Dave2 was somebody I definitely spoke with on IRC frequently in the mid 2000s, and he had very little content as far as released ZZT worlds went. The graphics leaking oilspill on the title screen combined with the knowledge of Dave2's artistic creations via Flash cartoons meant that I had some really high hopes for something exciting.
Unfortunately, the game itself is very very short. The bulk of which is a very frustrating Flappy Bird-esque engine. I feel like Dave was unable to work on the game as much as he had wanted to that day.
5.0/10.0
Disqualified! This was me thinking I was funny. The story of School ZZT's creation is accurate at least. Stampede went on to become a radio DJ for a local radio station and is very skilled at playing the guitar. His skills are in music, not game design, and that's okay by me.
0.0/10.0
eRN56 didn't have much of a ZZT catalog either. This is the only solo content they produced, (with a special edition of it later). The mushroom cloud animation is pretty solid, but I feel like an opportunity was missed by not having the city itself show any damage.
The characters are pretty insufferable (they never _do_ anything), and the bomb shelter they're holed up in feels like a Vault-Tec social experiment more than a proper shelter with how little actually works properly. I did get a laugh at the tainted water but perfectly fine soft drinks.
There's a fight with a mutant and it drags on way too long. Both attacks have the same chance of hitting and deal the same amount of damage making it completely pointless.
(There's a Special Edition version of this game that cleans up the graphics a bit, but appears to be essentially the exact same game. It at least reduces the mutant's hitpoints a little though.)
Still, it is playable from start to end, has no bugs, and fits with the theme. This is enough to make it stand out among most of these entries.
7.0/10.0
Nukem has zero other titles released, and if I recall correctly was a local friend of Clecky's. He submitted a joke entry as well, and in 2003 I'm confident this would've just been disqualified, but we're all a bit desperate for entries here, so we'll let it slide.
The art is kind of fun.
2.5./10.0
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
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
Finally, a game created by somebody who actually made a handful of other titles! Like Dave2's Oil, I went into this with my hopes high, only to be very let down. The game's story is over the top, and thinking about it, the whole deal with aliens having invaded is likely only there to ensure the game fits the "Disaster" theme. Otherwise, it's your generic corrupt government performing inhumane experiments.
The system to determine your stats is a very cool idea, but it's also the sort of thing that you could tell immediately that ZZT couldn't do justice. Knowing what I knew about ZZT games, I knew I'd want to crank up agility to have the most time to hit enemies and not get hit back.
The combat turns out to be a joke and I was literally just holding down an arrow key while all the guards lined up and got punched to death before they were permitted a chance to attack my character back. The other stats involve knockback, starting health, and how the player interacts with things like computers and locks.
It is unbalanced, as you can't beat the game without a certain intelligence score); buggy, as you can't actually access the ending board; and maybe just impossible, as one of the puzzles has been mentioned by every judge to not have a solution.
This one has ideas that would work in a game with more time, but honestly, probably not a ZZT game.
5.0/10.0
I honestly don't even recognize the author's name here. However, they definitely also hit the point of "Oh hey, this could be interesting". The slow opening where the game appears like it's going to be about a virus outbreak in space is promptly thrown out to set it on Earth when the ship carrying the virus crash lands. The story is a cliche zombie virus, and the game ends abruptly.
There's some excellent artwork however. The title screen looks great, the thrusters on the spaceship are well animated, and there's an amazing looking burning question mark graphic later on. It looks like all the art took too much time however, and the game abruptly ends. It might have been better to chop off the single board that takes place on Earth and have made the game just a simple (mostly) cinema.
I'd have enjoyed seeing where this went, and graphically it's the best in the contest, but taken as a whole it becomes a bit more lacking.
Oh yeah, and it starts on the wrong board. Boo to that.
5.0/10.0