♦ Livestream of 7 ZZT worlds. ♦
♦ Stream Contents ♦
• (3:07) "Aftermath" by WiL (1998) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/aftmath/]
• (36:29) "SaMM's Game" by SaMM, WiL (2000) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/samsgame/]
• (43:11) "TEH #PANDA GAEM" by WiL (2000) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/panda_gaem/]
• (1:00:27) "Oracle: World of Infinite Possibility" by WiL (2000) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/oracle/]
• (1:11:37) "Mega in Time" by Scott Betts (1997) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/scott/]
• (1:25:30) "Osk's Opus: The Rise, Fall, and Destruction of Urth, Part I (Demo)" by WiL (1998) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/osksopus/]
• (1:44:38) "Dillius: The Voyage of Four" by Coward, WiL (2000) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/dillius/]
Going through a number of WiL's abandoned projects, and a Mega Man fan game for good measure.
"Aftermath" beings with scavenged a nuclear war ravaged planet for artifacts to sell at auction, before turning into a game about escaping an arranged marriage orchestrated by the ruler of the universe to his daughter. You hide in a garbage (always works), and the game ends. Or you die to choking slime gas, and the game ends. Either or.
"SaMM's Game" ain't much, just a few island boards with a familiar looking waves crashing against the coastline effect and some random NPCs offering to ferry you to other islands for payment. Wouldn't be much of note, except the concept evolved into the ZZT game Banana Quest!
"TEH #PANDA GAEM" is a fun subversion of 2000s era FishIg-speak. Despite first impressions, the game is a few short mini games to get starting supplies, followed by a _City Builder_ engine that led to the project being halted as ZZT crashes you double-#bind code and not using #bind means hitting the board's memory limits fairly quickly. It's a bit tough to follow so I can't say too much as to how it might have played if these limits weren't in place.
"Oracle" is an interesting looking game with nothing but a tutorial and opening cinematic. Kids go on adventures, and they each have special abilities to use on them ranging from ...gun to maintaining an inventory or psychic communication. Seemed like a cool idea.
Then, a brief break from WiL's games to check out a recently recovered Mega Man fan game. This one is based on the cartoon rather than the games, and consists of Mega Man bashing a robot with a mace and then using Dr. Light's time machine to travel to a Wily-conquered future where he then throws Dr. Wily off a cliff. Just like the games? It had that fun chaos these games have led me to expect, like getting to select drinks and snacks to enjoy while traveling through time.
Back to WiL with "Osk's Opus". Sharing a name with the narrator from Voyage of Four, though no real connections to that game were noticed by me at least. You take in a movie in a weirdly empty future in a domed city telling the story of Cresh-Osk, followed by discovering a magical gridlock that threatens to explode everything if it can't be unraveled. It can't though, since the game stops.
Finally, "Dillus: The Voyage of Four" which is a little more clear how it ties into Voyage of Four as released. This game is a dungeon crawler with a very well done isometric perspective, a unique combat system based on finding the correct attack to use on foes, and the ability to be peaceful and maintain friendly relations with fantasy races like goblins. This one is actually really cool and would've been quite different from the many other dungeon crawlers in ZZT of its era.
Some of its layouts were reused in Vo4 along with unimplemented plans to use the engine with the game during the castle escape chapter.
Overall, another set of imaginative ideas that would have been cool to see fleshed out, and some WiL games. (/j)
♦ Play these worlds directly in your browser ♦
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/aftmath/
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/samsgame/
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/panda_gaem/
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/oracle/
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/scott/
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/osksopus/
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/dillius/
♦ Originally streamed on January 26th, 2025 ♦
