24 Hours of ZZT Summer 1998 [Night]

Overview

The Summer 1998 24 Hours of ZZT contest was held on Friday July 10th, 1998. The contest was hosted by myth, who was inspired by the MegaZeux community's "Day of Zeux" competition. 18 entries were submitted. Several of these games also had independent releases which included bugfixes and other enhancements.

The archive of entries available for many years lacked a single entry (Shadows of the Night by Viper and Jeff Conroy) due a corrupt download. It has since been recovered and added to the compilation available here.

The submissions include a team number to identify themselves (with many "teams" of one). This was taken from the Day of Zeux competitions which used anonymous team numbers to prevent score bias. The author names are prominent here making it a vestigial carryover from the MZX scene.

Judges

• Creator
• Kev Vance
• xf

Future 24 Hours of ZZT would generally follow a convention where the winner of the previous event would host the next one, selecting its topics and judges. As this is the first one, mono volunteered for the role, however they kept themselves off the judges list and submitted an entry instead.

Scores

Unfortunately, the original scores for the competition have been lost. The Interactive Fantasies 24 Hours of ZZT archive has records of the top entries with no numeric scores or judges' commentary available for the games.

Entry Information

Entry Descriptions

Bill Attacks - Bill Gates has blocked out the sun with a giant billboard for Windows 98. Take a rocket to the sun where his secret base is located on and fight him for the fate of mankind. An adventure with plenty of built-ins to shoot and a number of deliberately bad boards to make fun of newbie games.

City of the Stupid episode 427: "before sunrise: not the movie" - Set in Bongo's City of the Stupid series, Deke's great-uncle has passed away. The will states that if Deke can make it to his funeral before midnight he'll receive one million dollars. Deke and his friends must find a vehicle and make the trip before the deadline, dealing with a number of weird characters, hostile cops, and disco lovers. A remarkably dense adventure filled with 90s humor and a lot of impressive art scenes.

Dreamling - As a knight of the Zyion kingdom, you have been sent to the village of Florian to deal with a beast that has been attacking the town each night. Travel to the beast's cave to slay it, but be warned the monster can attack you through your dreams! An adventure with some nice background art.

Goddess of the Night - On a planet of eternal day, a ritual must be performed every 6583.25 years to give the plants a chance to rest for 12 hours. To do so, a human's blood must be poured on a sacrificial altar. However, to reduce the brutality of the event, a series of runes may be activated to reduce the requirements to a non-fatal amount. You are the sacrifice, and must solve a series of puzzles to be able to make the donation and survive. A puzzle game that relies heavily on trial and error.

The Lost Kingdom - After a late night celebration with a little too much drinking, you stumble into a cave and soon find yourself in a lost underground kingdom which you need to travel through to make it home safely. The game mostly uses a platforming engine that's very impressive for the era with plenty of interactive elements and a ceiling climbing mechanic.

Lost! - Two brothers, Josh and Jeremy, are flying to Alaska when the pilot collapses and the plane nosedives into the wilderness. Now the two must find a way to survive long enough to be rescued. Likely inspired by Gary Paulsen's novel Hatchet. The game is incomplete and ends abruptly after a few cutscenes and an encounter with a wild deer.

Mission: Break and Enter - Secret Agent Clint Spade is on a mission to infiltrate CroneTech's base and depose of its CEO who is planning to block the sun while him and his followers live underground until it's safe to return to the dead surface and reclaim it for themselves. Use your spy gadgets and sneak your way through the enemy base, taking down guards and making contact with fellow agents in your quest to thwart the enemy's plans. A mix of action, adventure, and puzzles makes this a game with a lot of variety and solid execution.

Night Conjure - Someone has opened the Doom Portal, sending in a wave of evil creatures that spread terror by attacking random towns each night. When Evan's village is the latest target, father Tinger reveals Evan is destined to restore peace. Traveling with your girlfriend Ranae, the two search for the whereabouts of the one who opened the portal in hopes of finding a way to close it. An action game that makes use of art boards for conversation between major characters.

Night Hacker - You are part of a team of elite hackers aiming to destroy both Microsoft and AOL. Wreck havoc by unleashing various computer viruses onto their networks and watch scenes play out as "The SPAM virus", "The Barney virus", "The Town of ZZT virus" and more ruin people's workdays! Then arrive at the buildings with guns, in quite the escalation. A darker comedy than it was likely intended to be.

Night Man - An incomplete game by the competition's own host! You can take a tour of a few art boards and cinematic sequences intended for the final game.

Night of Ruin - A group of hackers are in the process of decrypt the US nuclear launch codes and will unleash devastation across the globe as soon as they do so. Your job is to infiltrate their base and put a stop to them. An incomplete entry where the only ending is failure.

NIGHT OF THE CHICKENS!!! - Turns out chickens are from space and crash landed on Earth ages ago. Now another ship has arrived seeking revenge on humanity for how they've been treated. Run around your farm fighting in pop-up RPG battles, collecting tools and weapons to save the Earth!

Night of the Russian Zombie Vampire Hookers - After deciding to treat yourself to the services of a sex worker for the night, you discover that woman you let into a car is in fact a zombie. She attacks you and you awaken in their zombie base of operations where they intend to use you as a source of blood. Escape the building and find your car to get out alive.

Nightlife - Due to the local NBC station's refusal to air Conan O'Brien at the proper timeslot, sixteen year old Ramone Zelsnack has been staying up until 4:00 and enjoying the nightlife. Explore your small town until you reach another planet populated by worshipers of Conan, Max Weinberg, and Andy Richter. A strange adventure with a mix of built-in shooting action and fetch quests.

Nightplanet - While flying through space you pick up a distress beacon from a nearby planet. Deciding to investigate and maybe make some profit, you answer the call only to discover a long dead mining station filled with the skeletons of the former workers. Upon powering up the station you discover the crew succumbed to tiny mites unearthed in the mines that feed on energy. Now they'll be coming for you unless you can find a way to destroy the mines and make it back into orbit safely. A brief puzzle game with an eerie atmosphere to it.

Shadows of the Night - In the year 2573, 500 years after the Shadow Clan put a new planet into orbit, a lunar eclipse occurs and creates "shadows of the night". These creatures are launching from the moon to Earth and will multiply by the billions when the sun rises. It's up to you to stop them by blowing up the planet with a nuke while there's still time! A short adventure that has players exploring locations in a small town to achieve their goal.

The Beginning of Night - The gods Day and Night have taken mortal form for a brief period to recharge their abilities. Unfortunately, this time their human-selves temporarily without their memories have managed to fall in love with one another. In god form, they are mortal enemies. Now, with their memories having returned, the two decide to resume their fighting with a competition to win the most human followers to the cause of day/night. You play as Night, wandering the town's beach trying to convince people that the sun isn't all it's cracked up to be. A second level has you exploring the slums and doing a bit of shooting of built-ins. The game makes use of an adventure engine, but never explains to players that they can use ?+U ?+C ?+E and ?+H for Use, Combine, Examine, and Help.

we only come out at night - Jupiter has moved out of orbit and is causing a solar eclipse. This has led to freaks, ghouls, and zombies attacking the populace. You play as Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins fighting your way through the hordes in search of a fix for this situation. An action game with a few moments of different gameplay styles.

Links

• Interactive Fantasies 24 Hours of ZZT archive
• ZZT Review Archive - 24HoZ games