Zub



"If Zub fails Zub one will lose the war to Zub ten and his commander, Zub will probably Zub him."

- Inlay card

Zub is a Platform Game written by Ste and John Pickford and published by Mastertronic in 1986. It was released on the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum. The game is set in the Zub system, which consists of ten planets orbiting a star presumably named Zub. The planets are inhabited by rival kingdoms of Zubs, whose continuing wars eventually destroyed the entire system, according to the in-game blurb.

The main character is Zub, a low-ranking soldier in the Second Glorious Army of Zub One. He was genetically engineered for war, but somehow ended up as a coward and spent centuries carefully avoiding active duty. Eventually he was given the assignment to travel to Zub Ten and retrieve the Green Eyeball of Zub, which had been stolen by a similarly-ranked soldier from that planet.

Gameplay consists of jumping on a series of floating platforms while avoiding or fighting off a group of flying aliens. Behind the playing area is a multi-layered starfield that provides an impressive, if oddly mobile, parallax backdrop to Zub's movements.

Each planet has three teleport pads, each leading to another planet. There is no way to know in advance where any pad leads, so the player needs either luck or a map to avoid visiting several of the planets multiple times.


 * Ambidextrous Sprite: Justified (and possibly averted) by a blink-and-you'll-miss-it animation in which Zub switches his weapon to the opposite hand as he turns.
 * Bittersweet Ending: On completion, a brief epilogue tells the player that Zub was given the highest honour known to his kind.
 * Blessed with Suck: Zub was genetically engineered for only one job: fighting. But he's an abject coward.
 * He was also promoted from private to sergeant, just so he could go on a dangerous vanity mission for King Zub.
 * Bond Gun Barrel: Used in the title sequence.
 * Cool Helmet: Zub's spacesuit includes a fishbowl-style helmet, which protects his... eye stalks. He doesn't have a head.
 * Easter Egg: The 128K Spectrum version contains the hidden game Lightfarce, a parody of FTL's Lightforce.
 * Idiot Hero: Zub's brain was made for taking orders, not for thinking.
 * Instant 180-Degree Turn: Technically averted by a three-frame animation as Zub turns around.
 * Life Meter: Zub's remaining energy is represented by a line across a picture of his body. The part of the body above the line is a skeleton, the bit below is complete. When it reaches the bottom, his sprite turns into a disintegrating skeleton.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast: The rumoured Zirk bomb, or anything "remotely Zirkish", for that matter.
 * Odd Name Out: Players are warned to beware of the Zirk bomb. This is the only thing mentioned that isn't called Zub (or the Something of Zub).
 * Shout-Out: On loading, the game is introduced with a Bond Gun Barrel sequence.
 * The Green Eye of Zub may be a shout-out to The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God, especially given what can happen to people who steal it.
 * The ZX Spectrum 128K version included a parody of Light Force as a sub-game.
 * Starfish Aliens: These attack Zub.
 * Stun Guns: Zub's only weapon is one.
 * The Maze: The teleport network.
 * Theme Naming: Almost everybody (and everything) in the Zub system appears to be called Zub.
 * A Winner Is You: The winner gets a text screen explaining how Zub was honoured when he succeeded (see Bittersweet Ending).
 * The X of Y: The Green Eyeball of Zub.