♦ Livestream of 5 ZZT worlds. ♦
♦ Stream Contents ♦
• (1:30) "Butchenstein 2D" by Nate Warren (1995) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/butch2d/]
• (12:35) "Blade Runner: The Blade Takers" by Michael Joe Braun [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/bladerun/]
• (25:09) "Beast Wars Trilogy" by Keith Seper (1997) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/beastwar/]
• (53:44) "DarkMage Software Magazine Issue #9" by DarkMage [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/dmage/]
• (1:18:42) "DarkMage Software Magazine Issue #10" by DarkMage [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/dmage/]
A few way too short fan games that keep it simple!
Butchenstein 2D is a obvious Wolfenstein 3D-inspired action game in which you must escape from a nazi prison camp. There are ruffians, then guards, and some spinning guns, and that's honestly about it. Rectangular rooms that sometimes contain delicious fish for health. It's got the boxes ticket, but the flavor isn't there. A perfectly adequate prison escape that suffers from a lack of depth in terms of combat scenarios or story.
Blade Runner is well, I suspect made by somebody whose complete knowledge of the film is the name. You are a blade runner, after your missing rollerblades, and you go to an elementary school to find them. There's a surprising amount of being harassed by children, and the world is difficult to navigate! It is not my favorite cut.
The Beast Wars Trilogy is three very similar games inspired by the various Marvel ZZT games. By which I mean yellow bordered screens with you and an opponent accompanied by text stating which character you're currently playing as. I learned that the characters in this series have some fun names at least.
The trilogy is a bit more interesting as the author winds up finding STK, and some small efforts at improving between games are noticed, but they all really lean into this formula that offers nothing to those who aren't already familiar with the characters, and for those that are, they just get a "I know that name" and nothing else. At least some bosses need to be punched rather than shot, so there's some variety there.
And all of that took under an hour! So we rounded things off with two more issues of Darkmage Software's magazine worlds. They stuck to the established formula, promoting the same games as always, making it clear that a monthly release schedule is a bit too much for the slow pace of ZZT development. Still, we learned about some interesting games, both preserved and non.
The second issue also played with the structure in a fun way, leaning in on the style of the series Chrono Wars and turning the usual menu layout into a mini-game itself where you fight your way through an enemy space station, dealing with Storm Trooper-esque soldiers and ducking away into rooms to check out reviews and company news. It was a welcome change of pace, and easy enough that nobody hsould have any issue actually accessing the magazine contents. Now though, you could have a sense of progression and even an ending with of course an RPG battle. A cool idea that makes me wonder if the next issue will continue to work with or if it will just go back to the expected print media magazine in game form...
♦ Play these worlds directly in your browser ♦
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/butch2d/
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/bladerun/
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/beastwar/
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/dmage/
♦ Originally streamed on November 24th, 2024 ♦
