z2

Hey all,

Seeing that thread with the big ZZT Zip uploaded by Hubz got me thinking about the ZZT files that have been lost to the sands of time over the years due to things like Knightt refusing to use Z2 and the AOL libraries going belly up and things like that. It pains me to think that there are ZZT games just floating around unused and unseen forever. I'm starting this thread to list the rare ZZT games that we wish we could see again.

Personally I don't have much on my list aside from the Los Refritos games that were never uploaded to Z2. I believe there were 9 in total, but Z2 only has 1, 6 and 9, because gchucky only ever uploaded them to his person webspace. I see that the Hubz zip has "lr7.zip" which may be a previously lost game (or not). Also, a game my older brother made that was on the AOL libraries called "Die, Scum, Die!" (IIRC it was "SCUM.zzt") has eluded me for what is now literally decades.

So, here's the list. I'll edit this post with updates if anyone else has a game to add.

Die, Scum, Die!
Los Refritos 2
Los Refritos 3
Los Refritos 4
Los Refritos 5
Los Refritos 7
Los Refritos 8

I personally cannot remember many of the games I have used to play. It was a period where I played a bunch of ZZT, took a long break then played again. I do remember that I got the majority of my games from some chocobo site that I don't even remember if it is still up. I was still just a child

I think the old chocobo.org archive was the basis for the ZZT archive which became z2.

I've got a few listed on the Museum site that I found evidence of when auditing the copy of z2's own database it's based on. Corrupt zips, and a file files getting overwritten by sharing filenames. https://museumofzzt.com/lost-worlds

At least a few Stupid RPG games were recovered since "Take my games off z2" was just removing the database entry and leaving the zips in the zgames folder. (See https://museumofzzt.com/file/s/srpg123.zip if you want your Stupid RPG fix.) The same also applies to lots of Nanobot's stuff. That also has me wondering how much ZZT content was uploaded to ZeuxWorld in the mid 2000s that wasn't added to z2.

Hubz's collection is uncanny in how complete it is when I've hoped it to be. Since so much of it was downloaded when the games were brand new there's a lot of old versions preserved (Myth's Fred series, the non-remix versions of Jami's Undercity and Boof).

There's some stuff which is sort of lost, but not completely, like the rest of the ASCII Maker series. Each release includes copies of all the previous versions so that content is still out there, just not in its original form (though most likely it is identical between versions).

http://if.digitalmzx.net/24hoz-1998.shtml The first every 24 Hours of ZZT zip on the IF page lists a lost game from the competition. For non-game content, copies of judges scores for those old contests is definitely on my most wanted list.

It would be great if there's a server rack out there that has the old AOL stuff. I'm sure lots of people have lost things from those old servers they'd like to find, not just zzt stuff. I looked into the archived client but can't really tell if they actually have old files.

I really hope that AOL stuff gets discovered some day. My first QBASIC adventure game is lost in that muck.

newt wrote:I really hope that AOL stuff gets discovered some day. My first QBASIC adventure game is lost in that muck.

Best wishes man. I lost a fair amount of original material, friends and dozens of wonderful unique websites when Geocities got shut down. :drussrox: you, Yahoo.

After looking into it, i found the page!

https://web.archive.org/web/20050624090 ... tz/zzt.htm

q2k2k wrote:After looking into it, i found the page!

https://web.archive.org/web/20050624090 ... tz/zzt.htm

Nicely done!