♦ Livestream of 2 ZZT worlds. ♦
♦ Stream Contents ♦
• (2:27) "ZZT Town 2: Sierra" by c-ball (1999) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/sierra/]
• (39:25) "Kwest" by Oryx-de-Cow, Voighdt (1999) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/kwest/]
A pair of worlds by the mysterious Red Aureole company. Starting with a Town-like game that takes Town a little too literally at some points, and takes Fantasy of Freedom even more literally, "borrowing" a board from its ZZT sequel as seen in IF Magazine previews. It feels as if the author started by trying to remake Town only to discover they didn't have to repeat what they had already seen in ZZT. Instead, the game ends up being about rescuing a kidnapped princess and king being held by an evil wizard.
Some of the boards look nice, though the heavy-Town vibes feel out of place with a game already using STK for extra colors. A lot of boards also appear to have exits that go nowhere, making it very difficult to navigate if you can't see which exits actually connect to anything. Overall, a solid first game.
Then Kwest, which kind of stole the show. The game's title screen was included as a bonus in ZZT Town 2, and we had enough time to check it out as well. Kwest is a more original game, and has a fun premise where your family disappeared several years ago and you've just been living off their savings. Now with the money running out, it's time to get a job, or maybe find out what actually happened to them.
It gets off to a good start, and has a few good gags with a number of early surprise deaths in your home. Once you head outside you get an unusual looking boxed-in outdoors area with some weird characters and extremely light puzzles. Alas, it falls apart in the end due to two locked doors that need to be opened and a single key to open them with.
Cheating beyond the door gets to a quiz section which is genuinely one of the meanest quizzes I've ever come across in one of these games. Hope you know your Spice Girls, 90s industrial band lineups, cities located at specific latitudes/longitudes, and chemical formulas! And then for good measure one question where all the answers are identical but only one is accepted.
An interesting pair of worlds to be sure!
♦ Play these worlds directly in your browser ♦
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/sierra/
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/kwest/
♦ Originally streamed on December 13th, 2024 ♦
