A Quick Start Guide to ZampanioSim
ZampanioSim is a game of exploration, though not your traditional video game exploration. You explore menus and websites and code to grasp the meaning of this game and its stories to behold. The branches can be found from the main entryway here: http://farragofiction.com/ZampanioSim/
The Main Rooms:
The North door is the first path most explore, as it is the only path that appears if you've not played before. It is a simulation of a menu for an RPGMaker style game. There is no exiting the menu here, at least for now. To proceed here, you unlock skills from the skill tree, which range from procedurally generated skills to upgrades for the pause menu. If you are low on skill points, check other option tabs. You’ll likely receive some skill points for something you unlocked earlier.
The East (accessed by clicking the East rug) leads to the more game part of this ARG. You are an Eye as you walk around with the arrow keys or WASD in this maze collecting bits of your memory in the form of objects placed in the rooms. There are crows in these rooms that pick up these objects too, so if you are going for completion, it is best to try to race to an uncollected item before a crow does. If you do not get it, it will likely respawn in a later room. All doors always proceed to a randomly generated room, there is no backtracking. If you are not going for completion, you proceed through the game by keeping up with the chat that is ongoing to the bottom right. It will update intermittently. Once you have exhausted the chat, your exit will appear in the center of every room you spawn in. The exit will stop any more memory objects from spawning.
The South (accessed by clicking the South rug) is a train with only one direction. You can walk with the arrow keys and WASD like before. If you walk over the image in the center of the room, you character will comment on it. An intercom will also play occasionally and make a unique comment based on the image. There is also red text in the background. To read it, while there is an easier method, for now you can attempt to through the transparent window in some of the train cars and by scrolling the train cars so the text can be seen in the space between two of them. There is also two green squares to the right. The first is an autowalk, where your character will automatically walk forward. It does not stop to let you read what it passes over, so be aware of that. The second square stops the screen shake. To progress, you find enough unique images to get to 100% completion as indicated by the top right of the screen. You can complete the objective, but there will be repeat cars that use images seen before that do not count towards your progress.
There are other paths to be found from the main entryway, but not indicated by any item. Just move your cursor around the room slowly until it indicates something to click on.
Diving Deeper: To get the most out of further explorations of ZampanioSim, you need to get familiar with DevTool. It is a feature available on all websites. You right click the webpage, go to inspect at the bottom, and along the bottom or to the side of the webpage this tool will open up to the inspector tab. The main tabs I have used in my explorations are the Console and the Debugger tool.
The Console tab is often used as a vehicle for storytelling. Notes and messages will pop up according to actions performed in the main game. In subsequent playthroughs, it is best to keep this up as you play. There are also limited opportunities where you can interact through the Console menu. For example, in the North, if you type in window.hack and not enter it, a menu will appear showing autocomplete options to hack various menus in the pause screen. Opportunities like this might be found throughout the different routes.
The next tab I found most use for is the Debugger tab. This leads to a folder system which stores both code and assets for the game. To help you along, to the North and East there are rabbit holes accessible from an icon made to look like a literal rabbit hole. You usually find them at the end of both routes. There, they ask for important words if you know them. To find the important words, go to the debugger, then go farragofiction > ZampanioSimDirection > static > js > CanvasFuckery > PasswordStorage.ts. If you click on this, in the debugger the code will open up and scrolling onwards, there is a list of codes that work for the rabbit hole. They will often spawn their stories in the console menu.
The Story: Depending on your proclivities, you might consider giving a link to a word document filled with all the story segments I can find a spoiler. With the methods I provided, you should be able to see most of what I have listed on your own. The document, however, orders the segments in a way I find most coherent. If you wish to skip the search phase or have searched enough but wish to read it in some sort of order, the document can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_s7z0Ug7P4rclQRmat0WFk7Xz5y9Lp5l/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108332830234317382798&rtpof=true&sd=true
Further Links: The Discord- The Discord on first blush may seem like a locked down vehicle of only lore exploration, however there is a community here. It uses the Discord thread system. The main path is under the general tab, and to the top right you may see a # symbol. This opens up threads. You are looking for the thread called the true general. Come say hi. https://discord.gg/tZmtKwnbac
Tags on this Tumblr: #guidingzampanio: Guides or Hints on how to navigate Zampaniosim #presentingzampanio: Usually well sorted and compiled findings #discussingzampanio: My own speculations regarding this ARG #discoveringzampanio: Initial extractions of information #encounteringzampanio: First encounter reactions #rebloggingzampanio: Others content #verbosebabbling: Unsorted rambles
