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kjorteoAs previously discussed, I like the Museum of ZZT and I like to support it whenever and however I can.
Recently, Dos put out this appeal:
The 24 Hours of ZZT contest (usually shortened to 24HoZZT or 24HoZ) was a ZZT community competition to create a game in just 24 hours that fit a topic chosen by the contest host. The games would be submitted and then judged by a few community members with the winner receiving the right to host the next one.
This began in 1998 and ran all the way through 2003 with more than 20 hosted events! It was a community staple and a very early example of a game jam. Unfortunately, the Autumn 2003 24HoZZT contest was never actually judged, and for nearly 15 years now has never had a winner.
I think in 2018 it's about time we change that!
What I'm proposing for the month of May is for all of us to pick up the reigns of judging, playing the 7 final submissions to the Autumn 2003 24 Hours of ZZT contest, and rate them.
The games can be downloaded from the Museum of ZZT at https://museumofzzt.com/file/1/24hoz-aut2003.zip or played directly in your browser at https://archive.org/details/zzt_24hozAut2003
All you need to do is provide scores for each game from 0.0 - 10.0 with a sentence or two. The entire process will likely take no more than 2 hours of your time.
Well! Who am I to argue? This was a nice experience, in that it let me experience some "new" ZZT games (in that I personally hadn't played them before) while still reconnecting me to my ZZT-playing and even ZZT-contest-judging (I hosted a WoZ once) roots. It also let me do something nice for the Museum, and gave me another COMPLETE entry. (I briefly debated whether I should count these all separately, but some of them were too short even for the "Well, if Essence.exe and MANOS got writeups..." bar.) Several layers of win!
So, here we go!
DAVESAST.ZZT - Oil by dave2 - 7/10
An intriguing plot about an oil spill in a mermish colony gives way to... it's not really fair to call this a Flappy Birds clone since this was years before, but, you know. Short, but brutally hard, with some questionably grisly descriptions of what happens to your body every time you hit an obstacle. The art is gorgeous and the story's interesting, but I'm not sure it had anything to do with the (rather unfair) gameplay.
DISASTER.ZZT - Disaster: The stampede76 story by stampede76 - 1.5/10
The cutscene graphics are cute and nice-looking (hi, Dos!) and this was shaping up to be a cute story about a young person getting into game creation. Then the punchline is that this youth made School ZZT and has never and will never make a good game. THE END. Uh. Ouch?
ERN56.ZZT - Fallout by eRN56 - 5/10
A very nice short adventure game with an... inconsistent mood, with serious death, horror, and desperate survival in a fallout shelter giving way to fourth-wall "Hey, it's a ZZT game, what can you expect?" gags, then back to serious and depressing again. The final battle is pure RNG and drags on a bit too long. Beautiful graphics, though.
KEWLIEZ.ZZT - THE KRUSHING DISASTER ELITE EDITION by NUeKMmm - 3/10
is this Arfenhouse
The monster is cute, though.
Oofaut03.zzt - Paper Wisdom by Oof - 4/10
Decent cutscene graphics. The writing is raunchier and edgier than I expected, but, I mean, it was a 2003 ZZT community thing, so that's probably my fault for forgetting that. There sure are a lot of shootable enemies (including a boss) for a game that, to my knowledge, never actually gives you a single round of ammo.
siddis.zzt - Sid Disaster by TTTPPP - 5/10
There are two types of 24HoZ and WoZ entries: the ones that actually tried, and the joke entries. This one blatantly tells the player on its first board that it's crap, but then it presents some very lovely art and well-done animations. It's far from the worst game submitted! however, it's also three boards long, not even slightly interactive, and the plot is... abstract.
SILICATE.ZZT - Silicate by My Liver Hurtz - 5/10
This is a mostly well-made action game with solid graphics and a mostly unique, if imperfectly balanced and exploitable and very LOUD (press B to be quiet) combat system. It is easily the closest thing in this batch to feeling like a full, real, non-24 hour ZZT game. However, it completely falls apart in the end. The difficulty curve hits a solid wall as soon as the player reaches the boiler room (is that even physically possible? Am I missing something?) and, if the player somehow survives that, the final board is bugged and does not actually lead to the ending (which is kind of an afterthought anyway.) Oops!
SMITH24.ZZT - Virus by mr smith - 3/10
A decent introduction, complete with a nice animation of the crash, leading to a literal "oops I ran out of time" screen. Fair enough. It was shaping up to be a zombie apocalypse action shooter of some sort before abruptly ending. I'm not a fan of the genre overall, so I doubt I could have scored this game fairly without personal bias. It seems like it could have been good if that's your thing? But alas.
Recently, Dos put out this appeal:
The 24 Hours of ZZT contest (usually shortened to 24HoZZT or 24HoZ) was a ZZT community competition to create a game in just 24 hours that fit a topic chosen by the contest host. The games would be submitted and then judged by a few community members with the winner receiving the right to host the next one.
This began in 1998 and ran all the way through 2003 with more than 20 hosted events! It was a community staple and a very early example of a game jam. Unfortunately, the Autumn 2003 24HoZZT contest was never actually judged, and for nearly 15 years now has never had a winner.
I think in 2018 it's about time we change that!
What I'm proposing for the month of May is for all of us to pick up the reigns of judging, playing the 7 final submissions to the Autumn 2003 24 Hours of ZZT contest, and rate them.
The games can be downloaded from the Museum of ZZT at https://museumofzzt.com/file/1/24hoz-aut2003.zip or played directly in your browser at https://archive.org/details/zzt_24hozAut2003
All you need to do is provide scores for each game from 0.0 - 10.0 with a sentence or two. The entire process will likely take no more than 2 hours of your time.
Well! Who am I to argue? This was a nice experience, in that it let me experience some "new" ZZT games (in that I personally hadn't played them before) while still reconnecting me to my ZZT-playing and even ZZT-contest-judging (I hosted a WoZ once) roots. It also let me do something nice for the Museum, and gave me another COMPLETE entry. (I briefly debated whether I should count these all separately, but some of them were too short even for the "Well, if Essence.exe and MANOS got writeups..." bar.) Several layers of win!
So, here we go!
DAVESAST.ZZT - Oil by dave2 - 7/10
An intriguing plot about an oil spill in a mermish colony gives way to... it's not really fair to call this a Flappy Birds clone since this was years before, but, you know. Short, but brutally hard, with some questionably grisly descriptions of what happens to your body every time you hit an obstacle. The art is gorgeous and the story's interesting, but I'm not sure it had anything to do with the (rather unfair) gameplay.
DISASTER.ZZT - Disaster: The stampede76 story by stampede76 - 1.5/10
The cutscene graphics are cute and nice-looking (hi, Dos!) and this was shaping up to be a cute story about a young person getting into game creation. Then the punchline is that this youth made School ZZT and has never and will never make a good game. THE END. Uh. Ouch?
ERN56.ZZT - Fallout by eRN56 - 5/10
A very nice short adventure game with an... inconsistent mood, with serious death, horror, and desperate survival in a fallout shelter giving way to fourth-wall "Hey, it's a ZZT game, what can you expect?" gags, then back to serious and depressing again. The final battle is pure RNG and drags on a bit too long. Beautiful graphics, though.
KEWLIEZ.ZZT - THE KRUSHING DISASTER ELITE EDITION by NUeKMmm - 3/10
is this Arfenhouse
The monster is cute, though.
Oofaut03.zzt - Paper Wisdom by Oof - 4/10
Decent cutscene graphics. The writing is raunchier and edgier than I expected, but, I mean, it was a 2003 ZZT community thing, so that's probably my fault for forgetting that. There sure are a lot of shootable enemies (including a boss) for a game that, to my knowledge, never actually gives you a single round of ammo.
siddis.zzt - Sid Disaster by TTTPPP - 5/10
There are two types of 24HoZ and WoZ entries: the ones that actually tried, and the joke entries. This one blatantly tells the player on its first board that it's crap, but then it presents some very lovely art and well-done animations. It's far from the worst game submitted! however, it's also three boards long, not even slightly interactive, and the plot is... abstract.
SILICATE.ZZT - Silicate by My Liver Hurtz - 5/10
This is a mostly well-made action game with solid graphics and a mostly unique, if imperfectly balanced and exploitable and very LOUD (press B to be quiet) combat system. It is easily the closest thing in this batch to feeling like a full, real, non-24 hour ZZT game. However, it completely falls apart in the end. The difficulty curve hits a solid wall as soon as the player reaches the boiler room (is that even physically possible? Am I missing something?) and, if the player somehow survives that, the final board is bugged and does not actually lead to the ending (which is kind of an afterthought anyway.) Oops!
SMITH24.ZZT - Virus by mr smith - 3/10
A decent introduction, complete with a nice animation of the crash, leading to a literal "oops I ran out of time" screen. Fair enough. It was shaping up to be a zombie apocalypse action shooter of some sort before abruptly ending. I'm not a fan of the genre overall, so I doubt I could have scored this game fairly without personal bias. It seems like it could have been good if that's your thing? But alas.