What game is better?

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What game is better?

ZZT
5
42%
ZIG
6
50%
MZX
1
8%
 
Total votes: 12

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Why-Fi
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What game is better?

Post by Why-Fi »

After years working with ZZT, ZIG and MZX, I think it's the time to make this poll...
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gingermuffins
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Post by gingermuffins »

ZIG is God's GCS. A perfect blend of features that allow the creator to express without bogging him or her down with too many pointless bells and whistles. ZIG hosts the finest games ever made: Super Mario ZIG, Planescape: ZIG, Sonic "I Came Buckets of Hedgehog Seed" ZIG. Having trouble making a ZIG game? ZIG will make the game for you. ZIG Composer and ZIGDraw are still used even today by industry professionals. ZIG is fucking awesome, the best of the ZZT clones!!! From now on all of my games will be made with ZIG, and I encourage the ZZT and MZX communities to follow soot.
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Dr. Dos
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Post by Dr. Dos »

ZIG is the clear winner here. The only problem with it is the lack of #change, but really, who needs that when you can go over the bridge and then go UNDER THE BRIDGE?
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Terryn
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Post by Terryn »

ZZT is a pioneer, and as with other pioneers, it's gathering some rust. You can tell that it shined like a glorious beacon back then though. Even though its gameplay, graphics and plot are simplistic, at best, there's a minimalist charm to them and I'm usually feeling like my time spent beating ZZT was worth it.

ZIG is a nice take on the traditional. At first, when I started playing it, I thought to myself: "Oh, geez. It's another game with a silent protagonist from a sleepy hometown. I wonder how many fetch quests it will take him to find love." It took some unexpected twists and surprises, though; I never expected the origins of mysterious Delphio to be what they were, for example. Some experiments failed pretty badly (the depth element in the battle system especially seems tacked on to show that the developers were "innovating") but overall it's an excellent game by talented, experienced devs who wanted to spread their wings a little.

MZX does something new and does it boldly. However, it's a lot more of a personal taste whether you'd enjoy it. There's a lot of micromanaging; this sword will break 8% of the time; this sword has a significantly tighter range of damages; there are far more playable characters than you'll need or even want to develop. However, the devs clearly knew what they were doing in all other factors and MZX shines in the presentation, plot and quality departments. Its gameplay time was clocked at around 78 hours for me after the bonus continent was finished.

All and all, ZIG will appeal to the most people; although it's a bit tried and true in pretty much all senses, it does what it does well. Besides, it's pretty cheap nowadays.
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Quantum P.
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Post by Quantum P. »

ZZT is buggy.
MegaZeux is an old GCS with new features haphazardly tacked on.
ZIG gives you the worst of both worlds.

You can do a lot of cool stuff in MegaZeux, but you can do "enough" in ZZT, and when you make a clever engine that bypasses ZZT's limits, everyone oohs and aahs over it. So, uh, ZZT's my favorite. I think it's largely a matter of personal preference, though.
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Why-Fi
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Post by Why-Fi »

gingermuffins wrote:ZIG is God's GCS. A perfect blend of features that allow the creator to express without bogging him or her down with too many pointless bells and whistles. ZIG hosts the finest games ever made: Super Mario ZIG, Planescape: ZIG, Sonic "I Came Buckets of Hedgehog Seed" ZIG. Having trouble making a ZIG game? ZIG will make the game for you. ZIG Composer and ZIGDraw are still used even today by industry professionals. ZIG is fucking awesome, the best of the ZZT clones!!! From now on all of my games will be made with ZIG, and I encourage the ZZT and MZX communities to follow soot.
Super Mario ZIG??? Where can I get that??? There IS Super Mario MZX, but Super Mario ZIG... If it exists, tell me where to get it.
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Post by Fungahhh »

Enthusiasts have always touted MZX as the best GCS, and they've become more strident and shrill since ZIG's launch. Despite The Guy Who Made ZIG's optimistic predictions and fervent proselytising, ZIG has received a chilly reception in the marketplace.

The reasons are legion: its price tag, the lack of driver support, legacy applications not working on ZIG, and the list goes on.

Is MZX really better than ZIG? Sure. MZX is free, while a flavour of ZIG can be as low as US$99.95 and as high as US$399.95. MZX has a cute teenager for its mascot. Does ZIG even have one? Even if it does, it's surely not as adorable as Exophase?

Let Test Center count the ways.

1. Hardware requirements: MZX doesn't require a lot of memory or the beefiest graphics card on the market just to get up and running.

ZIG's system requirements are high, requiring a "modern" processor (at least a Pentium 4) and 512 Mbytes of RAM, although 1 Gbyte is recommended. The GCS takes up at least 60 GBytes of disk space, and needs at least 64 Mbytes video RAM.

In contrast, some flavors of MZX can run on a box with as little as 64 Mbytes of RAM and a 486 processor. That's MZX with a graphical user interface, too. The common MZX distributions take up only 1.5 Gbytes of disk space.

ZIG's ASCII and the overall user interface look pretty, but it doesn't make work easier. It doesn't make finding a file on the system easier or make an application run faster, does it?

Ironically, all it does is slow down the user because it uses up the system resources. Instead of using the CPU to display graphics, ZIG uses the GPU, which puts a strain on memory. ZIG uses 256 Mbytes just for screen rendering alone, and that's not even at optimum levels. That's a lot of memory just for graphics.

Security is less of a worry to MZX users

2. Security: Antivirus and anti-spyware applications are not necessary on MZX boxes, but are essentially required on ZIG machines.

Granted, one of the reasons MZX is so secure is because malware developers are specifically targeting ZZT GCSs and ZZT applications. That still doesn't change the fact that MZX users do not have to worry about inadvertently downloading spyware, and sysadmins don't log hours cleaning the latest worm off MZX machines.

3. No limitations: MZX doesn't restrict how content is used on the system.

ZIG comes with built-in digital rights management features that are not present on MZX boxes. These DRM features can slow down the computer, cause technical support problems, and conflict with peripheral hardware and existing software.

The fix may be as simple as an upgrade or as complex as replacing the hardware. For example, ZIG has copy protection technology for HD-DVD and Blu-ray disks.

High-quality output paths like audio and video are reserved for protected peripheral devices. This means output quality can be artificially degraded.

On MZX, regardless of the distribution, music will play, movies will run, and software will load. MZX doesn't interfere with legitimate fair-use rights for the content owned by users, majority of whom are honest users. ZIG's DRM can interfere with all kinds of computer use, including the ones that have nothing to do with digital rights.

Related to the first point about system resources, ZIG is continually monitoring itself to ensure compliance. That costs the CPU.

Is ZZT Genuine Advantage a help or a hindrance?

4. It's all Genuine: There's no such thing as MZX Genuine Advantage.

Regardless of what version is installed, or where it came from, a MZX machines will work. There is no risk of losing functionality. ZIG, on the other hand, relies on ZZT Genuine Advantage servers to verify its serial number. And when the servers go down, as it did recently, ZIG users worldwide are locked out of their computers running legitimate copies of ZZT ZIG. Never would have happened with MZX.

5. Get the apps, already: Increasing number of available applications for MZX have made it easier to get away from bloated ZZT applications.

Dislike the ribbon? Abandon The Guy Who Made ZIG Office and come over to Open Office. It has no ribbon and it offers standards-compliant document formats.

ZIG still ships with the cruddy picture editor, Paint. Most MZX distributions come with GIMP 2.2, a powerful application similar to Adobe's Photoshop in terms of it features.

Considering all the trouble Internet Explorer has with security and rendering pages correctly, MZX users don't miss it. Mozilla meets their needs.

So there you have it. MZX is better than ZIG. Doesn't seem to be getting anywhere with that world domination plan, though.
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Why-Fi
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Post by Why-Fi »

Fungahhh wrote:Enthusiasts have always touted MZX as the best GCS, and they've become more strident and shrill since ZIG's launch. Despite The Guy Who Made ZIG's optimistic predictions and fervent proselytising, ZIG has received a chilly reception in the marketplace.

The reasons are legion: its price tag, the lack of driver support, legacy applications not working on ZIG, and the list goes on.

Is MZX really better than ZIG? Sure. MZX is free, while a flavour of ZIG can be as low as US$99.95 and as high as US$399.95. MZX has a cute teenager for its mascot. Does ZIG even have one? Even if it does, it's surely not as adorable as Exophase?

Let Test Center count the ways.

1. Hardware requirements: MZX doesn't require a lot of memory or the beefiest graphics card on the market just to get up and running.

ZIG's system requirements are high, requiring a "modern" processor (at least a Pentium 4) and 512 Mbytes of RAM, although 1 Gbyte is recommended. The GCS takes up at least 60 GBytes of disk space, and needs at least 64 Mbytes video RAM.

In contrast, some flavors of MZX can run on a box with as little as 64 Mbytes of RAM and a 486 processor. That's MZX with a graphical user interface, too. The common MZX distributions take up only 1.5 Gbytes of disk space.

ZIG's ASCII and the overall user interface look pretty, but it doesn't make work easier. It doesn't make finding a file on the system easier or make an application run faster, does it?

Ironically, all it does is slow down the user because it uses up the system resources. Instead of using the CPU to display graphics, ZIG uses the GPU, which puts a strain on memory. ZIG uses 256 Mbytes just for screen rendering alone, and that's not even at optimum levels. That's a lot of memory just for graphics.

Security is less of a worry to MZX users

2. Security: Antivirus and anti-spyware applications are not necessary on MZX boxes, but are essentially required on ZIG machines.

Granted, one of the reasons MZX is so secure is because malware developers are specifically targeting ZZT GCSs and ZZT applications. That still doesn't change the fact that MZX users do not have to worry about inadvertently downloading spyware, and sysadmins don't log hours cleaning the latest worm off MZX machines.

3. No limitations: MZX doesn't restrict how content is used on the system.

ZIG comes with built-in digital rights management features that are not present on MZX boxes. These DRM features can slow down the computer, cause technical support problems, and conflict with peripheral hardware and existing software.

The fix may be as simple as an upgrade or as complex as replacing the hardware. For example, ZIG has copy protection technology for HD-DVD and Blu-ray disks.

High-quality output paths like audio and video are reserved for protected peripheral devices. This means output quality can be artificially degraded.

On MZX, regardless of the distribution, music will play, movies will run, and software will load. MZX doesn't interfere with legitimate fair-use rights for the content owned by users, majority of whom are honest users. ZIG's DRM can interfere with all kinds of computer use, including the ones that have nothing to do with digital rights.

Related to the first point about system resources, ZIG is continually monitoring itself to ensure compliance. That costs the CPU.

Is ZZT Genuine Advantage a help or a hindrance?

4. It's all Genuine: There's no such thing as MZX Genuine Advantage.

Regardless of what version is installed, or where it came from, a MZX machines will work. There is no risk of losing functionality. ZIG, on the other hand, relies on ZZT Genuine Advantage servers to verify its serial number. And when the servers go down, as it did recently, ZIG users worldwide are locked out of their computers running legitimate copies of ZZT ZIG. Never would have happened with MZX.

5. Get the apps, already: Increasing number of available applications for MZX have made it easier to get away from bloated ZZT applications.

Dislike the ribbon? Abandon The Guy Who Made ZIG Office and come over to Open Office. It has no ribbon and it offers standards-compliant document formats.

ZIG still ships with the cruddy picture editor, Paint. Most MZX distributions come with GIMP 2.2, a powerful application similar to Adobe's Photoshop in terms of it features.

Considering all the trouble Internet Explorer has with security and rendering pages correctly, MZX users don't miss it. Mozilla meets their needs.

So there you have it. MZX is better than ZIG. Doesn't seem to be getting anywhere with that world domination plan, though.
What are you talking about? ZIG is free! Just like MZX and ZZT.
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Post by Pancake »

I admire the capabilities of MegaZeux, though I could never figure out anything in it that was more-than-basic. ZZT is buggy as hell at times, but can also be kinda fun. I've never touched ZIG, so I have no opinions on it.
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Post by zamros »

Pancake wrote:I admire the capabilities of MegaZeux, though I could never figure out anything in it that was more-than-basic. ZZT is buggy as hell at times, but can also be kinda fun. I've never touched ZIG, so I have no opinions on it.
FYI ZIG was made by a black man.
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Post by Quantum P. »

Why-Fi wrote:What are you talking about? ZIG is free! Just like MZX and ZZT.
Most of these guys are just joking around.
Last edited by Quantum P. on Tue Nov 27, 2007 6:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by gingermuffins »

ok, serious post:

zzt's limitations demand that the author flesh out what few devices are available, making for strangely good (though frustrating) games such as pop, kudzu, nightplanet, ESP, Rhygar, etc. no longer just a kroz clone, zzt could be used to transport the player into an interesting, interactive landscape. and because of the limitations, the author is *required* to keep the pace, otherwise the game will suck.

As far as engines go, I've always considered that kind of an in-joke. It's funny to make useless things for it, because, well, it just is.

megazeux breaks down these limits and you get something much more versatile but without the form mentioned above. MZX is ZZT on crack and steroids in a roid rage with the flu suffering from a fever dream and there are probably rockets attached to its feet. And overlay and vlayer and sprites and many counters. not that you can't make something good in mzx, far from it. but that enticing, limited form just isn't there.
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Post by Dr. Dos »

Quantum P hates fun :(
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Apologies for the old post you may have just read.
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Post by Quantum P. »

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Post by Fungahhh »

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