Zero Zero

released on Dec 31, 1997

Zero Zero is an interactive storybook designed for girls aged 7-12. However, like designer Theresa Duncan's earlier games, Chop Suey and Smarty, it can be enjoyed by almost anyone. It is an adventure set in Paris at the turn of 1900. There are many different activities to play. You can also interact with many of the game's background items, which provide funny animations or fantastical scenes.


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Having completed and enjoyed Chop Suey some time ago I finally got around to playing one of the other two of Theresa Duncan's games, Zero Zero, her last. It really sucks how forgotten her games have become because even though they were designed for children, specifically girls, they have a genuine depth and appeal to them that make them hold up over the years and make them stand out as notable works in the medium in general. Duncan’s games treated girls with utmost respect, crafting real-world settings mixed with the imagination and wonder of childhood without a single hint of condescension.

Zero Zero is set in Paris on New Year’s Eve night, 1899, and is about precocious delivery girl, Pinkee, who hops around the Parisian rooftops at night to do her work. She is enamored with fin de siècle, the French culture born from people’s expectations of the coming 20th century, and asks her friends/clients around the neighborhood about what they think the new century will bring. Considering this game came out in ’97 it’s a neat theme running through the game of looking forward to the future of the approaching century through the optimism of a child.

Like Chop Suey, Zero Zero is more of akin to the interactive story-book style of games that were big in kids PC games at the time. You just click around the streets of Paris as Pinkee makes her rounds and enter buildings such as a bakery, greenhouse, and cinema. The narrator tells you about the locations and characters and you can explore these locations to find little silly interactions ala Humongous Entertainment games, mini-games, and more in-depth little vignettes of what Pinkee’s friends think about the future.

Zero Zero has a story-book aesthetic unique to Duncan’s games. The art is just so charming and feels like a product of the 90’s in a positive way I feel. It was fun just poking around to see what I could find and experiencing the game’s whimsical world. Also the game’s got a banger version of Frere Jacques.

All in all I definitely came away thinking that Theresa Duncan is amongst some of the most unsung game devs and it’s sad that she never made any more games due to her untimely death. Looking in to it, one proposed game intended for older audiences she had was of a post-apocalyptic FPS where a bunch of girls inspired by the style and aesthetic of swinging 30’s movies like The Thin Man fight Not-Walt Disney and his army of killer animatronics with deadly fashion items like toxic perfume which sounded rad as hell. We’re in an indie boomer shooter Renaissance right now, somebody get on that.

Anyway, game is real neat, definitely need to finish up the trilogy with Smarty. Definitely check Chop Suey and Zero Zero out if you can because they deserve a lot more love. You can play them in browser, but unfortunately the company who did it, Rhizome, did a half-assed job of it so it’s not ideal. I ran an Internet Archive ISO through a virtual machine to play it which also wasn’t totally ideal because the mini-games were mostly borked due to being tied to processor speed. Hopefully the ScummVM guys get old Macromedia games supported so this can be more readily available to play.