♦ Livestream Contents
(1:05) “Cyber Dial Tone” by Clecky (2026) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/cybrdltn/]
A glimpse into the perils of being a 1980s hacker/phreaker!
Clecky makes a return to ZZT after a nearly quarter-century hiatus, and drops this excellent atmospheric adventure into our hands. Anomaly has an insatiable curiosity when it comes to the unusual systems one can find oneself in by snooping to computer systems. When fellow hackers begin to hear things, see things, and even start to disappear, Anomaly begins a quest to discover the secrets of SubLevel IX, starting with a little breaking and entering at the local teleco office.
CDT oozes with style, featuring portraits of all the game's named characters, an interactive BBS to peruse, and a small slice of a gritty city in the late 80s filled with pizza parlors, arcades, street violence, and secrets to discover. A night sky obscured by skyscrapers imbues the sense of a metropolis without overwhelming players with places to go. Navigation may be the toughest part! You have to pay attention to the clues the game gives you, and keep notes IRL of passwords and seemingly-important bits of information to scrounge up cash and get the real game underway.
Once you move on from cybercrime to classic crime, the game changes focus to more of a dungeon crawler, but it doesn't lose sight of its unique setting. You may be shooting guards (both ruffian and object), but the environments are office cubicles, server rooms, and penthouse operation centers that don't forget the theming which makes Cyber Dial Tone's world so rich.
Clecky also weaves in a number of puzzles, fusing classic lock-and-key mechanisms ranging from Lights Out puzzles to pivoting ricochets to burst a water main above a server rack to force electro-mechanical doors to open as fail-safes. These usually meticulous puzzles where players sit and focus on what move to make are transformed into exercises quick-thinking as they tend to be accompanied by security forces pouring in by duplicators (staggered too, so don't think you can tank a hit and be free of them).
All the while you're being monitored, taunted, and occassionally confronted by Henrique Mero, head of security, who simply can't stand the intrusion. The writing makes him an incredible villain, and thanks to Clecky's brilliant ways of implementing alternate attacks in boss fights, he's no slouch in combat either.
A fantastic game whose only crime (well...) is a touch of difficulty in figuring out where to go, particularly early on. A few bugs here and there as well, though Clecky has already been hard at work updating the game to patch those holes. There's still time to experience Cyber Dial Tone yourself before the next stream where its final secrets will be revealed!
♦ Play this world in your browser
https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/cybrdltn/
♦ Streamed Feb 27th, 2026
