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[Dr. Dos]

The tags thing would be almost ad bad as spamming. I hate it when unrelated videos show up in my searches.

A user called DarkMatt717 has videos of some of the early games, but maybe videos of the newer games would respark interest. I've been thinking of making an Evil Sorcerer's Party walkthrough video, it's a great long game that would make a neat series. Also, I just finished Eli's House but it's insane and I bet there were some secret rooms I missed.

I laughed.

http://zzt.org/dr_dos/ESP01.html
http://zzt.org/dr_dos/ESP02.html
http://zzt.org/dr_dos/ESP03.html
http://zzt.org/dr_dos/ESP03b.html
http://zzt.org/dr_dos/ESP04.html
http://zzt.org/dr_dos/ESP04b.html
http://zzt.org/dr_dos/ESP04c.html
http://zzt.org/dr_dos/ESP04d.html

About 5 people followed it.

[Quantum P.]

I like the idea of doing some recent games. ZZT's music isn't much to boast about, but some of the graphics might woo the ASCII art crowd. Innovative concepts in games (Aura was mentioned) might be good.

Tagging such videos with completely irrelevant tags would be effective at getting random people to watch them, but that's not the same thing as reviving the ZZT community. In addition, I wouldn't want to be dishonest or annoy the people we're trying to recruit. But I do think it would be a good idea to tag them with something people are searching for (e.g., not just "ZZT", but also "speedrun" if it's a speedrun, "retro", etc.).

Also, request for Bang! art exhibition pictures seconded.

[Scribbit]

Wait. Dr. Dos did a pictoral ESP walkthrough? Cool. As soon as I figure out how to record sound on this video capture program I'll make a video. Some games are just better with sound, even if the sound is PC Speaker style.

[Ellypses]

Some games are just better with sound, even if the sound is PC Speaker style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHlizNHirKo

Unless it annihilates every purpose you had for the video.


In a mean time, I'm gonna see if it's possible to shove four zzt episodes in one plastic executable, plus tour...and maybe WCB's zzt episodes too.

Advertising games that you have made could go pretty much anywhere in a sensible spot, btw. Like the user page.

[Zandor 12]

The tags thing would be almost ad bad as spamming. I hate it when unrelated videos show up in my searches.

The farthest we should go in such things is some of the more general categories ZZT falls under like 'Dos' and 'GCS', and some of the tags could apply to the game's subject manner maybe; so I guess I'm in with you and Quantum P on that.

[superbowl shuffle]

I like this thread.

[Scribbit]

I'm using CamStudio to record ZZT videos, but the sound is all screwy and sometimes won't record from the speakers. Is there a better program I could use?

Also, I just looked at Plastic and it seems like, should it ever be completed, it would be exactly the upgrade ZZT could use to get back in the game. Imagine being able to have an object change its own color, or declare custom counters!

[Zenith Nadir]

i've not posted in this thread since i posted to call jotz an idiot, that's not right

the argument always goes "if someone added more features to zzt, it'd turn into megazeux", which i don't think is necessarily the case, it just depends what those features are. the addition of like, five new commands and the ability to #change dark colours would not fundamentally ruin the zzt experience like, say, the extensive #char editing in every mzx game ever except darkness.

wil made a zzt 4.0, but nobody likes it because it expands the amount of space available on one board, but the maximum file size allowed remains the same so it's effectively useless since nobody likes having to use more than one version of something...

[Scribbit]

Yeah. I think Megazeux with it's layers and pushable robots and char editing is just too complicated, but simple stuff like changing background colors and warping the player is just a more efficient version of what can already be done with workarounds. I'd like to see a clone with full backwards compatibility with ZZT, but that also supports at least object libraries, methods, and custom counters. Does such a thing exist?

Also, I was messing around with Plastic and I can't seem to figure out the editor. Is there a way to check tile information like there was in kevedit, so you can see if a given wall is normal or fake and stuff like that?

[Ellypses]

Mmmm...good question...

...

no.


Well that's my experience with it so far, and haven't cared to found a way to identify types, but maybe is...'n such. There's not too bad a differents between kev-edit except some notable things...

W - key opens up a whole box of sex that comes in a form of; Player Think (player object's program functions), Command (customizable commands), Global Code (a program routine that acts immediately after "Play"), Char Set (where you load and make fonts), and Tracks (where you can make music...all night ).

Another is that all tiles can be not only any colour that you choose, but also any character. By selecting a tile group and hold shift when making your selection, you can change a solid, normal, water, bear, tiger, or even the player to any character you choose.

Another is a random feature that I thought it was awesome too is superlink, which is accessed by shift + b. You can add, and link boards of any size on this nice sexy grid. Just think of yourself making a metroid map.

Plastic itself is fully functional as is, just not optimized to its fullest potential.

[Scribbit]

Never saw that superlink thing before. A complete list of recognized keypresses would be nice. I'd post it to the forums at the Plastic website, but the Captcha is broken and there's no way to register.

I played WiL's Plastic Primer, and I like the [#jump] command that lets the player walk onto an object. Useful for custom items, but I imagine it could be used to simulate the player clone transporters. I tried [#put <dir> player], but Plastic doesn't simulate the player clone glitch and just crashed on me. Still, it's reverse compatible with most ZZT commands (It even has both [#if aligned] and [#if alligned]), so I don't have to learn a language from scratch like I would with Megazeux. Many of the added commands are things I intuitively thought should be there anyway, like changing colors and checking direction on aligned and contact. I found the custom chars thing after a little messing around, and it's awesome.

I also found out that this feature broke my title screen animation for 8-legged express because whereas my title screen relied on the distinction between text and walls, Plastic considers text to be a block of custom walls. I fixed it using a workaround that refers to background colors of solid walls.

[Ellypses]

Shit neuga, you catch on quick.
(Not in a sarcastic manner, by the way)

I love plastic, supported plastic. But during the whole scene it seems that I was the only one that's still there with Goldbrick and the site is gone phfft. I couldn't do it alone. Plastic came close to being a new revamp ZZT. A ZZT made for today for 2000. It was reverse compatible (some), it retain zzt-oop and plus some. I mean, what the hell that another GCS have to die?

Great, I'm preaching again. Ignore me.

[Jotz]

I feel you Jur, I feel you. People refuse to use BANG!, and I only have one real life friend that plays my multiplayer games with me, sometimes against his own will.

[Zandor 12]

Plastic sounds interesting, I never did pay much attention to it but now I'm wondering why. A new version that could run ZZT files would be pretty interesting, unless I'm talking out of my ass and it can already do that.

As for additions to ZZT itself, I've thought for awhile now that one that would be nice would be if objects had the capability of detecting what they are being blocked by, say #if blocked n red invisible then something something. More counters and flags would be nice too, since the workarounds can be such a pain (piggybacking more than two flags bloats the code and makes testing a pain). I'm indifferent to board size increases although 32k would be helpful without ruining that ZZT feel, but if somebody worked out a way to break the 300-360k barrier at which ZZT glitches out that'd be cool. Releasing large games in multiple files would be an option and not mandatory. Maybe a #teleport command to avoid having to fuss around with player clones (you could enter x-y-z coordinates with z being an optional variable for the board number). A ZIG-style customizable player object so that engines where the player uses arrows and crap to manipulate an object representing the player wouldn't be necessary would also be pretty neat, although that's starting to wade away from ZZT.

And yeah, modifying #change to allow dark colors would be pretty nice. A few new commands, plus some modifications to a few existing ones to expand their scope and the removal/lessening of a couple of limits would go a long way towards increasing what ZZT can do without making it more complicated or feel fundamentally different to use. Backwards compatibility including existing glitches would be a must for anything new done with ZZT though.

[Zenith Nadir]

first jotz was just feeling jur, and then there was a furpile

pretty soon they were all yiffing