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ZZT (1991)

by Epic Games

Genres:Role-playing (RPG), Adventure, Platform

Themes:Action, Fantasy

Game modes:Single player

Story:A DOS-based ASCII game creation program. Built for simple, top-down shooter or adventure games, with a built-in object-based programming language for added complexity.

Added by @dnovraD

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February 16, 2025

Already released and available on the Epic Games Store, ZZT is the flagship of Epic's shareware back catalogue. Essentially an RPG engine rendered in the ASCII symbol set, ZZT shipped with four worlds at launch (five, if you include the demo world for the other four), Town of ZZT, Caves of ZZT, City of ZZT and Dungeons of ZZT. ZZT was hugely popular at the time thanks to it's built in editor and programming language allowing people to make their own worlds, stories and campaigns. This community of world builders even had their best productions published by Epic following two contests a few years after the game's release, resulting in The Best of ZZT and ZZT's Revenge. Epic themselves followed up with a sequel, Super ZZT, which was graphically different, but basically more ZZT adventures. The community surrounding ZZT (much like Doom's community) still lives on, producing new worlds and adventures, while archiving the thousands that exist through the Museum of ZZT website. I spent my time playing and making worlds back in the days, meeting the colourful chracters like the ZZT bandit, doing battle with dragons in a castle's basement and solving the puzzles and riddles, like breaking into the bank of ZZT. Even it's lack of music (technical limits of the time restricting it to the bleeps of the PC speaker), could not stop me becoming immersed in it's worlds. I learned the easy to grasp scripting language, dabbling and experimenting in the editor, before eventually scouring what the community had to offer, and finding some wild and worthy new adventures to experience. Considering that ZZT is already digitally released on Epic's own store, GOG being able to get this shareware gem from Epic's back catalogue should hopefully not be too tough of a task, allowing the GOG retro enthusiasts to experience one of Epic's best early offerings, with the included editor and wealth of user-created content available it would be a worthy game to pull from gaming's past.

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