ZZT facts for kids
Quick facts for kids ZZT |
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Title screen of Town of ZZT
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| Developer(s) | Potomac Computer Systems |
| Publisher(s) | Potomac Computer Systems |
| Designer(s) | Tim Sweeney |
| Platform(s) | MS-DOS |
| Release date(s) |
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| Genre(s) | Action-adventure, game creation system, puzzle |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
ZZT is an exciting action-adventure puzzle video game. It was also a special "game creation system" that let players make their own games! Developed by Potomac Computer Systems, it first came out in 1991 for computers using MS-DOS. Later, in 1997, it became completely free to play.
One cool thing about ZZT was that it was an early game where players could create their own content. You control a friendly smiley face character. Your job is to battle different creatures and solve tricky puzzles on grid-based levels. The game has four main worlds to explore. In these worlds, you interact with items like ammo, bombs, and scrolls to reach the end of your adventure. ZZT even came with a built-in editor. This allowed players to design their own worlds using the game's special scripting language, called ZZT-OOP.
The game was created by Tim Sweeney, who was a student at the time. He spent about six to nine months making it. He first thought of it as a text editor, but then started adding creatures and characters. His friends and neighbors loved it, so he decided to share it with everyone. ZZT became quite popular, selling thousands of copies. It also inspired many players to create their own games and even pursue careers in the video game industry!
Contents
How to Play ZZT
ZZT is a top-down action-adventure puzzle game. It's also a game creation system, meaning you can build your own adventures. You play as a white smiley face on a dark blue screen. You can move your character in four directions.
Interacting with Objects
You can interact with things in the game by touching them or shooting them.
- Touching items like ammo, gems, torches, and keys adds them to your status bar.
- Ammo lets you shoot bullets at enemies.
- Gems increase your health and act as money.
- Torches light up dark areas.
- Colored keys open matching colored doors.
- Other items include bombs, doors, and scrolls.
Some special objects, called "Objects," follow scripts written in ZZT-OOP. For example, an object might give you health or shoot bullets at you. You can save your game at any time and pick up exactly where you left off.
Exploring Game Worlds
Game worlds in ZZT are made of many grid-based boards that connect. You can move between boards by reaching the edge of the screen or using teleporters.
- Town of ZZT starts in a central area with buildings and exits.
- Caves of ZZT begins in a simple area with torches.
- Dungeons of ZZT has a starting area with gates that lock you in.
- City of ZZT opens on a city street with various structures.
There were also two other worlds included. Guided Tour ZZT's Other Worlds showed off parts of the main game worlds. Demo of the ZZT World Editor was like a museum, showing all the items, terrains, and creatures you could use.
Your main goal is to reach the final board. You do this by collecting purple keys to open locked doors or gathering specific objects. Boards can be action-packed or puzzle-focused.
Action and Puzzles
- Action boards have you fighting creatures like lions, tigers, and bears. If creatures, bullets, or stars touch you, you lose health. If your health runs out, the game ends.
- Puzzle boards involve solving challenges. These might include moving boulders, sliders, or pushers. Some puzzles are mazes, which can even have invisible walls or teleporters. Be careful, as some puzzles can trap you, making you restart from an earlier save!
Creating Your Own Worlds
ZZT has a built-in editor that lets you make your own game worlds. You start with a blank screen surrounded by yellow walls.
- The editor lets you add and arrange items, creatures, and different types of ground.
- You can also connect different boards to create a larger world.
- Each board can have special settings. For example, you can add a time limit, make the board dark (so you need a torch), or limit how many bullets can be on screen.
- The game uses simple text characters to create all the environments. It supports sixteen colors, but the editor usually only lets you pick seven for objects. Players found clever ways to add more colors later on!
- The game also uses the computer's speaker for sounds. You can hear seven different notes and percussion sounds like clicks and pops. You can even make custom sounds using scripting.
ZZT's Creation Story
Tim Sweeney, a student at the University of Maryland, first started creating ZZT as a text editor. He used a programming language called Turbo Pascal. At the time, Tim didn't know how to program graphics. He only had a basic computer and keyboard. He wanted to make a better editor than the ones that came with other programming languages.
He started experimenting by adding "collision" to text characters. This meant characters could bump into each other. Then, he made the cursor a character you could control. He soon realized it was more fun to turn it into a game by adding bullets and creatures to fight! From there, he designed his first levels using text files. He kept adding new features to the game and its editor while studying at university. The text-based graphics allowed him to create imaginative things like talking trees. He even got some ideas from another game called Kroz, like the bomb.
Developing ZZT took about six to nine months. Tim spent less than 1,000 hours on it and wrote about 20,000 lines of Pascal code.
Sharing and Selling the Game
Tim shared his game with friends and kids in his neighborhood. He saw how much they loved playing it. He realized that making games was a way to share something with the world and could also be a good way to earn money. So, he decided to sell the game.
He was inspired by how other companies, like Apogee, sold their games using a "shareware" model. This meant you could get the first part of the game for free, and then pay to get the rest. Tim encouraged people to share the free part of ZZT through different computer networks and bulletin board systems. He ran his company from his bedroom. People would mail orders to his parents' house, and he would send them the rest of the game on floppy disks.
Tim chose the name ZZT so it would be listed last alphabetically in game catalogs. A fan later suggested the funny meaning "Zoo of Zero Tolerance," which Tim liked! ZZT was released on January 15, 1991. The free part included Town of ZZT and the in-game editor. You could order the other official worlds by mail.
ZZT's Lasting Impact
ZZT's success convinced Tim Sweeney that he could make a living in the video game industry. In October 1991, he renamed his company to Epic MegaGames.
Soon after ZZT came out, Tim held a contest for players to design their own worlds. Over 200 people sent in their creations! The best worlds were included in two new game collections, The Best of ZZT and ZZT's Revenge, both released in 1992. The winners received prizes, and some even got jobs at Epic MegaGames!
Tim later asked one of these developers, Allen Pilgrim, to create a world for the sequel, Super ZZT. This game came out on October 15, 1991. Super ZZT was similar to ZZT but had more features, like more colors and new enemies. However, it never became as popular as the original ZZT.
Moving On to New Games
After seeing the amazing worlds the community created, Tim realized that players were making games as good as his own. He also believed that games with better graphics and sound would sell more. So, he decided to move on from ZZT to work on new projects, like Jill of the Jungle.
Tim Sweeney and Mark Rein, another person at Epic, later said that much of the main idea for their famous games like Unreal and the Unreal Engine came from what Tim learned with ZZT. They focused on making games with clean code and good editing tools, so others could easily create their own games.
A Community of Creators
ZZT helped create one of the earliest "modding" communities. This is where players change or add to a game. Many fan-made worlds and editing tools are kept on a fan website called Museum of ZZT. ZZT gave people a way to be creative without needing to be expert artists or programmers. As of 2021, over 3,000 worlds have been made using the editor! Tim Sweeney has even said that tens of thousands of people working in the game industry today first made worlds in ZZT.
There are now special versions of ZZT that let you play its games on Windows computers or in a web browser. Another version, DreamZZT, even lets you play on consoles like the Dreamcast and Nintendo DS. People continue to make new ZZT worlds that go beyond the original game's style. They've created shooting games, puzzle games, complex role-playing games, and point-and-click adventures.
In 2020, a community developer rebuilt and released the original source code for ZZT with Tim Sweeney's permission. Then, on January 28, 2023, the original source code for ZZT 3.0 was officially uploaded to GitHub, making it available for everyone to study and use.
ZZT has inspired other games like MegaZeux and PuzzleScript. Some people have compared ZZT to popular games like Minecraft and Roblox. This is because it also lets players start their journey as game developers. Others have noted how ZZT smoothly blends gameplay and editing, similar to LittleBigPlanet.
