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ZZTcast

ZZTcast is a group project for the venerable ZZT game engine, spearheaded by my friend Mr. SillySticks and organised by me. It is inspired by and based on the ZZTV projects that were created in the late 90s and early 2000s, essentially "ZZT zines" containing anything that participants wanted to create and share with the world.. The project name is a pun on the open source video streaming server software Owncast, and was chosen in a group vote by interested participants.

The ZZTV projects that gave many people an opportunity to create something great in ZZT to share with the world regardless of whether they had the time or motivation to create a full-fledged game or not, and now serve as interesting and amusing time capsules of Internet culture at the time. Given this, it is the perfect idea for a modern day ZZT revival.

Why ZZT?

ZZT is admittedly ancient, but it's also a versatile, simple, and time-tested engine to create games and other projects in. As I am (slowly) trying to catalogue on my ZZT Reviews page, the potential of the game engine is absolutely incredible given the miniscule learning curve. ZZT is also a DOS game and as such it, and any game made for it, can easily be run on just about any operating system via using the DOSBox emulator.

Above all other reasons, I personally still use ZZT to this very day because how much fun it is to create in. The ease of use and the relatively low amount of effort needed to create something of high quality is perfect for allowing myself to be creative without risk of burning out, something that has consistently kept me from attempting to make custom work for any modern game.

I am not familiar with ZZT

Fear not! The sheer simplicity of creating games in ZZT is one of its best points, even if it can seem deceptively complicated at an initial glance. Please check back on this page in a week or so for a link to a tutorial I am working on, outlining everything from basic use of the editor, to a guide on the (bare bones) scripting language, to using external editors!

What sorts of things can I contribute?

Anything! Provided it is in the form of a ZZT game. Typical ZZTV channels included rants, mini-games, ANSI art boards, ZZT game boards, music files, interviews, and various other things, usually with a main board to allow access to each of the individual sections of the channel, although even that is not a necessity. And there is of course no minimum size requirement for submissions, nor any censorship for submissions.

The only real rules are that, as was the tradition for all ZZTVs, every channel must have a name that starts with a number symbol (#) and preferably contains no spaces, and that the "central board" of the channel must have a passage object for allowing the player to return to the main hub board to visit other people's channels. Some historical examples of channel names are: "#gothic ways", "#tus", "#cows", "#womaninthewall", "#oblivion", and "#6". Channels will be put in numerical order on the hub board based on the date of submission, as was traditionally done.

What is the deadline for submissions?

Please try to send in any submission you have by DATE TO BE DETERMINED. If you want to contribute but are unable to meet the deadline, please let me know (please see below).

How do I get in contact?

The best way is to visit the IRC channel for this project, #zzt on KoshkaIRC (irc.koshka.love). Alternately, you can E-mail me. If you require any assistance getting ZZT running, and/or doing anything in ZZT, I would be delighted to be of help on IRC or E-Mail.

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