That's how versatile it can be.Īs already mentioned, ZZT uses the ASCII graphical standard to make games. Excluding FPS, I believe most people would be able to create any genre of game given enough time. The others range from action shooters and dungeon crawls, to platformers and puzzlers. I would say, at a guess, about half of ZZT games can be described as RPGs. With these workarounds and a bit of know how, ZZT can turn into whatever you want it to be. Luckily, some clever git called Greg Janson made a utility using just ZZT that created ten times more colours 3 years after its original release. Seven colors is not enough to make good look graphics. For example, the actual ZZT program gives you 7 colors. This may seem like a horrible thing, but its this constant reinvention that's kept ZZT alive. In some places it is very limited, to the point of making it impossible to create certain games. The main challenge with ZZT is not the language itself, but the limitations, and finding new ways to work around them. Most of the commands involve setting a few flags, and testing to see what the player is doing. You don't need amazing logic or a diploma in computer science to become proficient at OOP, just an hour of free time and a bit of common sense. ZZT does have a programming language - called ZZT OOP - but if BASIC is the bike, ZZTOOP is the stablizer.

Note, however, the use of the word 'Written' and not programmed.

In fact, there are almost 2,000 available on the internet, and countless more that have been lost into the midsts of time. There are so many other, better games out there written by other people. Let's get one thing straight - judging ZZT by it's original package of Epic puzzle games is like judging the entire FPS genre on 'Daikatana'. If it wasn't for the editor, ZZT would have died a long time ago, another tombstone in the graveyard of late eighties / early nineties ASCII games.

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