============ DAVESAST.ZZT "Oil" ============ - You get to be a mermaid, I am entirely here for this premise - Absolutely in love with these color palettes, nice blending work too imo - I was going to say "they should have known better than to chase a trend like flappy bird" but uhh this is from 10 years BEFORE flappy bird which means they can't even blame it on a trend, so this was just a terrible, un-fun gameplay concept to have tried to implement in ZZT. - I'm not certain it's even guaranteed to be winnable? can't say for sure - anyway, good artistic and technical execution (and story idea) squandered on a terrible gameplay idea, 7/10 ============ DISASTER.ZZT "Disaster" ============ - ok I love personal games enough that I'm feeling charitable enough to give this a 2/10 even though it basically doesn't exist ============ ERN56.ZZT "fallout" ============ - solid execution - totally random combat engine is completely pointless and also takes way too long to finish - I really didn't need the visual of stabbing someone in the ribs with a screwdriver over and over, thanks - competent but forgettable, 6/10 ============ KEWLIEZ.ZZT "the krushing disaster" ============ - i'll admit, the whole "lol kewlz" aesthetic makes me weirdly nostalgic and I like it for that. kind of weird to rate it for that when I probably wouldn't have felt that way if I were actually judging the contest when it was new though? - the bears and walls make for an interesting puzzle, although the layout makes me feel like it might not have been intentional? I enjoyed figuring out how to lead them into walls, but with that much ammo laid out (in a shape that only makes sense with respect to walls that are instantly destroyed) I get the feeling that I was just supposed to be plowing through them, so again, I'm not sure if I can give it points for that? - I literally don't understand whether I won? (I tried zapping through the cutscene wall, in case "zap" was a hint to do that, but nothing happened...) - 3/10 for charm I guess ============ Oofaut03.zzt "Paper Wisdom" ============ - ok that intro is the best thing I've ever seen in ZZT - combat is decent (the AI seems interesting) but really isn't my thing, so I'm not sure how to rate that - ok by the end it goes over the line from charming teenage weirdness to exhausting teenage crassness, but thankfully not in as bad of a way as SOME of these old games do, really. ("poop eating is better than racism", the ravenworks guide to judging shock value) - I was pretty sure there must've been a bug preventing me from advancing from the final screen, but I checked the file in the website's viewer and apparently that's just how it stops, with no game over, okay then - I feel like this is an 8/10 as far as what I could expect from a 24-hour game? mostly cute, reasonably well-implemented mechanics, abrupt but that's about all you can could expect ============ siddis.zzt "Sid Disaster" ============ - points off up front for self-deprecation, come on - I always love ZZT cutscenes, although this one could've used an indication of when the cutscene ends, I was ready to leave partway at least twice - I have no idea what just happened (which can be a fair enough approach if it's interesting enough to make up for it, but, this wasn't) - another 3/10 for charm but nothing else ============ SILICATE.ZZT "Silicate" ============ - Writing isn't bad - I like the character customization premise - "spacing"-based combat is a real real fun idea (although in practice the enemies' tendancy to just pile up often makes it a bit pointless; calls for better AI to take full advantage) - NARG! - I have absolutely no idea how to do the reactor room, I just zapped it (some of the reactors don't seem survivable, and one of them doesn't seem to do anything??) - some of the keys being secret seems annoying, but the ability to skip one of them is a nice touch to help make up for it - according to the website, there's an ending, it's just not hooked up??? I know it's 24 hours but how the heck do you miss that - despite a decent number of complaints, I've gotta give this 9/10 for one good idea (custom character) and one great idea (shoving-based combat). I could easily see this being fleshed out into something really fun, even if what we got in the 24-hour version is kind of bland in practice. not sure if judging it on its potential rather than "playing the 24-hour thing as though it were intentionally exactly what it is" is going against the spirit of the contest though, or if it's exactly the spirit of the contest? like, if the purpose of a game jam is to hash out and prototype a good game idea, then this one succeeded ============ SMITH24.ZZT "virus" ============ - literally completely broken! I had to go into the editor to play this one? come onnnnn - spinning a chair goes a long way to winning me back over - nice effects (starfield, thruster, especially that question mark) - story is kind of predictable, but reasonably well-executed - running out of time is understandable in a 24-hour contest, but this seems like it was scoped way bigger than anyone reasonably could've executed on? if the entire game so far was just the prologue, how long were they expecting to be able to make the full thing?? (why not just cut out the apartment scene altogether, and call the crash the ending, at that point?) I know I just said I want to judge them on the potential of a "full version", but I feel like this one's "potential" IS to wind up wildly over-scoped and never actually finished, if this is how they approach a 24-hour jam - everything in this is competent but basically forgettable (though I'm not exactly the target audience to be honest). but I can't picture particularly wanting to recommend it over anything else, even if it had been "finished". 6/10.