z2

A lot of the language in early ZZT games (pre-STK) appears to have major influences from High Fantasy in its writing style, including using eccentric grammar and hard-to-find words.
Is there a D&D or Rogue-like influence in early ZZT games, and if so, what's the explanation?

In the earliest days of ZZT, the audience skewed older and more technical, since getting ZZT meant using BBSes more than anything else. In the early 90s RPGs weren't as big of a genre as they are today, and so those who were into them were going to find them more on computers with things like the Ultima series as well as DnD like you suggested. RPGs are also a genre that (especially in the early days) was designed for an older audience than kids with console games. PCs were expensive, and those with access to one were likely older/wealthier at the time than ZZTers of the late 90s.

Final Fantasy 7 was the huge explosion in terms of mainstream appeal for RPGs, but you can see a lot of influence on a younger crowd being inspired by FF4J/FF6J (FF2US/FF3US), particularly in the MegaZeux community where making a decent RPG was significantly more viable.

So in the early 90s you wind up with Beth Daggert's Ezanya where she had already written games in pure assembly for the Apple 2 before working with ZZT, whereas for those finding it over the Internet, ZZT was often their introduction to programming.

Today, things are once again skewing older both due to the age and appearance of ZZT, but also because the process of getting it to run is more complicated than it was 20 years ago where you could just doubleclick ZZT.EXE and be playing.

Dos that's a great write up, but you omit one critical point: We're all a bunch of huge nerds!

Personally I'd venture text-adventure games were a part of it, especially 'classical' horror/fantasy oriented ones.

Thanks for your responses. Commodore's comment gave me a good laugh.

It's not exactly something that has faded by the time SuperZZT came around-- the 'town' of SuperZZT starts you off with the ole' 'you got thrown in the dungeon and must escape', at least one magic dragon, and the classic "take what you need, but don't touch the priceless shiny gem(s)... or else" trip. On that note, what the heck is a grue?

A grue is a creature from Zork that lives in the dark. If you are in a dark room without a light you get the message: "It is dark. You might be eaten by a grue." There is a miniscule chance you will just die in a dark room basically. So as darkstar says, text adventures were probably an inspiration too.

Fun fact: grues first appeared in a novel from the 1950's:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Earth