Ellypses' Cluster F-'uv Gaymz

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Ellypses
Whaf yew vauhnt?
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Ellypses' Cluster F-'uv Gaymz

Post by Ellypses »

To ZZT or not to ZZT? It's a question I'm now telling myself after pretty much at "post-moved on" to doing something else. Many factors aligned itself for me to justify my reason to just...quit working on shit involving the GCS towards the end of the decade. Number one, is I was in a exhausting rat race in the real world which left me physically broken and nothing's really worth wild for me that draws me back or care about doing anything here. And number two is I'm such an artisan when it comes to ZZT.
Watching people play using Dosbox grosses me the hell out. It made carefully worked engines hiccup, poot, and rattle lethargically as they work which made using them generally drives me up the wall exorcist style. In ways, it makes newer users blind to the efforts, feel and truer functionality of how the engine should works and think that all the random slowdowns and off-cycled spasm is how it supposed to be. Third, ZZT have to be accessible and if you're not PC salve or know what you're looking for, it can be exclusively niche. "I ain't jumping through hoops to install and play ZZT when I can get something similar. Just go to digitalmzx then download zeux and play right out the box.......motherfu-

The mood returns however, but the taste has expanded in using, if not one day develop my own fantasy computer/console for projects. The nostalgic feel of working with limits and convenient pre-packaged features within its IDE is what also drove me to develop games on ZZT in the first place. It was fun to discover new grounds that others have yet charted which in turn could encourage those to explore those paths on their own as well. But my way of thinking have changed however to be more zen focus and a place of solace while tempering my craftsmanship and just fuel my passion to express and create. To be added amongst those authors that laid their own "fingerprints" with their diverse unique art-style, techniques, and niches. The divergence and audacity nature was another key factor that attracted me to step in to the community itself, but it's following from bad times I had in my personal life. That was a thing then. And sticking my head in a GCS is a means to escape, though distraction provided was dwindling..

In my first list of games I've done a decade ago, they were all simultaneously being designed and developed. By 2010, all of the planning for all the game came to a close and I could work on every single one of them back to back to back. That would had happened if not for the lack of access to a true DOS environment when my original laptop died, and the hard drive crash of my old IBM PS/1. With little knowledge of emulations or alternatives and my once fervent enthusiasm plummeted to zero, I simply said, "Fuck it". Life demanded more of my time than to go back to my escape which was a poor choice in my part, as I paid a price for my workaholic nature. Lessons and experience have to be learned sooner or later, as I have to be weary of how I live and taking care of my health.

As time went on in my personal growth and evolution, paths drawn me to revisit my old passion, a mossy pyre that laid half used in it's undergrowth, too distinct to be forgotten. With my best friend in my party, I uncovered the mount and introduce it's history to her, from commodore 64 text-base adventures to an 2004 HP laptop with zzt and megazeux. Definition of nostalgia cannot be truer as seas of emotions wash over me. As I dig through the ruins of arcane tombs of drawings and spells that could build planes of adventure, something within me kindled. If not for this respite I would had kept soldiering. But in that pain a forgotten love lit up.

..It wasn't ZZT.

You may think that's a bad punchline but it's only a fraction of it. In a whole, it's the creative passion through simplistic expression. To build things in an abstract manner. A simulation of art. Poetry. Prototyping! A brain-gasm! It's simply a carefree approach to weaving and fabricating minimalist worlds. I miss that.... And I'm making it a personal journey to return to my roots and share it to those thata happens to cross my path.

So....AJ, are you gonna list a new set of games you're working on? ....Nope. Not this time but rather be posting dev logs to what I have whether it be for ZZT, a different platform or just art. I have a vast wiggle room for my future projects and just focus on enjoying zenful creative expression. To tell a story, emulate nostalgia, weave a GDD, or simply cathartic release of creativity. And share that tapestry with you.
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Ellypses
Whaf yew vauhnt?
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Re: Ellypses' Cluster F-'uv Gaymz

Post by Ellypses »

With that said, it safe for me to say I'm starting fresh with a few of my project. Older ones may make a return with some vast changes and cancelled projects could re-entering the roster. I'm also relinquishing dependencies on crafted engines and let the GCS do what it does best on it's own. It is to say, if the engine cripples dosbox, then I won't use it. It doesn't mean total disregard of engines, but they are kept at a minimum and the game itself have to perform reasonably without vast tinkering with the dos emulator.
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Appetite4
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Re: Ellypses' Cluster F-'uv Gaymz

Post by Appetite4 »

Jur, life always gets in the way of making a game. My own productivity in terms of games I created started at a titanic rate and was reduced to a trickle as my professional career displaced the creative energy I would have otherwise used.

I say, no big deal. There still exist ZX Spectrum, Atari, and C64 hobbyists who still develop for these systems despite a lack of convenient hardware to play and test them. Some people still collect legacy gramophone cylinders. Not a big tent, but certainly a passionate one.

What ZZT did for all of us is what truly counts. Try as we might, we aren't the true masters of either our own art or our own culture. It develops in ways no one can anticipate. Fads come and go. Arguments ebb and flow.

But it certainly is a great thing that you and others have created these titles to begin with. Even greater that they're hosted online--one of the reasons I enthusiastically support Dr. Dos and the Museum of ZZT.

We should look back on our repertories with however much pride we think is warranted. The good, the bad, whatever. Take all of it in. I'm just glad if I can occasionally tear the young'uns away from Minecraft to show them ZZT.
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Dark-Star2018
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Re: Ellypses' Cluster F-'uv Gaymz

Post by Dark-Star2018 »

I know all too well the pain of being left behind by the unrelenting march of technology. I'm in the process of "stripmining" my old Windows 98se machine. Recently I went to pull images of a floppy disk for a DOS game that is almost unfindable online...only to find out I didn't even have a working floppy drive. When I grabbed that old beast from my parents house, literally just the sounds of it booting up brought back so many memories I frickin' cried.

It stinks worse than a bevy of dead skunks. But between a new wife, a new apartment and new employment if my idiot mangers drive the company into the ground at year's end I just don't have the time or energy. That old beast that is my last link to DOS hadn't even been booted up in two years. Space is at an absolute premium with two people living in the same place and I can barely justify keeping my old XP machine for backwards compatibility.

We can't finish every project or stop new things from displacing the old. But what we can do is try to keep the old relevant. Old friends, old communities, old games, old memes. All worth keeping. And that's coming from someone who's already lost several of the above forever.
Energizer - you are invincible
ZZT @narchists unite! Turn off the dark, get free money, defeat death itself!
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