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in short, zzt is a game creation system. you can make your own boards, place enemies, program objects and design
terrains. objects are programmed using a simple object oriented programming language (zzt-oop). zzt has generated
a community that will have been around for almost 10 years at the turn of the millennium. hundreds of games have been
published already and more are created all the time. most of them are good, but some are extraordinary.
zzt used to be shareware, but now you can download the full version off
the official zzt web page.
since zzt's source code got lost in a hard disk crash i decided to recreate zzt using c++, hence the name zzt++. this
project started on october 9 1998 and i'm still going. i'm holding down a job, so i can't spend a lot of time on zzt++ which
is why progress isn't very fast.
here's what the author of zzt, Tim Sweeney, had to say about zzt:
A note from ZZT's creator, Tim Sweeney:
ZZT was released as shareware in 1991 and it was Epic's debut title.
Though it was quite minor in the grand scheme of things, registrations from
ZZT paid for the computer, hardware and artwork I used to create my
second game, Jill of the Jungle.
Jill of the Jungle put Epic MegaGames on the map as a leading shareware
publisher, and helped to attract our founding developers, including
James Schmalz (Solar Winds and Epic Pinball), and Cliff Bleszinski (Jazz
Jackrabbit), who I'm now working with on my third game, Unreal.
ZZT's text-based graphics looked dated even in 1991, so they certainly
are not leading-edge now in 1997. But, it's still fun to play, and the
level editor built into ZZT has inspired hundreds if not thousands of
user-created levels. Some of these levels can still be found on the
web from sites such as:
Butz Klauzer's ZZT Page
Ned and Richard's Page of ZZT!
MegaZealot: Links!
To the best of my knowledge, ZZT was the first PC game to feature
a built-in level editing tool and scripting language.
Looking back, I'd really like to thank Scott Miller of Apogee for his
early advice and encouragement with ZZT, Johnny Wilson of Computer
Gaming World for the first mainstream press that Epic received with ZZT,
and all of the people in the ZZT community who created add-on levels and
utilities for ZZT.
Enjoy!
Tim Sweeney
Epic MegaGames, Inc.
Release notes:
- Sorry, no tech support questions, but it *should* work from DOS, Windows 95, and Windows NT 4.0.
- Please don't ask for the source; if I had it, I'd release it, but I lost it in a crash a long time ago.
- Please don't email me asking about ZZT; I'm focusing on Unreal now and it's my priority.
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