Beginner Friendly Worlds

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A "Snake" clone with a lot of extra effort put into its presentation. Simple gameplay is elevated by the use of a story and scenes in between levels that give the game more depth than an endless arcade score chase.

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Winner of the first ever 24 Hours of ZZT competition.

Nightplanet is a demonstration of just how quickly ZZT games can be created. After answering a distress beacon, you land on a planet finding nothing but skeletons of the former crew. Figure out what happened, and how to avoid the same fate befalling you!

All entries for the competition are available here.

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Efforts to refuel your spaceship on a moon go awry when you ship is unexpected shrunken down and stolen. Makings matters worse is you just ruined somebody else's efforts of leaving themselves!

An excellent space adventure that gets quite showy near the end!

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Inspired by Chrono Trigger, Overflow is a mid-90s adventure set in a world that has been devastated by an alien force known as Achalon. Your quest is to find the keys to the pirate fortress in order to steal their time machine and alter the course of history.

Gameplay is traditional ZZT action shooting various built-ins, but the game endlessly impresses with its smart level design and gorgeous tropical visuals that make this one of the nicest looking games of the era and one that holds up remarkably well today.

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While it may be difficult to figure out how to get started, Phoebus Project was a clear hit for 2021 and my personal ZZT game of the year.

As a gig worker, your job is to explore a hostile planet with a sinister secret, collecting readings and sending the results to your client. For your client, the cost is money. For you, the price is far higher. (Be sure to check out the separate Epilogue world as well!)

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A game that makes a lot of rare decisions. The world is designed for DOSBox, to be played at ZZT's maximum speed, and to be controlled using a mouse.

After your submarine was attacked by an entity of unknown origin, you must escape the ocean depths and fight your way to freedom. The fast speed an unconventional controls make for a very unique experience that works quite well!

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A short story world about finding a place to get some coffee set in the early days of the pandemic.

Stop in and explore a few coffee shops, take in the vibes, and hopefully acquire that caffeine fix.

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A two in one deal. "Smiley Guy" is the first of the series and one of the winning entries in the original ZZT contest (hence its bundling in "ZZT's Revenge"). Its sequel "Toxic Terminator" is a more refined sequel though both are good choices for beginners (though the first one has a nasty multi-board maze).

Both games are very bright and cheerful with a lot of optimism that makes the adventures quite memorable with some cute early ZZT graphics and some very creative board designs.

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Software Visions was one of the premier ZZT companies in its day. This collection of all worlds published by the company contains the final versions of the ZZT worlds by Alexis Janson and Matt Williams.

Janson's games are some of ZZT's most enduring, with nearly everything in the pack being worth playing. Earlier releases in the collection do have their share of issues with providing enough ammo at first, and some puzzles ask a little too much of the player's time, but even with their blemishes they're quite enjoyable adventures that build on the gameplay designs establish by the original worlds.

Two of them, Code Red, and Mission: Enigma are commonly cited as being some of ZZT's finest, with the former containing numerous endings and gameplay paths based on your actions in the first few boards, and the latter being a (very) challenging spy adventure in just a few boards.

These games can be tough to actually complete, but are iconic works that should at least be tried out by anyone taking a look at what ZZT offers.

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It's Star Wench versus The Queen of Space!

Originally created as a backer reward for "ZZT", the third book in the Boss Fight Books series, beam down to the queen's lair and try to defeat your nemesis. Assuming you can get past her fiendish traps, holodeck, and of course the queen's collection of sharp objects.

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Commodore's Super Archaeologist Simulator is a classically styled adventure with far more modern design sensibilities. Travel the world in search of valuable artifacts to sell to the local museum for cash. Explore pyramids, catacombs, and even take a trip to Atlantis.

Beautiful visuals and expertly balanced gameplay make SAS one of ZZT's finest traditional adventures.

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While there are a number of reasons ZZT's sequel "Super ZZT" never took off, that doesn't mean that it's not worth checking out for yourself!

Due to the limited number of games created for the platform, Super ZZT's trio of included worlds, particularly "Monster Zoo" are actually some of the better creations available. If you enjoyed other early ZZT worlds, official and otherwise, Super ZZT's big scrolling boards, colorful environments, and silly writing are sure to win you over.

Unlike the original ZZT's official worlds, Super ZZT is definitely more action focused, so if puzzles aren't your thing, these can be a great alternative.

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A very new ZZT fantasy adventure designed to hearken back to the feeling of late 90s ZZT games. It does an excellent job of this, creating a very compelling and fun story mixed with detailed towns and dungeons, and incredible production values.

It manages to do all this while also avoiding the numerous issues that frequently plagued actual late 90s ZZT games of this style. There are no dull RPG engines or flatly written characters that aren't as interesting as the author wants them to be.

In Tales of Dragons, you and your friends seek to recover some fabled dragon eggs in order to hatch them and put an end to the war your nation is fighting. Of course, nothing ever goes according to plan does it?

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A classic space adventure game. Join the crew of the plecostamus as it journeys through space, exploring alien worlds and helping those in need.

Despite the name, Turmoil is a fairly laid-back game with a lot of charm in its unique alien environments. You'll encounter strange creatures, rescue POWs, and deal with hostile ships as the crew tries to get back and make the universe a better place.

Be cautious with crowds of enemies in this one though! With some bad luck you might get surrounded by enemies and be unable to shoot them, soft-locking your game.

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A warlock has captured the king's three daughters and will soon be forcing one into marriage!

Many have tried to rescue them, but none of have returned. You're the latest volunteer to figure out what's going on and how to save the kingdom from destruction.

A somewhat open-ended adventure in a large castle. There's a lot of great writing, memorable characters, and fun puzzles to be found in Warlock Domain. Several endings are available based on the player's actions, though it's definitely the kind of game to keep you interested to the point where you've just got to the see the best ending.

An absolute gem of the era.

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A semi-autobiographical visual novel about the author's childhood. Deal with a difficult home life, navigating teenage romance, a chance to leave it all for something better, and maybe get abducted by aliens depending on your choices.

I did say semi autobiographical.

With many scenes made from ZZT conversions of photographs, When There Is No More Snow has a look unlike anything else in ZZT, and its simple gameplay make it a breeze to take in.

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A trippy puzzle game where a lucid daydream turns into a journey through an icy castle and its surroundings. Winter is a game built around atmosphere and deliberately uses no text throughout the gameplay segments, requiring the player to figure things out based on intuition and observation.

Winter is considered a classic due to how well it succeeds at this. The puzzle design is solid and the environments are quite well done for the era. (The bomb puzzle in the mesa can be a rather difficult spot however.)

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A short wintery adventure that feels like a fairy tale turned ZZT game. Yiepipipi is written in a made up (and nonsensical) language, forcing the player to figure things out themselves based on what is happening on screen.

Thanks to some lovely art boards, it's not too difficult to get the gist of, but Yiepipipi is a fun experimental design that can be completed quickly and will leave you satisfied with the experience.

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Just to be sure you see em'. ZZT v3.2 is the final official release of ZZT and contains all the original worlds. These are the games that started it all, and are usually the first ZZT games one plays.

They hype themselves up as taking weeks and weeks to complete, but each one can reasonably be done in an afternoon as long as you don't save your game in an unwinnable state. Still, despite the early warts, these games are foundational, left an obviously huge impact, and honestly are still a ton of fun to play.