♦ Livestream of “24 Hours of ZZT Summer 1998 [Night]” by Mono, Various (1998) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/24hoz-sum1998/] ♦
♦ Stream Contents ♦
• (1:00) “Dreamling” by Darrren Hewer
• (32:30) “Goddess of the Night” by ...someone
• (49:00) “Lost!” by Flatcoat Lab
• (1:07:22) “The Lost Kingdom” by Lord of Chaos
• (1:39:20) “Mission: Break and Enter” by Chronos30
• (2:08:18) Personal Rankings
Getting through five more entries to the first ever 24 Hours of ZZT competition, and once again, some really good stuff can be found within!
"Dreamling" is the contest's 3rd place winner. You are a night [sic, totally topic related] sent to a small village dealing with a strange beast that attacks in the night. Do a little prep work in town to get an idea of what's been going on, then travel to the beast's cave in hopes of slaying it. A well executed little adventure game by Hewer with some nice art boards, and a focus on fighting the beast while within a dream. Takes a straightforward approach to what a ZZT game made in 24 hours look like, but it does a good job with little to fault it for other than perhaps not being as innovative as the higher placing entries.
"Goddess of the Night" lures players in with its story, a world where there is no night, but one is required every *checks notes* 3583.25 years. To do this, a blood sacrifice must be spilled on the altar of the goddess, but it need not be fatal. By collecting runestones within the cavern, the amount of blood needed can be reduced to a less violent quantity.
This one is more puzzle than action, although one of the puzzles is finding the board that has ammo. There's some ambition here, especially with the puzzle that uses board edges to have players touch objects on another screen which then change the layout of the room once you return to it. The execution has a lot of problems though, with a lot of obtuse moments, weird trivia taken from public school history classes, and a lot of interactions that quietly flag the game as unwinnable.
"Lost!" also has clear origins in the public school system, as the story is very clearly a reimagining of Gary Paulsen's "Hatchet". A plane crash leaves _two_ kids stranded in the Alaskan wilderness with only a hatchet ...oh and also some knives, a lighter, cooking supplies, a compass, and a rifle. Also the plane lands on the ground and not the lake and while it's gonna be pretty gross in there I feel like moving the pilot's body and huddling up in there may do better than a makeshift tent, but I'm not the wilderness expert here.
It looks like the game is going to be a survival game where you need to forage for food and kindling and find a way to survive long enough to be rescued, which would make for a cool game. Alas, it's definitely hit by time constraints and very unfinished, with nothing more than grabbing a stick and fighting a deer to the death before returning back to camp where the ground was accidentally made with normals instead of fakes. There's not really much afterwards anyway so oh well! Promising at least.
"The Lost Kingdom" could almost be a sequel to Dreamling! It opens with a town celebrating victory over a great evil, and the party gets a little out of hand with the player stumbling into a cave in their drunken state. From there, the game pivots to a platformer that is expertly crafted considering the time limit and the state of ZZT platforming engines in the 90s. You get moving, shooting, wall hanging, and a surprising number of little items to collect and interact with. It controls well and in one level where you have to jump onto a blink wall ray, then jump again to time safely falling onto a different beam. It was a genuine moment on stream. Other levels fare a bit worse, and the combat at the end mostly plays itself. Really good work overall!
Finally, "Mission: Break and Enter" lets us see what Chronos cooks up when he's not making time travel games. Instead, we get a spy game where you need to stop a doomsday device from blocking out the sun while the evil Dr. Crone and his followers chill in a bunker until they can begin life anew on the surface. The game features multiple weapons as well as some variety in its puzzles as you sneak around and make contact with fellow agents. It's very "We have Mission: Enigma at home", but much easier to get through, leading to a really enjoyable little battle of good versus evil.
Oh and of course the rankings cap things off.
♦ Play these worlds directly in your browser ♦
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/24hoz-sum1998/
♦ Originally streamed on July 6th, 2025 ♦
