24 Hours of ZZT Autumn 2003 [Disaster]

Paper Wisdom by Oof

When I streamed this I stated we'd never talk about it again, and I'm pretty tempted to not talk about this game.

I felt uncomfortable playing this for an audience. It starts off "wacky" but goes in a direction that's just grossout humor. I found it very unappealing. I also didn't realize you could defeat enemies by touching them as the game framed things as if the player was meant to run away. Killing the first enemy results in getting a bunch of ammo to shoot future enemies with so I feel like I missed out on core gameplay mechanics as well. I don't want to go back to it and play it with a gun.

The art in the first half is pretty fantastic at least.

4.0/10.0

I have to give this game props for the amount of art-boards it has, especially for a 24 hour contest entry, but I find the sense of humor to be rather offputting.

4.0/10.0

• ok that intro is the best thing I've ever seen in ZZT
• combat is decent (the AI seems interesting) but really isn't my thing, so I'm not sure how to rate that
• ok by the end it goes over the line from charming teenage weirdness to exhausting teenage crassness, but thankfully not in as bad of a way as SOME of these old games do, really. ("poop eating is better than racism", the ravenworks guide to judging shock value)
• I was pretty sure there must've been a bug preventing me from advancing from the final screen, but I checked the file in the website's viewer and apparently that's just how it stops, with no game over, okay then
• I feel like this is an 8/10.0 as far as what I could expect from a 24-hour game? mostly cute, reasonably well-implemented mechanics, abrupt but that's about all you can could expect

8.0/10.0

I thought this was just going to be a long cinema at first, but the author found room for some gameplay as well briefly! Putting this exactly in the middle of the scale because I don't really know what to make of it.

5.0/10.0

You play as Eubus the Bean Sprout, attending a cocktail party that goes horribly awry. I really like the art boards’ wacky comic book style, which would have been nice to see in the almost monochromatic gameplay boards. The comedy is crass and dated (at one point you ride an ejaculation to the moon) and it’s unfinished, but the different enemy types are pretty good.

7.0/10.0

PAPER WISDOM: Clearly my scoring system was off because this is the worst game, and would’ve been if I let myself give negative points, it’s not just stupid, it’s vile. Originally one-point-two out-of-ten, adjusted to the correct

0.0/10.0

Decent cutscene graphics. The writing is raunchier and edgier than I expected, but, I mean, it was a 2003 ZZT community thing, so that's probably my fault for forgetting that. There sure are a lot of shootable enemies (including a boss) for a game that, to my knowledge, never actually gives you a single round of ammo.

4.0/10.0

Tells a very gross and disjointed story--the sort of thing a teenager would make up under pressure. If it had more focus and wasn't so puerile, I would have ranked it higher. The main character's name changes without notice after landing on the moon.

4.0/10.0

This is more what I expect from my ZZT experience based on my younger days, a game fixated on toilets, body horror humor, and poop-eating. I forgot for a minute I wasn't played a roguelike and just attacked enemies by mashing into them and it worked somehow?? so that's okay. The cutscenes are nonsense, the gameplay is a brutal hailstorm of bullets, and the plot is -offensive- nonsense but technically this has gameplay and comes to an actual conclusion which is more than the last two, and I feel like this fulfilled all my expectations of a ZZT game. Let's give this a big ol' 5/10 for aspiring to the bold heights of adequacy and not quite getting there but by god y'all tried.

5.0/10.0

This one vaguely feels like the author just wanted to put a lot of stuff they were Interested in on a board that a bunch of folks would ostensibly play because they had to judge it. It took over a decade, but mission accomplished, I guess?

4.0/10.0

Sid Disaster by TTTPPP

What a colorful title screen! Another game by a ZZTer I remember, but who never actually released anything beyond this contest.

The game is unfortunately rather pessimistic about its potential at winning, which, while I can't see it getting first place, I do think TTTPPP was definitely overestimating his competition.

The animations are simple, but entertaining (if a tad slow). There's just not much here, and it ends up not being much to look at. There's a very good drawing of a horse, which I thought was made with ZBitmap and just a conversion of existing art, but the release date on ZBitmap is from a few months after this contest ran. Earlier version perhaps? Or maybe TTTPPP really did draw it. I'm gonna give an extra half point just in case.

4.5/10.0

3 mildly bewildering art boards and... nothing else?

4.5/10.0

• points off up front for self-deprecation, come on
• I always love ZZT cutscenes, although this one could've used an indication of when the cutscene ends, I was ready to leave partway at least twice
• I have no idea what just happened (which can be a fair enough approach if it's interesting enough to make up for it, but, this wasn't)
• another 3/10.0 for charm but nothing else

3.0/10.0

A nonsensical journey as the author notes himself, but 2 points for the horse picture and mentioning Tesco.

2.0/10.0

Lovely little art showcase. Neat animation of the apocalypse, a beautifully crafted horse graphic, and some amazing title screen font. Not really a playable game, but nice to look at. It’s a shame that some authors spent time apologising for their games.

5.0/10.0

SID DISASTER is openly an art piece. It’s the best by those standards, but it’s really not even a game. I like the title screen a lot.

2.0/10.0

There are two types of 24HoZ and WoZ entries: the ones that actually tried, and the joke entries. This one blatantly tells the player on its first board that it's crap, but then it presents some very lovely art and well-done animations. It's far from the worst game submitted! however, it's also three boards long, not even slightly interactive, and the plot is... abstract.

5.0/10.0

Not really sure what's going on here. A volcano and a plane crash, followed by an absolutely amazing drawing of a horse (possibly done before the 24 hours?), followed by the same volcano and plane, but with a rainbow.

4.5/10.0

Opens with a screen apologizing for being a load of crap so we are ON THE RIGHT TRACK THIS MORNING boy howdy. ... Okay this sure was... abstract? A town is destroyed by a volcano, then the player walks past the lovingly detailed face of a horse, and the town is back and there's a rainbow and... is this the afterlife? Did I just play a three-room silent Indie Game About Death? Uh. Nice art, no story, little gameplay.

3.0/10.0

A beautiful horse bitmap transcribed in ZZT display turns back the time and averts several disasters. It's no Donnie Darko, but we make do.

3.0/10.0