version! The normal end-of-level transition has Zortch bring her fist down on the button and shatter the screen to pieces.
28	* BurgerFool: [=E1M2=] features a burger joint that has been naturally overtaken by the Pudding People and dinosaurs, with also few zombies present as well. The telegraphic voice gets to comment on this place.
29	--> I swear these pop up everywhere!
30	* {{Cap}}: Played with in that almost all of the caps in the game are softcaps - if you pick up an armor/ammo pickup and your current armor/ammo is under its max, the ''whole'' amount is added to your total even if it would go over the max. Health works the same way, but decays over time back down to the max of 200.
31	* DegradedBoss:
32	** The first episode's boss is a Brainsucker. They start becoming uncommon enemies by the third episode.
33	** A (recursively generated) horde of Creeps serve as the fourth episode's boss, but become regular enemies in the next episode.
34	* ExpressiveHealthBar: Mainly when powerups are involved. When the [[QuadDamage Anger]] power-up is active, Zortch's portrait gains GlowingEyesOfDoom, while the [[InvisibilityInk Invisibility Paint]] power-up has the portrait display just the eyes and the outline of the head. Health state only changes the color of the portrait from green to yellow and red, but shall Zortch die, the portrait would get flipped upside down and gain WingdingEyes.
35	* FacelessEye: Present in ''energy projectile firing'' variety as an AirborneMook.
36	* FallDamage: Falling from great highs isn't that damaging but it does knock Zortch down for a while before standing up.
37	* FlamingSkulls: The game features [[VideoGame/{{Doom}} Lost Soul-like]] flaming [[Franchise/{{Terminator}} T-800]] [[TerminatorImpersonator heads]] as an AirborneMook.
38	* ForceFieldDoor: The levels often feature these, powered up with a Reactor per level that Zortch has to seek down and destroy in order to progress.
39	* TheGoomba: Shambling corpses are slow, lack a projectile attack, and are easily dispatched.
40	* HarderThanHard: The '''Maxed''' and ''Not So Maxed'' difficulties severely beef up the damage the enemies can do to Zortch and also put in many dangerous enemies (even as soon as the very first level) that in the easier difficulties would be introduced much much later in the campaign. The Maxed difficulty also makes the enemies respawn after their death.
41	* HeroicMime: Outside of grunting when taking damage and hyperventilating when performing a level transition, Zortch is dead silent.
42	* HyperactiveMetabolism: Outside of first-aid kits and hidden supercharges, Zortch mainly heals herself by chugging sodas and scarfing down hamburgers and ZAMEK Bars.
43	* IdiosyncraticDifficultyLevels: The game has 7 difficulty modes, and they go in order: Visitor -> Pushover -> Warrior -> Dominator -> Subjugator -> Not So Maxed -> '''MAXED'''.
44	* IdiotHero: Zortch, in addition to being comically unemployable, got into this situation in the first place because ''she fell for a holiday scam''.
45	* InterfaceScrew: Getting hit with Bats' {{Super Scream}}s makes Zortch's aiming to go wobbly for a while.
46	* InvisibilityCloak: The game has a literal [[InvisibilityInk Invisibility Paint]] power-up that renders Zortch invisible. Zortch may also encounter a few cloaked enemies.
47	* KillItWithFire: The Flamethrower is good for dealing with fleshy enemies and makes the two [[AsteroidsMonster splitter enemies]] way easier to deal with.
48	* LightningGun: The Bloop Gun fires a stream of lightning, with its alt-fire shooting a massive burst that hits everything in a crowd.
49	* LivingDinosaurs: In a homage to ''VideoGame/{{Turok}}'', these show up in few levels as an enemy type.
50	* LockAndKeyPuzzle: Par of the course for an old school shooter. The game is [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience remarkably consistent in color coding the doors]], as red key doors always lead to Exit rooms and green key doors are associated with the Reactor rooms.
51	* LudicrousGibs: As expected from this kind of retro shooter. In a nice attention to detail, the shark enemies would feast on the gibs if any of them are present within their vicinity underwater.
52	* MindScrew: The game has a few moments like these, with [=E1M2=] being a good example. It begins in a basketball court with a ''really'' shiny, reflective floor. [[spoiler: Turns out this isn't a reflection but rather a transparent floor with a view of ''an upside down replica of the court'' Zortch would eventually show up at late in the level, before the exit. And then the level's exit stats are displayed in upside down.]]
53	* MookMedic: A particularly dangerous enemy - a large, floating humanoid torso - can revive non-gibbed enemies. Brainsuckers can do this too outside of the boss encounter.
54	* NapInducingSpeak: [[spoiler: The ending involves Zortch falling asleep in a middle of the captain's exposition. She would wake up in a space ship leaving the planet.]]
55	* NoSell: Few enemy types - like Chaingun Pudding People with metal backpacks and Floaters - happen to have metallic bits that seem to rather protect them from bullet based damage when shot at, so Zortch have to aim at fleshy bits (or use explosive weapons) to damage them.
56	* ProtagonistTitle: You play as Zortch Maxinum, not the Alien Brainsuckers.
57	* QuadDamage: The Anger power-up makes Zortch invincible and heavily boosts the damage of her guns for about a minute or so, while also putting a red filter over the screen and playing demonic whispering audio.
58	* QuickMelee: In case Zortch isn't feeling like switching to the Wrench for melee combat, she's able to kick with a seperate button.
59	* {{Retraux}}: The game's art style pays homage to the ''Platform/Nintendo64'' and PC shooters of the late 90s.
60	* RuleOfFunny: The world Zortch lives in tends to run on absurdity, from the Brainsuckers capturing ships using giant toy magnets to walking spider-mines getting distracted by beach balls.
61	* SharkPool: [=E3M1=] houses a swimming pool that happens to be attended by a ''lot'' of sharks. Luckily, the sharks are very easily distracted - even a single dead shark makes up for a snack for the remaining sharks and they even feed off the LudicrousGibs.
62	* ShoutOut:
63	** Trying to use one of the {{Classic Cheat Code}}s from ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' in the console unlocks the "This is NOT Doom!" achievement. Also, the level where you obtain the "weird gun" has a reference to ''VideoGame/DoomII''[='s=] level "Dead Simple" (both are square arenas where the doors open up to reveal plasma-spamming spider-robots surrounding you on all sides).
64	** The end-of-level object being a button that triggers [[TrashTheSet Trashing The Set]] is a homage to ''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D''.
65	* SmartGun: The Pugon Pistol. Its primary fire homes in on enemies, and its alternate fire generates a wide {{Deflector Shield\|s}} that can absorb a lot of projectiles.
66	* StoryBreadcrumbs: Aside from the ending, the player doesn't get much context for the world Zortch is trapped on outside of little snippets the telepathic voice tells her.
67	* StylisticSuck: Using the Night Vision Goggles displays an amateurishly drawn battery indicator on the upper right corner.
68	* TankTopTomboy: [[AllInTheManual The html/pdf manual]] describes Zortch as a "bit of a tomboy" and her design involves a tank-top, in addition to cargo pants and SpikyHair.
69	* TeleportingKeycardSquad: In some levels, merely ''approaching'' a keycard will trigger a horde of enemies to spawn across the entire map.
70	* ThrowDownTheBomblet: Bundles of dynamite are one of Zortch's options for dealing with enemies. Tossing these are slower than firing the grenade launcher, but don't have the disadvantage of needing to reload.
71	* VoiceWithAnInternetConnection: Throughout the game, Zortch is guided by a voice talking to her telepathically. [[spoiler:This voice belongs to the Brainsuckers' former captain, who despairs at what his crew became and tries to help humans escape their planet however he can]].

Context VideoGame / Zortch