Michael F Zozo’s Urbania

The following article was one of several short-form pieces of writing requested by a now defunct publication following the death of game designer and architect Michael F Zozo. Each was intended to serve as an independent summation of one of his titles.

London. 1988. Wet. Jerome is dying at your feet, blood pouring from the puncture wound in his chest.

So begins Zozo's 1990 classic text-based adventure: Urbania

Urbania is a little riddle of a game – relatively short, though with enough depth to provide entertainment and enough breadth to suggest a much larger, living world. The game is essentially an interactive story where the player must navigate the aftermath of their friends murder at the hands of a rival street gang.

It is a game of dichotomies, of contrast between disparate viewpoints (a technique that Zozo would employ again in the far more ambitious murder mystery title – Ambigo.) Zozo fully utilises the specifics of the medium that allow for post-modernist ploys such as telling the player one thing, whilst encouraging them to do another. This divide between what the player is told the game is about, versus what the player must do in order to advance has been utilised often in more recent titles (often as a side-effect of poor writing rather than a purposeful technique). This is perhaps personified most in 2008's Grand Theft Auto 4 in which the protagonist repeatedly stresses his desire to avoid a life of crime and lack of funds, yet the player must engage in repetitive acts of violence to proceed and may be walking with millions of dollars in their pocket.

The protagonist of Urbania, 'Three Toe' (his real name is revealed to be Haim in one line of dialogue) is faced with a simple dilemma. A close friend and fellow gang member lays dead at his feet, arriving just in time to explain that his murder was at the hands of a rival gang in North London. His actual murderer, Hotdog Joe, is the son of the leader of this rival gang. This revelation, if made public to his own gang will lead to an all out turf-war in which many will be killed on both sides. The narrative and dialogue are masterly crafted to evoke a sense of dread. As the player explores London and attempts to progress, they are torn in opposite directions, some of the text suggesting that cold-blooded retaliation is demanded, some suggesting that a pragmatic response is not only utilitarian, but also beneficial specifically to Three Toe who due to an old wound, is unlikely to survive an all-out war.

This dichotomy, this juxtaposition of opposing ideals is mirrored in the setting. Zozo's background in architecture simultaneously gives life to the drab, wet streets of London, whilst also miring the flow of the game in academic postulating. There are pages of script within Urbania simply covering different schools of architecture, the history of train stations and social trends through the latter half of the 20th Century.

Notably, whichever direction Three Toe chooses to go, the game provides resistance – a technique that Zozo referred to (though likely somewhat tongue-in-cheeked) as 'diabolic advocacy promoting homoeostasis). Each decision is met with opposition, each push to progress is rebuffed. It is a clever twist on the most basic video game trope – that when you have completed a task , the next task is more difficult. Kill one enemy guard, there are two in the next room. Collect all the pellets on level 1, do it again but faster in level 2. Defeat the mooks, face the boss. In Urbania, to commit to a plan is to be forced to second-guess.

If Three Toe chooses to pursue his vendetta, North London devolves into a blood-soaked gangland whilst the protagonist questions his own motivations and whether or not violence is the only way of life that he knows. If Three Toe attempts to de-escalate the situation, he soon finds himself covering up the murder of his friend and lying to the only people who have ever cared for him. He scolds his lack of loyalty, his lack of courage and his inability to solve the problem permanently. Regardless of the path taken, the climax of the game is a confrontation his own gang leader – a one eyed giant named Popcorn. Popcorn praises the choices that Three Toe has made, provides a brief summary of the player's path through the adventure, and then reveals that the gang war is coming regardless and that Three Toe is not only expected to fight, but will die one way or another in the conflict.

In typical Zozo fashion, however, there are layers of reality presented within the game. The language used is painstakingly crafted to create a certain image in the mind of the player. However, becoming bound to this image is what stops most players from recognising the clues that there may be more to the story than is initially apparent.

There are oddities in description – dimensions never seem to quite line up and Three Toe seems dwarfed by his surroundings. Small snippets within the text suggest that something is not entirely accurate in the presentation. In one scene, Three Toe's older sister, Priscilla, eats a cigarette off of the floor. From the beginning, the passers-by on London streets ignore the characters, creating a sense of otherness and isolation in their street gang lives. However, by the end this reaches surreal heights as the dead body of Jerome is stepped over by a child and the crowds emerging from the train station seem entirely ignorant of the looming gang war that is about to happen all around them.

The peculiarities of the story are revealed through a single verb. It is available for players to use from the very first moment you are asked to input text, but without knowing beforehand, there is no reason to assume that the protagonist would be capable.

Using this verb triggers a surreal response.

“You spread your mottled grey wings and take to their air, mangled pink feet flailing behind you. The small but precise black eyes on either side of your head, scope the panorama of London beneath you. Your beak snaps at city mist.”

'Fly' is not something that street gang kids are able to do. Unless of course, they are all pigeons.