I started compiling uploads into Publication Packs almost four years ago to the day to make it more apparent which worlds were being uploaded and played around the same time, and to have a nice concise way of sharing on social media when new ZZT games were released. It's been a good system, giving us record of over 1000 uploads, with screenshots and oh-so-tiny blurbs about them.
Today I'm proud to publish the 100th pack. Filled with Easter-appropriate art, 4/20 appropriate unpreserved worlds, and the latest crop of games in the successful 2.4 hour jam format.
It's also likely to be the end of an era. While the community continues to create plenty of wonderful games, the backlog of worlds from asie's preservation efforts has run almost completely dry now. These packs will likely be less frequent and less dense, focusing on the new as we run out of the old.
The preservation work will never truly be done, as it's impossible to know how many older ZZT worlds are still out there to be found. But at this point, the best sources for long lost ZZT worlds are your own backups and archives. Crawling the Internet Archive is all well and good, but often means uncovering files that have already been rediscovered elsewhere. If you're holding on to any old disks, CDs, or hard drives which have ZZT (and other old data) on them, then you are realistically the last source of those files. Both asie and I are happy to help find a way to get that data saved, more than willing to go through the process of identifying what's new, what's already available, but that first step of getting the data in the hands of someone who will then get it uploaded is one only you can take.
If the past 1,000 files have taught me anything, it's that ZZT has so many more stories to tell. The worlds that have been recovered through archival work and donated collections have brought us all kinds of amazing games which otherwise would have been forgotten to time. We've blown up vampires with a hand grenade, searched out gems in environments inspired by backpacking through the Sierra Nevada mountain range, mourned cherished the loss of Tony who did not survive the thirty foot drop, fought valiantly to prevent a merchant coup, and even got Batman elected mayor. And we did so much more.
There will be more worlds to come. I've still got my own old hard drives to properly go through, and new ZZT games are as eagerly awaited as they were ten, twenty, even thirty years ago. ZZT lives.
Anywho, here is what this landmark volume brings us. Not getting killed by a monstrous creature, not getting killed by Jeff, feline popes, the best attempt at recreating the works of Aperture Science, and the first known ZZT world to be written in Portuguese. There's always something cool to find just around the corner!
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“Groovey Games” by gerbil (1999)
It is a holiday after all. This one managed to hold out in the unpreserved queue long enough to get played live today. Play two hippie-centric mini-games. Either escape a rampaging principal who thinks little of protestors, or go steal some peyote. Regardless, your getaway vehicle is a VW minibus.
“Bomodi” by Kaddar (2025)
Program Description
BOtMOonDIg, a game where you are a robot with 100 ammo to help you find the escape. This game was inspired by exploration games like minit and Barbuta (UFO 50)
Game was written in ZZT for the Winter 2025 2.4 hour game jam.
Theme was "100 Ammo"
Hey! This one never got uploaded after the previous previous 2.4 hours jam! You play as a robot on the moon with limited ammunition used to dig around the lunar caverns in search of something. A puzzle game where you need to mind your ammo and figure out how to route your movement in order to collect everything possible without running out of energy mid-dig.
“The Impossible Adventures of the ZZT Bandit!” by Snorb (2025)
Now as for the current 2.4 hour jam, Snorb lets players play as the ZZT Bandit herself, collecting cyan keys to rescue her good pal from prison. A victim of the time limit, as key after key mostly just gets to handed to you, without having to win it big at the baccarat table.
“The Alien Office Escape” by Dr. Dos (2025)
My own entry, which is also a victim of the time limit. Solve a series of puzzles mostly revolving around office PCs and coffee in break room to free yourself and your friend from this combination office/prison operated by a hivemind of alien insects that plan to take over the galaxy.
“Jeff the Kill You” by WiL (2025)
Program Description
Escape a murderer by learning his habits, avoiding his footsteps, and making use of the items scattered around. A one-object game.
Time limit time limit time limit. We all have our struggles.
This time WiL writes up a text-adventure sans-parser with random room layouts and functions for the keys found within. Find the key to the prison cell where you friend is locked up, and find him before Jeff finds you!
“Let Not Thee the Earth Consume” by RT-55J (2025)
RT-55J... beats the time limit. On a planet where the people mistakenly dug to deep and awoke something they shouldn't have disturbed, you now have to evacuate up the mines outrunning the mouth of a creature so big it can devour and entire floor of the facility in one bite! A series of small challenges with a shared time limit and score chasing mechanic that awards bonuses for leftover time and ammo.
“Chukka Clan” by Kaddar (2025)
Program Description
A "Mad Max" style sci-fi dystopia with featuring a train, plenty of coffee, and an (albeit, brief) "reigns-esque" king simulator. And check this out, the game has a custom weapon: The Spear!
This game was made for the Spring 2025 2.4 hour ZZT "Friend or Foe" Game Jam.
A two-fer that also seems to have dodged time woes. In a post apocalyptic future where coffee is the only thing of value, players can choose to be the king of the Chukka clan, making decisions for the village, trying to keep everyone happy and trying to keep your head in the process. Alternatively, they can be an enemy of the Chukka clan, performing a coffee-train heist in a more traditional action format focused around short-range combat with a spear.
“A Cat-Pope Calendar” by Agent Orange, PogeSoft (2025)
A series of artwork of cats dressed as various popes throughout history.
It's inspired by a one-off gag where such a calendar can be purchased in BUYSO so it's not an absurd a concept as it sounds.
It's also accompanied by some information about each actual pope, and some of the good and not good decisions they made. Surprisingly informative!
Oh, and also it makes a reference to old hoax "screenshots" of Bio Force Ape. There really is something for everyone in this world.
“Servo” by Graham Peet (1996)
If you were in the ZZT community around the turn of the century, you probably played a Zem! game or Koopo The Lemming or perhaps Scooter. For whatever reason, this era saw its share of ZZT takes on Lemmings, to the best of the program's abilities at least.
As it turns out, Graham Peet made his own game along these lines all the way back in 1996, creating an engine with thirty levels to play with at least 100 planned. The incomplete game takes place from a debug menu, and completing any level ends the game rather than advancing to the next one, but even in its current state, the game's puzzle design is above and beyond what was seen in later releases, making this one a lost gem, and one I considered listing when covering some of the impressive ZZT archival finds at this article's beginning. It looks pretty, there are puzzles where you genuinely need to think, and Servo's behavior with regards to starting/stopping/climbing are all utilized to allow for some very creative puzzles with a limited number of actions to take.
“Zoratrix: The Adventure” by _mechanix, HKenshin
I did my best to stream this one without any pre-translation, expecting a short incomplete game by a kid to by fairly easy to figure out the story. All I can tell you is there are telephones, the restaurant is out of diet coke, and you are forced to travel to another dimension just before the game ends. Mysterious!
“Portal” by Nixon (2010)
A valiant effort at making a Portal engine in ZZT. A number of folks tried, and none of them really got very far as ZZT's compromises made them all tech demos at best. This one has you pilot an object and feels more like a hookshot engine than a portal gun, but it's an admirable attempt nonetheless.
A second board holds an alternate engine that tries to be more authentic, but doesn't function properly.
“PLATFORM ENGINE!!!” by Commodore (2012)
Speaking of admirable attempts, here's a platformer engine by commodore that moves and plays like most of them. You endlessly run once you start moving and can make some leaps in this test screen. Not bad by any means, but arriving a bit late to be viewed as an impressive engine. Though for all I know, it may have just been made to demonstrate a basic ZZT platformer as that's exactly what it is.
