♦ Livestream of 6 ZZT worlds. ♦
♦ Stream Contents ♦
• (1:57) "Wizrobe" by Joe McDonald [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/wizrobe/]
• (10:16) "The Museum" by ZZTechno (2003) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/zztechnomuseum/]
• (21:17) "Weird Demo" by The Stag (2001) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/weird_demo/]
• (28:07) "Riggidy Dave in Meet The Casts" by StupidMe (2009) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/rd(replacement)/]
• (1:10:09) "TikMak" by WiL (1999) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/tikmak/]
• (1:30:48) "Station Nine" by WiL (2004) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/station_nine/]
A mix of WiLs and won'ts. The won'ts won't work.
We start with a few worlds from the unpreserved queue, namely "Wizrobe", one of those classic yellow bordered first time creator games that has you explore a few boards before confronting the evil Wizrobe. Along the way are repeated nags to register this shareware, and then Wizrobe is blocked of by text saying he can only be fought in the registered version. Shucks.
The Museum is a strange take on what can be found in a museum. You get to go through a bit of build up with security before buying a ticket, and then get to check out one room filled with Indiana Jones memorabilia, and another covering a certain axis power in World War 2 and its leader. It's tasteful enough, presented like a kid doing a low effort report on the war for a middle school social studies class, and very funny in contrast to Indiana Jones. I think the kid may have learned everything from watching a few 80s classics. You also get to buy items from a gift shop if you have cash, though you never see the names of what you're buying in gameplay. (They include a cane, a candle, a toy uzi, a newsletter) before heading to the parking lot to buy a hot dog (they're out of hot dogs) and driving home.
Weird Demo quickly collapses its possibilities into the mundane. The world talks about how strange things can happen if you ZAP into ZZT's sidebar and walk around. The explanation is just that it's weird, and not anything technical. Just to indulge we do some sidebar surfing ourselves, and get some neat results rather than the usual crashes or hangs. (Albeit with SolidHUD rather than vanilla ZZT.)
Riggidy Dave wins the best name award for the week. It's also a fun first-time adventure. You begin grounded in your room and eventually escape through a secret passage. From there you deal with gangsters, feral rats, and explore a few small locations around the city. Neither the best nor most exciting game, it was still fun to see what the author could come up with.
We then attempt to mess with some old utilities made by WiL, but I mistakenly thought they were for DOS and was unable to run them without a virtual machine set up. "TikMak" also includes a few ZZT files with little demonstrations of things like an image shrinker and weird paint tool. TikMak itself allows you to script together scrolling marquees frequently seen on title screens and credits sequences, eliminating the tedium by allow you to enter text and supply effects to make the presentation more than just simple scrolling text.
Lastly, Station Nine really impressed as well. It's an unfinished strategy game played on a hex grid! Guide your crewmates through an unmapped environment, searching for oxygen tanks to stay alive and avoiding hostile aliens ...to stay alive. Run too low on oxygen to move and you'll hiberate until you're rescued by the next crew member. ...Unless that crewmember harvests your remaining oxygen so they can avoid the same fate! Technically impressive and harrowing? That's a WiL game baby.
♦ Play these worlds directly in your browser ♦
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/wizrobe/
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/museum/
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/weird_demo/
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/rd(replacement)/
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/tikmak/
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/station_nine/
♦ Originally streamed on March 23rd, 2025 ♦
