First new pack of the year! Partially thanks to DeadPhrog's standalone releases of his numerous Oktrollberfest entries, there's almost enough in the queue for two packs already. Let's see if I can keep the clutter down this year.
Lots of recovered worlds from the past that are at the very least a little bit interesting. ZZT games based on Jurassic Park, Starship Troopers both do an okay job of playing the part of 1997 ZZT game based on media property. Some cool historic finds by Nivek bring us a demo for a sequel to one of his biggest hits, plus an overlooked completed adventure that creates a pretty decent story for such an early work.
This pack also has the first two new releases for 2024 as well! Bringing us something trippy, and something that will trip up police.
Contents
“A Dink in the Grass” by DeadPhrog (2023)
Program Description
A demake and parody of the first of a certain Japanese company's long-running action RPG series.
Dink is part of my Oktrollberfest 2023 game jam entry, which was actually four entire games with an installer that randomly picks one and deletes the others. This is only Dink on its own -- please see separate entries for the others, Fire 1000, Super Wall Puncher, and ZZTorture.
Credits:
Writing, Art, Music, Coding: Jeremy W. Kaufmann
Win Screen Art: Laura Randolph
Pig Sprite: Emily Kaufmann
Tools: Zeta, Zima by Asie, Zedit2 by Lancer-X, Weave by WiL, ZZT by Tim Sweeney.
Special thanks to WiL for giving me so much support trying to work out how to do this in Weave.
Starting with the standalone releases of some Oktrollberfest games. First, this Zelda 1 styled adventure that looks very early MZX to me. For a troll game, there's enough mechanics that I bet an actually Zelda inspired Weave game could be pretty solid.
“Super Wall Puncher” by DeadPhrog (2023)
Program Description
Basically I took a bunch of screens from old games I did, fixed up the graphics a bit, and added a new mechanism where you punch enough walls on a building and then it collapses, leaving ash behind. Three unique endings!
Super Wall Puncher is part of my Oktrollberfest 2023 game jam entry, which was actually four entire games with an installer that randomly picks one and deletes the others. This is only Super Wall Puncher on its own -- please see separate entries for the others, A Dink in the Grass, Fire 1000, and ZZTorture.
Credits: Writing, Art, Music, Coding: Jeremy W. Kaufmann
Tools: Zeta, Zima by Asie, Zedit2 by Lancer-X, Weave by WiL, ZZT by Tim Sweeney.
Oh I played this all wrong when I got the screenshots. Punch on buildings to knock em' down. Or, if you're me, walk through a city for a bit and wonder if there's gonna be a big wall at the end of things.
“Fire 1000” by DeadPhrog (2023)
Program Description
A protest game where you play Swim Teeney, CEO of Epic Megagems (original name do not steal) on your quest to fire 1000 employees.
Fire 1000 is part of my Oktrollberfest 2023 game jam entry, which was actually four entire games with an installer that randomly picks one and deletes the others. This is only Fire 1000 on its own -- please see separate entries for the others, A Dink in the Grass, Super Wall Puncher, and ZZTorture.
Credits: Writing, Art, Music, Coding: Jeremy W. Kaufmann
Tools: Zeta, Zima by Asie, Zedit2 by Lancer-X, Weave by WiL, ZZT by Tim Sweeney.
Fire 1000 employees from your big name gaming company. It's the hot new trend honestly.
“ZZTorture” by DeadPhrog (2023)
Program Description
This might be a little inside baseball. It's designed to seem like the first game made by a teenager in 199X just figuring out ZZT, but it's also subtly playing on the expectations of people familiar with ZZT. Bad on purpose...?
ZZTorture is part of my Oktrollberfest 2023 game jam entry, which was actually four entire games with an installer that randomly picks one and deletes the others. This is only ZZTorture on its own -- please see separate entries for the others, A Dink in the Grass, Fire 1000, and Super Wall Puncher.
Credits: Writing, Art, Music, Coding: Jeremy W. Kaufmann
Tools: Zeta, Zima by Asie, Zedit2 by Lancer-X, Weave by WiL, ZZT by Tim Sweeney.
A good old fashioned "bad on purpose" game intended to play like a teen's first ZZT game in the 90s. Lots of big bones.
“Jurassic Park” by Red (1997)
Finally, a finished Jurassic Park ZZT game. Gun-toting Dr. Grant heads to Costa Rica to take a tour on a new dinosaur park. By the time he leaves he'll have the blood of dozens of dinosaurs on his hands. But the dinos will have the last laugh in the game's not exactly film-accurate ending.
“Starship Troopers” by Adam Fourney, Chris Fourney (1997)
A difficult but not impossible action game that says it's based on the book rather than the film, but has so little text that there's no real difference. Play as Mr. Johnny Rico himself as you are sent to various planets to take on hordes of bugs, defend bases, and acquire important information to put an end to the bug menace.
“Daryl F. Gates' Police Quest” by GorgonButt (2024)
A parody of the notorious Police Quest ZZT. Can you waste those creepazoid drug dealers? Or will you be destroyed by the hand of fentanyl?
“Target Practice” (1996)
A very simple shooting gallery game. How many points can you score with thirty shots? Probably not many.
“Dungeons of Zhil Demo” by Nivek (1997)
A previously lost demo and sequel to Defender of Castle Sin. Now free of your curse to protect the castle for eternity, it's time to start a new life. Features the iconic RPG battles from before with Nivek's great enemy portraits, and a new 3D-Dungeon crawling engine that makes use of a custom font to appear a little nicer than most such engines do.
“Outlaw” by Nivek (1997)
After being threatened into allowing some smugglers through the town gates with a bunch of weapons, the ringleader is caught, and your name has been spoken of as an ally. Now on the run, you have to join side with the outlaws to discover their surprisingly benevolent motivations and prevent a wealthy merchant from executing their coup to take over the town.
“After the Accident” by ferkung (2024)
"Find your way to freedom in an automatic poetic world after your sister's car runs off the road." Designed for SeedComp 2023. An experimental/trippy world that looks to have a lot of fun with displaying text on screen.
“HGSI Monsters (v1)” by PresHGSI (1999)
Become an HGSI monster master! Grab your choice of starter monsters (Bugumspark or Shocktrist) and explore the world, challenging fellow trainers and gym leaders to battles for cash. Featuring 19 monsters and a battle system that allows them all to fight, this is about as authentic of a Pokémon experience you can find in ZZT. Shame it's a bit of a pain to figure out where to go, and some of those fights have some coding issues.
