Alright everybody, prepare yourselves as this is gonna be a Publication Pack to remember! Not only is it filled with the usual assortment of new releases, jam entries and results, and rediscovered worlds from ZZT's past, but we've also got some newly dumped ZZT disks.
This includes a few firsts, including something never before seen thanks to one disk containing an earlier revision of a certain world not quite being what we're used to...
Contents
| DL | Title | Author | Company | Genre | Date | Review |
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Anthony Testa, Benco, Cait Sith, D., dark_visions, DeathFox, DPLobster, Dragonlord, Fishfood, gchucky, GipFace, Kevin Vance, Leamas, Lemmer, Lord Igsle, Lord Kadro, mole, myth, nny, Parasite, Raichu, Snorb, SPAZM0016, Viovis, Whirligig, zamros, ZZBlue, ZZTDog, _ry0suke_ | No rating |
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“24 Hours of ZZT Summer 2000 [Metamorphosis]” by Anthony Testa, Benco, Cait Sith, D., dark_visions, DeathFox, DPLobster, Dragonlord, Fishfood, gchucky, GipFace, Kevin Vance, Leamas, Lemmer, Lord Igsle, Lord Kadro, mole, myth, nny, Parasite, Raichu, Snorb, SPAZM0016, Viovis, Whirligig, zamros, ZZBlue, ZZTDog, _ry0suke_ (2000)
A restored release of entries submitted to the Summer 2000 24 Hours of ZZT competition! No official release was ever made, and while some of the entries were uploaded by the entrants, most have gone unavailable for the past 25 years. This complete set brings the entry count from 9 up to 27!
Check out the Game Jam Overview for the competition for details and screenshots of all the entries included.
“Bomb Defusal Technician Simulator” by gazillion (2025)
More from the last 2.4 hour jam!
Study up for some classes on how to defuse bombs, observe the rules for colors which are or are not present and which wires go over/under others to determine the correct order to cut the wires without exploding! Once you've got your certification, take a job to defuse your very first bomb and- wait. Sorry. Grandma's on the phone.
An unexpected change of plans for this one leads to a very memorable game and a instantly beloved grandma character.
“Don't Let Your Tower Do An Asplode” by WiL (2025)
Program Description
For the 2.4 hours of ZZT Summer '25 jam.
A tower defense game in Weave
A jam entry that ran out of time. A big blocky tower defense with a number of planned turrets designed to be quickly played again and again, though in this incarnation you can only build one type of tower and upgrade the heck out of it. Very cool implementation!
“Labubu” by horrible lizard (2025)
Escape from the Labubu.
Two weeks ago I'd have had no idea what this game was referencing. Sorry folks, I'm old.
“Machine Learning Algorithm #1: HEXAPAWN” by Snorb, WiL (2025)
Program Description
Please to enjoy this version of HEXAPAWN. A more featureful and richly presented version under the full direction of Blue Wings Studios is ON ITS WAY. That's the one you want to play, folks, if you're gonna play one.
ZZT plays Hexapawn, and learns from its mistakes! Taking advantage of Weave, and a very finite number of possible board states to let ZZT do some learning and figure out how to reach the other side before you do!
“Snowballs [Original Release]” by Chris Jong (1993)
Program Description
Original full-packaged MS-DOS installer and documentation for Snowballs.
From the archives, Snowballs is one of those games that's been available for ages, albeit as a resave with a confusing 1999 release date for an author from ZZT's earliest days. (I mean the title screen gives away a better release date so it was obviously not from 1999.) Now we have an original release, and what a release it is! Rather than zip a ZZT file, there's a fancy installer, manual, and just a whole bunch of stuff that make this something best viewed in DOSBox.
As for the game: circles drop from chutes, and you need to catch them.
“Summer '25 2.4 Hours Jam Results” by Various, WiL (2025)
Program Description
To play the games, visit this URL:
https://itch.io/jam/24-hours-jam-h125-circuit/entries
Additionally, now that all three jams have concluded, a ZZT Parade including every entry will be provided to the Museum.
The now traditional feedback compilation world. Comments and feedback for all eight submissions provided by both entrants and the worlds' authors alike.
“Cold v1.2” by WiL (2025)
Program Description
COLD v1.2 is a small update to COLD.
An update to WiL's game of poorly-thought out winter survival. Record data from weather stations each day, and be sure to bundle up lest you freeze to death and die in agony! A fun game!
“H125 The Official ZZT Parade” by Various, WiL (2025)
Program Description
THE OFFICIAL ZZT PARADE FOR THE 2.4HOZZT H125 CIRCUIT
Thank you to the participants. Please enjoy the parade.
The promised parade of ZZT games after the conclusion of the 2.4 Hour Jam Circuit that ran throughout the year. Contains one file with all entries for all the jams playable in one location. That's more than 20 games in a single release!
“ZZT's Revenge - Disk Image and Contents” by Adam Rixey, Al Payne, Alan R. Zeman, Allen Pilgrim, Beth Daggert, David Bishop (1992)
Okay, now for the rare finds. The first of three recently acquired floppies with registered versions of ZZT releases!
Starting with the least interesting of the three, ZZT's Revenge is identical to the readily available archive of its worlds/executable! The only unique inclusions are a spacer file `-------.---` which contains the text "Hi, I am a file on your disk. Leave me alone!", and a copy of the Winter 1991 Epic MegaGames Catalog, which can be found in a number of early Epic releases.
Other than that, it's just the usual assortment of classic ZZT worlds: The Crypt, Darby's Crazy Town, Ezanya, Fantasy, Mystery Manor, and Smiley Guy.
“Super ZZT v1.1 - Disk Image And Contents” by Allen Pilgrim, Tim Sweeney (1991)
Super ZZT is a little more interesting. For starters, this is the first standalone registered version of Super ZZT recovered rather than being part of a trilogy release containing ZZT, Super ZZT, and ZZT's Revenge. It's also an early enough registration that the program is the original v1.1 release. Although there seems to be some confusion about the version numbers when looking at documentation...
The Association of Shareware Professionals document calls the program "Super ZZT Version 5.0". Don't go expecting some long lost later revision of the program, as the executable is identical to the one in the standard SZZT v1.1 shareware release.
The order form for foreign orders is a bit different, lacking a UK mailing address or a 1-800 number for US orders.
This disk contains our first copies of the original v1.1 releases of the registered worlds Lost Forest and Proving Grounds. The latter remains untouched in v2.0, but one puzzle in Lost Forest is slightly different!
A slider puzzle at the end of the game lacks the ability to pay 1,000 points to a smiley face to skip the puzzle. Here, players not only have to solve it, but it's a bit more involved. An object can be used to reset the position of most of the sliders which is necessary to complete it! The 2.0 version of the puzzle is just a straightforward push the sliders to make the boulders line up design.
“ZZT v3.0 - Disk Image And Contents” by Tim Sweeney (1991)
And now, for the moment you've all been waiting for. ZZT!
This disk contains a registered copy of ZZT v3.0, and while the Museum did have a copy of the program already, it only contained the shareware worlds of Town of ZZT and Demo. This disk includes a complete set of registered worlds. Its versions of City and Dungeons are the earliest preserved releases of those worlds. Caves, while it has been seen in its v2.0 variant, is also updated here as well.
The included `README` file indicates that this is a registered copy of ZZT that is not meant for distribution.
Caves has a single modification from v2.0, fixing the spelling of "descent" on its title screen. (Previously, it read "decent".)
City is identical to later variants, save for the the title screen and opening board crediting the game to "Potomac Computer Systems" as this release predates the name change to Epic MegaGames.
Dungeons includes the same copyright change, reporting PCS rather than Epic on its title screen.
It also has an incredibly minor difference where its final board's text reads "You have escaped from the Dungeons of ZZT!" as opposed to the later versions which read "You have escaped from the Dungeons of ZZT." I guess it stopped being as exciting an accomplishment.
But there's something bigger to reveal with Dungeons. A number of boards in the ZZT series have been blanked out as they went unused. Dungeons has had one such board, but in this version, it hasn't been deleted yet.
Lo and behold! ++Puzzle! I guess it was going to be a transporter maze of some sort. There are no indications of where it would have fit in the game, and there's not really anything a player accessing the board can do, but this is a ZZT board in an official that has been unknown to the community for over thirty years!
