♦ Livestream Contents
“2013 DualStream Day of Zeux (Winter Q1)” hosted by GetDizzy (2013) [https://www.digitalmzx.com/show.php?id=2005]
(4:05) “Dragon Blaster” by Maxim
(43:49) “Nostalgia (in which the past is revisited)” by hayashi, Robdonkey
(1:05:28) “Dracos Corona” by ThDPro, TheJMan
(1:18:08) “The Ballad of Dargan the Dragon” by KKairos, Electromaniacal
(1:35:14) “Schone Zeiten” by Lancer-X, Asgromo
Exploring the entries to a MegaZeux community contest!
The DualStream Day of Zeux is the format of choice. Like the 24HoZZT (which the DoZ directly inspired) entrants are given just 24 hours to make a game, a challenge for ZZT, and quite the feat for MZX! Teams end up being much more commonplace as being able to break down the work for charsets, tracker music, coding, and everything else is worth the extra effort to coordinate with another person.
The "DualStream" means there are _two_ topics! Typically one is an abstract concept while the other is something more concrete to work with. In this case the former is Nostalgia, while the latter is Dragons.
"Dragon Blaster" starts things off with a straightforward action game making use of a lot of stock MZX built-ins. The dragon population has gotten out of hand, and so this cool dude with sunglasses is sent into their caves to reduce the headcount a tad. Levels consist of large sprawling boards that get progressively more intense as the game goes on. You have infinite ammo, but as you shoot your charge is reduced, with successive shots traveling a shorter distance to force players to have to reposition to recharge. Bombs are an alternate weapon, but they seem to inflict little damage and I found them not worth using.
After each level, you can return to town to buy bombs, restore health at the inn (and save!), or purchase an extra life as a bit of insurance. The inn has some chance of being attacked by dragons in the night, so don't be surprised if you wake up with a bunch of dragons in your room.
It's pretty fun! MZX's faster default speed combined with infinite ammo makes these little action games work rather nicely. Its final stage gets a bit too difficult though. Wouldn't have minded some upgrades to your charge rate or range to smooth things out, but a nice start nonetheless!
"Nostalgia" is an unfinished series of engines bringing you through iconic games of the 90s, one year at a time as you search for affordable RAM. It's quite timely.
The game begins with a text adventure. Changes into a "forest horse trundling simulation" with difficult to see obstacles, and then transforms once more into an overhead variant of Wolfenstein 3D. It's got a lot of variety, but the end is rather abrupt. Other games planned to be spoofed included Doom, FF6, and Goldeneye to name a few.
"Dracos Corona" felt the roughest to me. Your dying grandfather gives you a quest to prevent some evil dragon from being summoned to the realm, and you run around shooting enemies with a lock-on targetting system and color spray attack. The camera is unfortunately unpleasant, and enemies are very difficult to strike without being hit yourself, making this a game mostly about running away until you're cornered. Neat visuals, though a bit too intense for me.
"Dragan the Dragon" gives you your very own pet dragon! Choose from one of four not-quite elemental affinities and battle other dragons while progressing through a linear world map. The art looks nice, and once the mechanics of the battle system are understood it's kind of neat. However, it seems to spike in difficulty, with my attacks eventually doing -1 damage to enemies. So I gained a level, and then did 0 damage instead. (Earlier fights were doing 15-20 damage for comparison.)
Lastly, "Schone Zeiten", a rather ambitious spacetrading game that's a cross between Elite and FTL, with a 1920s motif and sepia-tone palette. The aesthetics are great, and there is a story about an old friend going on a crusade against aliens that humanity has to share the galaxy's resources with. It's a clear racial prejudice allegory with the protagonist being well aware his buddy has gone off the deep end, though for some reason he continues to follow his plans from a distance, inching ever closer to getting directly involved.
You fly around to planets, harvest resources, sell em for cash, and buy ship upgrades. It's very difficult, requiring you to find systems you need to go to, and a combat system I just couldn't figure out how to defeat anything it. But it seems like a game with a lot of depth to it! Plus Powerhouse for the combat music!
I'm out of characters. Good games! Would recommend.
♦ Streamed May 17th, 2026
