♦ Livestream Contents “24 Hours of ZZT Summer 1999 [Space]” by Misteroo, Various (1999) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/24hoz-sum1999/]
(3:38) “Episode 1 Fever” by Man_Of_Swine
(14:40) “Beyond the Clouds” by Hercules
(33:06) “The Chimp From Hell” by No1Dive and Kev-san
(1:02:00) “Space Niño” by DarthVagrant and Scribbit *NOT PLAYED*
(1:04:18) “Newbies Invasion” by Dragonlord
(1:18:45) Personal Rankings
A rather pecuilar set of entries for the 24 Hours of ZZT.
"Episode 1 Fever" reminds us all of the hype for a new Star Wars film, and how quick we were to dismiss Mr. Binks. Play as Spencer, a big Star Wars nerd with a messy house filled with SW toys and garbage. Dig up your keys and head to the movies to see the The Phantom Menace, but definitely not The Matrix. But uh oh! Aliens have shown up and abducted all the moviegoers! Break out of a cell, shoot a bunch of aliens (lions and tigers), and then fight a generic boss.
The game ends suddenly, and certainly feels rushed. The judges and I both note that the game has remarkably little "Star Wars" to it actually.
"Beyond the Clouds" had me excited, as this was Hercules's first 24HoZZT submission, in the era in which his company Interactive Fantasies was known for excellent work. Could he produce something great on a limited time budget?
No. Not really.
Beyond the Clouds tries to set up a world where the people don't have a concept of space. Our philosopher-with-a-gun protagonist does some stargazing, wondering what they really are, and then passes out after smelling a weird flower, dreaming of floating into space and to another planet where he gets to shoot weird creatures in a cave before waking up and wondering how real it was.
The game certainly looks like an IF title, with muddy low-contrast shading, willow trees, and a skyline broken up by mountains. But it looks like too much time was spent hand-crafting some pretty boards at the expense of getting to actually do anything with the story or gameplay. The judges seemed mostly enamored though, giving it some fairly high marks for the graphics and complaining it was too short. A valid strategy, albeit not one that leads to a lot of entertainment today.
"The Chimp From Hell" I confess, ended up being a lot more fun than it should have been. A monkey sent to space decides to get revenge on humanity by stealing a gun capable of destroying the Earth. As far as the gameplay goes, there's not much. Some shooting of generic guards in a dark maze-like building. Boarding a plane and finding a way to get them to fly to Germany. Collecting gems on a ship by shooting a bunch of objects that do nothing and say nothing. Then going back into orbit to blow it all up. None of it stands out (in a good way at least).
However, what it does have is some bizarre art. The monkey is incredibly off-putting to look at. (I'm so sad the video title covers up too much of it to use it as the video thumbnail.) The exploded Earth makes good use of blinking colors. A generic RPG engine has an equally weird looking monkey graphic. All that, combined with an amusing intro of one of the game's authors flirting with his girlfriend and confusing her by using Japanese words (hai) only to be crushed by a space capsule as the monkey returns to Earth was very well done! The game stands out compared to many of the others, and I think that's worth a few points on the scoresheet.
"Space Nino" is one of those games that required some editing to be done to make it stream friendly. Its protagonist has a slur in his name. You know, normal 90s stuff. Alas, I quickly learned I didn't scrub it as well as I thought I did and ditched the playthrough. You'll have to play it yourself if you want to know why the planet Bortmon VI exploded.
"Newbies Invasion" returns to form with the iconic ZZT newbie strawman led by iconic ZZT newbie real-man BHirsch13 who the community refused to let go, invoking his name years and years after he was gone. Keeping the spirit alive by making games like this.
The newbie race flies to Earth and begins infecting the planet with their newbie virus, rendering the planet uninhabitable. Earth falls, but luckily one man lives on the moon and he's willing to fight back. It's a perfectly playable bite-size adventure with few frills. Explore your moon home, shoot some newbies as you head to their ship, steal the antidote via a strained "stealth" engine (the obligatory engine to better appeal to the judges for complex gameplay), and then a light puzzle board of finding items to properly mix a big batch of the stuff to spray the Earth with.
It looks decent enough. It plays simply enough. And the artwork looks decent enough. A real good baseline for what an average ZZT game made in 24 hours can be. Maybe gets an extra point for interior shot of the newbie ship, revealing its yellow bordered insides.
Then we rank em. Easy enough.
Quite a sample of games in this set, with Chimp From Hell definitely being the star, though Newbie Invasion was pretty respectable as well, and if you too can't resist the allure of the Interactive Fantasies house style, Beyond the Clouds ain't so bad either.
♦ Play these worlds in your browser
https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/24hoz-sum1999/
♦ Streamed Mar 1st, 2026
