♦ Livestream of the ZZT world "It's The End Of The World!" by Creator (1996) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/endofwor/]. ♦
A surprise impromptu stream while testing how feasible it would be to stream from an older laptop. I decided I'd play around for a bit as a test, and folks showed up from the Twitch announcement. This world was picked for a test because it's A) fun B) been streamed before (way back in 2017) and C) a reasonable length.
While I didn't think I was going to just play the entire game, it's hard to put this one down. After climbing a mountain and discovering a comet in the sky ready to strike the Earth, the player must alert the government so they can shoot it down and save humanity. Unbeknownst to them, Mr. Clinton (presumably, he's always just "The President") has been captured and an evil cult wishes for the comet to crash and rule the world once society is destroyed.
EoW is a pretty solid wake up and save the world adventure that easily wins players over with some nice looking boards, a good sense of humor, and its share of action and puzzles to give players something to engage with beyond the text. There are some clever boss battles early on, including a gladitorial battle in an arena with spiked walls closing in as well as a castle rooftop fight against an evil king ready to slam players into more spiked walls. Listen, a break from the usual #go rnd #shoot seek style of combat is a welcome change here.
Players recruit a few companions as the game goes on: the president and the game's author. These party members never do much more than speak, but the president at least has some connections when it comes time to fly an experimental spaceship onto the comet itself.
There's also an ice palace with a number of brief, yet good enough puzzles.
From start to finish it's a fun little adventure that relishes in taking players somewhere new and unexpected with every change in scenery. A true classic, dragged down a bit from a few bugs that can be easily avoided when you know they're there, but otherwise are very likely to break a few sequences.
♦ Play this world directly in your browser ♦
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/endofwor/
♦ Originally streamed on April 3rd, 2024 ♦
