more people

[Dr. Dos]

long post

You can't just create a meme.

Except for Bart the General.

And if you could make one from an early zzt game it would be

[Scribbit]

I had an idea last night...

What does a game need to be truly "viral?" Obviously I was a little tired when I posted my earlier rant, you can't just grab a meme and hope it goes somewhere good. Are there any games already here that would get the attention of people who don't already play ZZT? If not, I might need to make one. ZZT needs something easy, short, and catchy that can be used as a banner to spread the word faster.

EDIT: I just saw dos' post. Yeah, that might be a neat line. I'm wondering if there's some way to figure out what type of people would most enjoy ZZT, and create something that helps them find z2. I read that Google once made billboards with really hard math problems, and if you solved it, it lead you right to their employment opportunities information. Is there something simple we can do to help people find z2 without being spammers?

[zamros]

you know, we really do our best to alienate and ostracize any new people that may show up to the zzt community; an influx of new people would be a lot of hard work.

[Scribbit]

You guys nearly alienated me, that's why it took me so long to work up the nerve to post something. Sadly, I imagine not everyone will hang around long enough to work up that nerve.

Any ideas for an abstract "billboard" that will lead interested people to z2? It should be some sort of simple puzzle, so people will be filtered slightly by interest, but not so hard that people will give up on it.

EDIT: or we could just all tell people about ZZT. Word of mouth is how Portal found me, and many other games I've found by linking from similar topics.

[gingermuffins]

seems there's more incentive to leave and never return to z2 than there is to join. talking about ZZT on other forums might increase interest, but a) older people tend to know about zzt and don't care, and b) younger people have better diversions than they did in 1996, or even 2003.

[Scribbit]

But I'm new here, and I'm not bored! There must be a new niche for ZZT somewhere!

I'll do an interest check in similar niches to z2, and see if anyone cares anymore. I hope that it's not a lost cause. I hope ports of ZZT to DS or whatever can at least make it less alien.

But, in all seriousness, is there a better GCE out there that's as easy to use as ZZT? MegaZeux is better, but hard to learn. Adventure Game Studio is easier to learn, but more specific. Flash and Java aren't too hard, but require you to learn a real programming language. Where does ZZT fail, as a game creation system?

[Jotz]

BANG! is a good GCS. Inquire for more details.

[zamros]

Don't listen to Jotz; Bang! is the antichrist

[gingermuffins]

JOTZ POST PICTURES OF YOUR BANG ART PROJECT

[Commodore]

right now probably the best way would be to make more youtube videos of long plays with links to z2 in the notes and list them with lots of inappropriate tags.

[Zandor 12]

Are there any games already here that would get the attention of people who don't already play ZZT?

Aura is one of the more recent games that I've enjoyed. It has a good twitchy/arcade feel to its strategy, and ZZT's save-anytime ability keeps the difficulty manageable. No idea on the game's viral power though, especially since it's a few years old now. Maybe a flash version with a Z2 link? The color changing could be assigned to three keyboard keys, further speeding up the gameplay.

Also I like Commodore's video idea but dislike the cheapness of the inappropriate tags. Videos of the original games that came with ZZT seem like a natural, with normal gameplay and cheatless speedrun versions to appeal to different crowds. What other games would make good videos though? Trippy games like that of Viovis?

[Jotz]

I say we should make games that relate to and extend current events and pop culture. For example, a game set in the future where global warming has driven the human race to widespread chaos, a World War III game based on a Chinese invasion on the U.S., etc. Kind of along these lines, I'm planning on making a sequel to 1984, which would conspicuously be titled "1985". This way, people can satisfy their desire to know the end of every problem in the world, but only through ZZT.

[Dr. Dos]

Aura is one of the more recent games that I've enjoyed. It has a good twitchy/arcade feel to its strategy, and ZZT's save-anytime ability keeps the difficulty manageable. No idea on the game's viral power though, especially since it's a few years old now. Maybe a flash version with a Z2 link? The color changing could be assigned to three keyboard keys, further speeding up the gameplay.

Hey jerk you're only supposed to save in Aura after completing a level.

[Zandor 12]

Savestates lol

But seriously, I don't even remember how I played that game, I just remember enjoying it and then getting severely raped by the head honcho of the green guys.

[Scribbit]

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.