Most Viewed Pages
The Musuem is begrudgingly running Google Analytics, which is worth stressing that many users will be purposely trying to avoid being counted by. (I just want reasonable page view estimates, browser, and resolution info, please find me a straightforward alternative. I'm begging you.)
These numbers probably are also a disaster this year as at several times I tweaked URLs for things, which often result in views being split across multiple entries. This is evident mostly in how many of them are just letters for browsing, one of the few browse URLs that happened to not need adjusting. But here's a look at what these messy numbers claim are the ten most popular pages across the entire Museum for 2022:
Let's start by addressing the Pokémon in the room. Last year's oddball entry was Cyber Purge which likely made the list thanks to a number of tweets depicting scenes from the game, plus it sitting on the front page for a considerable length of time between publication packs that had other new releases to bump it off the front page. It was the perfect storm. At least, that remains my theory. (It is a very cool game though and def. deserved the attention.)
But this time, I'm here to apologize to Pokémon fans everywhere. Randomizers have been popular with Pokémon players for quite some time, and there are versions available for I'm sure every game, probably even Scarlet and Violet already. So people search for them when they would like to try one! And then somehow, SEO magic has decided that because the title of a ZZT utility from 1999 has the magic words "Pokémon", "Randomizer", and "Online", folks wound up here on the museum. Probably confused. Probably a little angry.
The ZZT world is a short collection of boards with arrows that zip around pointing to different Pokémon names and level numbers. It was apparently intended as a very crude randomization process for an online Pokémon roleplay community. (The much more boring sounding kind where you are a trainer, and not you are a Pokémon.) Now, hundreds of people have seen it! It's actually extremely funny. Thank you Bulbasaur.
And then we've got a handful of letters in case you yourself want to juice your odds of being seen. Just make sure your ZZT game shows up at the start of these letters and reap the profits.
Most Viewed Files
Another victim of URL tweaks. I think things are in order enough that we won't have these issues for 2023 at least.
URLs tweaks or not, this is a really weird list.
First off, BOPRPGR. Game of the year. All years. Congratulations.
Secondly, ZZT v3.2, so you can play Bulbasaur's Online Pokemon RPG Randomizer offline.
And then I just get confused. Fat Ghetto Bastard is a Spring 2000 24 Hours of ZZT contest entry by Hercules and Doggyshop. In 2007 Nadir uploaded a few 24 Hours of ZZT games directly to z2 as standalone releases while making modifications to the worlds themselves which mostly amounted to just fixing some bugs. That being said, I'm not sure why this one would get considerable attention. 24 Hours of ZZT games are pretty easy to overlook, and rarely hold up all that well given the time constraints competitors were working under. The old Interactive Fantasies page shows the top three entries for each contest that received results, and this one isn't on there, so where people were coming from to suddenly play it now, is beyond me.
Fat Ghetto Bastard is at least a finished product. The next on the list is not the full release, or the special edition, but the demo for Master Raze's Thug Life. The demo and full release seem almost entirely identical for the boards they both share, so it's not even a case of a game having content that was substantially changed before the final release giving it some appeal.
This is of course followed by an April Fool's day joke with next to no content that everybody was clicking to see! This one is at least dated 2022 so perhaps folks were curious about it from a tweet when the game was published.
Examplia is finally a sign of normalcy (and not because it's mine). Even with the URLs changing repeatedly it still managed to make the cut. It's one of my worlds created specifically as a simple demonstration world depicting all commands of ZZT-OOP with straightforward examples to make it easy to reference and learn from. Plus its own dedicated article covering the code in depth in a format that shows more text than just a single ZZT scroll window's worth at a time.
Examplia is followed by a third and fourth 2022 release. First, WiL's BKZZT where each entrant was given a made up word and definition for it. A fun way to allow even the host to participate as nobody knew what they'd be getting. Fun experience. Not what I would expect to see on a top 10 list. The next one down, Mean Girls Mag does make sense to see here. ZZT magazines (even Weave ones) are some of the most friendly worlds around to experience through the file viewer. No dawdling across boards to access new screens, and text is usually confined into obvious objects that make them easy to read from the comfort of the browser. Who could resist that cover story of an interview with BigTimeDude?
Office Man returns to weird choices. I did stream the game this past Summer, and was not exactly impressed. Is this another strange instance of SEO causing searches for office related things to somehow wind up on a ZZT website? I do not know. If so, that's even funnier than BOPRPGR.
And finally, Cyber Purge refuses to go away, with both it and ZZT v3.2 being the only files to appear in the top ten two years running. It might be a tough sell for year three, but then again, getting played on a RachelRetro stream surely got a lot of new eyes on it. Just keep on getting streamers to play it and you'll be set.
Most Played Files
The previous list is merely games people skimmed through with the file viewer. Now we're on to the important stuff. What ZZT worlds did people see, and think "Yes. I will play that right now"?
Of course ZZT itself takes the title. It's a sensible place to start for sure. Jumping down the list, Super ZZT also shows up in the middle of the pack, despite not being on the list at all last year. It was the year of Super ZZT I suppose.
Pokémon fans aren't the only ones leaving the Museum disappointed! For more ruined searches, Sonic Adventure ZZT Beta is hitting some keywords that are sure to disappoint all that clicked. Try your luck at The Cutting Room Floor next time.
Honestly, confusing people who were looking for games made by professional studios is a long running tradition in ZZT. The Internet Archive's ZZT Collection shows view counts and worlds with names known outside of ZZT like The Legend of Zelda and Doom have massive leaps over ZZT worlds that lack a name shared with majorly successful video games. It goes back further than that though. Plenty of ZZTers got their start searching for King's Quest or Yoshi, finding fan games, and realizing they need this ZZT thing to be able to play them.
The next on the list is Rear Infection, and now joking about searches not intended to be related to ZZT are a lot less funny.
Well, with that one I think it's a lot more likely that people who stumble across that title simply have to know.
Orc Killer returns for a second year running as well. This delightfully short game is one that I yell at people to play whenever I can as it takes about 5 minutes and you can't game over in it. Play Orc Killer!!!
The original (enhanced) release of ZZT RPG classic Rhygar has a number of plays this year. It was streamed at one point, and I wonder if some folks took it upon themselves to revisit it all these years later for themselves. It's a game that lends itself towards multiple sessions, so saving and returning to the Museum to increase its play count is an easy way to get it up on the rankings even without considering its legacy as a classic ZZT RPG.
Folks also couldn't resist the ZZT Crashopedia, a new release documenting as many ways as possible into how to make ZZT explode. I'm definitely counted here. This title was released late enough into the year that its play count should be accurate, but it's still impressive for a November release to break into the top ten with so little time.
The 2022 BKZZT and Mean Girls Mag also show up together on this list as well. Easy to browse, easy to play online. Except, ironically, for WiL's Weave ZZT game submitted to his own BKZZT contest. ZZT v3.2 is what automatically boots up when an upload has multiple programs requires to be able to play everything contained within making the one Weave entry require more effort to play, something I should maybe work on better supporting in 2023.
Finally, more than 20 years later folks still want to know what ZZT Tetris is like with Masamune's ZZTris. A triumph of its time, that now likely just makes players ask why the pieces are all made up of three squares rather than four, something addressed in Preposterous Machines a decade later, but SEO is king and the older title is more obviously going to contain something Tetris-y while Preposterous Machines is a lot more vague.
