♦ Livestream of the ZZT world "A Dink in the Grass" by DeadPhrog (2023) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/zztort-x64/]. ♦
Plus a few non-ZZT entries to the Oktrollberfest jam: https://itch.io/jam/oktrollberfest-2023
(0:00) Starting with "Cool guy throws Apple onto Nerd" by Kaeselord, a click-em-up shooter and score chase game. Land as many of your shots on the cool guy while avoiding their apple bullets. Making things more difficult are the random status effects inflicted on the player which can do things like slow you down or even change the controls so movement is handled like Flappy Bird. A game with a simple premise that ended up being pretty compelling to me! Plus, a unique game over mechanic that makes your inevitable failure all the more sore.
(4:15) Then, John D. Moore (known for ZZT games like Zem! back in the day, and a hundred million games made since) comes up with a confusing platformer called "Unphased". Your good friend has unfortunately exploded into purple coins, and you'll need to collect them all to presumably reassemble them. A move and jump platformer with switches to toggle blocks that change which paths are available made all the more challenging by making it so every board transition cycles between a few variants of a screen for a given position on the map. Confusing to navigate and well integrated. You'll have to really think about what screen you'll reach next in order to actually make progress!
(21:06) Lastly, because I wanted it, one of the other potential games in DeadPhrog's submission, a Weave ZZT game parody of the original The Legend of Zelda. It ends up being a pretty solid game more than anything else, but then Zelda 1 is one of my all time faves, so it's impossible to not love it. Depending on how much exploration players do, it can be a bit challenging, but it's honestly just a neat Weave implementation of classic 2D Zelda mechanics that left me wanting to see that concept explored further.
♦ Originally recorded on November 23rd, 2023 ♦
