What have you created with ZZT, or related to ZZT?

Let's see... shades of gray, which was a town of zzt parody. About half my games are town of ZZT parodies, probably.

A lot of annoying maze games. House of Asterion and Garfield ZZT were the best of those.

Dark blue on dark red, a game where everything was dark blue on dark red.

Frost 2: bread

zzt game (confusingly also titled "town of zzt") - this is my most recent work. Or is it? I don't remember. Oh wait, my most recent game is

SIN - not uploaded anywhere, because i'm too lazy to go through all that zipping and text file adding bullshit. I have PICTURES which are larger than the average zzt game, and they want us to ZIP them? PICTURES OF LINT

untitled

sixteen easy pieces, my best puzzle game. Each board is cut into a larger number of parts. I can't remember how to do some of the later ones.

i made a number of toolkits, most notably red ruffian toolkit, the toolkit that contains only one tile: a red ruffian.

some 24hoZZT games:
drip
the day odin got up on the wrong side of bed
the revival of richard ravenshead
at least we have hope
the day cthulhu got up on the wrong side of bed and demanded a sacrifice
kamikaze cucumber

all of them were pretty good. I kind of want to play that cthulhu one again now, actually.

landing - actually i only made half of this, asgromo made the first half and then i downloaded the complete game out of the uploads directory and replaced the rest with my own scribblings. It was greatly improved.

ep + arp world special edition

ebert

ppdv

ppdv2

code red

burger joint

kudzu

and finally, incomplete likely forever, DINNER, the last zzt game. It's made from zzt games I play in dreams.

there are some other odds and ends which weren't really games, but which were pretty good. ADAM, a contraption made of green objects and duplicators, which duplicates itself entirely. Really nice looking, everything ascii animates itself all fancy-like. I'd never be bothered to make something that nice looking these days.

incomplete versions of a lot of things wil finished quicker, that mormon bastard!


[More added a few days later -ed.]


i thought of another zzt thing i made

http://castlezzt.net/turing01.zzt

it's a three state turing machine. Turn up the game speed and watch it go!

http://castlezzt.net/sin.zzt

here's sin, since it's not uploaded anywhere

http://castlezzt.net/bluemaze.zzt

also here's another maze game i forgot about. this one is randomly generated and very hard, also, usually impossible.


Sixteen Easy Pieces
When you think about ZZT, what games come to your mind and why?

The original tim sweeney ones, ppdv... my own, I guess. When I think of ZZT, I don't tend to think of specific games, just of an unreached, possibly illusory potential.

Have you created any games outside of ZZT?

None of note.

Do you have any artistic pursuits other than making games?

Yes, but I can't discuss them. (because they are illegal)

Here's my website though, with dynamically generated content. A website designed to accomodate the user. MoreStat market research, in partnership with Solburn Computer Systems, brings you: CastleZZT.net

What are you up to, lately (in life, generally)?

Doing this:



Has your experience with ZZT or the ZZT scene made any sort of lasting impact on your life?

Hard to say, not knowing what I would've done otherwise.

What works of non-ZZT art have inspired you the most?

Negativland, azumanga daioh, house of leaves, pokey the penguin, mystery science theater, levels of organization in general intelligence, mr. bungle, david lynch, terry pratchett, scott mccloud, alex demko, bill stickers.

Those were more people than works, so I mean stuff by them.

Do you have any interesting stories to relate about ZZT or the ZZT scene?

Somehow it seems weird to have "stories" in a medium where the events themselves are recorded. Go read ircman.

Do you plan to create any games in the future, with or without ZZT?

No, but I probably will anyway. Depending on your definition of game.

Anything else you'd like to add?

ASCII has a strange appeal, because of the extremity of the abstraction. We order the world with words and symbols, but only in ascii is the world actually CONSTRUCTED of symbols. Am I the only one who sees this? Probably. It's a moot point anyway.

About half the community should be banned. The current ZZT administration is too lenient!

ZZT is long gone, and even the community, the tribe of janitors of the museum of failure, are melting into the rest of the internet, gently being absorbed into a bigger, more impersonal chaos.

But ever so slowly! The zzt community will probably last till the end of the world, although that's not saying much, what with the singularity.

The end of world is nigh.


- May 2006