Screenshot of ZZT (link to an image thread)

qrleon's picture

This thread (NSFW, very image-heavy) might be of interest. I planned to skim through the entire archive of ZZT games (about 3000), taking screenshots as I plowed through. I didn't have the stamina though, since for every good ZZT game there are 100 so-bad-they're-practically-unplayable ones.

Anyways, ZZT interests me because it had a level editor comparable to what you'd find in something like Sokoban or Lode Runner, with the addition of up to 150 scriptable objects per screen (20,000 bytes per screen, 250~k per game file.) This is more than enough to make a simple adventure, but not enough to go utterly crazy with the scripting system.

The beginning of the thread is mostly my screenshots of crappy games interspersed with pictures from 'art collections' when I couldn't take the horror any longer and needed a break. Later on, others contribute more interesting pictures from a set of better crafted games. I wish I had kept track of authorship, but I guess it doesn't matter that much.

The images were mostly taken in the Summer of 2007, I think, but I gave up on the project in February. In retrospect, the snapshots of message boxes were a bad idea ... much less interesting than actual pictures.

Beyond ZZT, I had similar plans to make screenshot galleries for other games with a lot of user content. But HUMBUG

Here are some samples:


Comments

SpindleyQ's picture

I approve of this post so

I approve of this post so hard

Years and years ago I made a half-finished adventurish game in ZZT, but I think it's lost forever now. I remember specifically having to play pool and gamble at cards using a random chance mechanism that I had to build out of a randomly moving object that shot at a sensor.

I've wanted to do a ZZT KotMK for forever.

pensive-mosquitoes