One of the unique aspects of ZZT is its capacity to be used as a medium for publishing about ZZT itself. Various company magazines, best-practice guides, and reference encyclopedias (collections of cool things you can do) were created throughout the years. However, the drawback of publishing information in this way is that you can't get to it easily without loading the world files in ZZT and actually playing them. The Museum of ZZT File Viewer helps greatly with this visibility problem, but the content is still spread across several publications.

This page will list out the topics of such files, specifically focusing on how-to guides. For company magazines, see: ZZT Magazine Directory

Notes and Warnings

For inquiries on this list, you can contact me. Keep in mind that this is mostly just hyperlinks to content on Museum of ZZT, which I have donated and submitted games to, but do not own or administer.

The Title, Author and Year fields are taken from the Museum of ZZT directly, and could potentially change at any time. In-game copyright notices and such may be different. Worlds are listed by release date of the first version preserved.

Files linked here may contain offensive or NSFW content. They may also contain incorrect information, or just plain bad advice (please do not use any of the ZZT anti-cheat measures described herein).

DEMO.ZZT

Author: Tim Sweeney

Year: 1991

Description: "An interactive demonstration of the properties of various items, creatures and terrains in ZZT."

Museum of ZZT: https://museumofzzt.com/file/z/zzt.zip?file=DEMO.ZZT&board=0

TOUR.ZZT

Author: Tim Sweeney

Year: 1991

Description: This is a sneak peek at the official ZZT worlds (Town of ZZT, Caves of ZZT, City of ZZT and Dungeons of ZZT), with playable demo boards.

Museum of ZZT: https://museumofzzt.com/file/z/zzt.zip?file=TOUR.ZZT&board=0

Board appearances

Town of ZZT
- The Mixer: Tour, Source
City of ZZT
- Bad part of town: Tour, Source
- The Elevator: Tour, Source
Caves of ZZT
- Engineer Required: Tour, Source
- Key Puzzle: Tour, Source
Dungeons of ZZT
- Kennel: Tour, Source
- Dungeons I: Tour, Source

ZZT Editor Trainer

Author: Herbie Piland

Year: 1994

Description: "This Zzt World shows you examples of nearly every command, message, and item on the Zzt Editor!! It goes from simple to complex so no prior use of the Zzt Editor is needed to understand."

Notes: This covers built-in creatures and terrain, but stops short of describing how objects work. There are multiple topics per board. There are two copies of this on the museum dated 1994 and 1995, but the ZZT files are identical.

Museum of ZZT: https://museumofzzt.com/file/z/EDITRAIN.ZIP?file=IA.ZZT&board=0

The UNOFFICIAL ZZT Programming Guide

Author: Corey "Des" Garriott, Mark McIntire and Others

Year: 1996

Description: "Want to begin ZZT programing? This game may silence some discordant items in your games!"

Notes: Seems to start on the wrong board.

Museum of ZZT: https://museumofzzt.com/file/u/coprogram.zip

ZZT Syndromes

Author: Barjesse

Year: 1996

Description: A classic in its own right, Barjesse guides new ZZTers through issues and mistakes that were common in the AOL era.

Museum of ZZT: https://museumofzzt.com/file/z/syndrome.zip

MoZZT Closer Look: https://museumofzzt.com/article/318/closer-look-zzt-syndromes

Topics

Goofy Syndromes

Fatal Syndromes

ZZT Encyclopedia

Author: Chronos30

Year: 1998, 2001

Description: A compilation of tricks, glitches and engine boards.

Notes: There are multiple versions of this preserved, and also earlier versions which are listed in a history file but don't seem to be available. The old version lists Chronos30 and JDMSonic as authors, but Chronos30 is the only author listed on the museum. I'm going to put off looking into this for now, and just list out the contents of the latest release as that seems to have the most utility. Descriptions and cross-referencing will have to wait another day.

Category 1: Colors v1.13

(Title Screen)

Category 2: Player Clone v1.17

(Title Screen)

Category 3: Weapons v1.15

(Title Screen)

Category 4: Counters v1.17

(Title Screen)

Category 5: Flags and Conditions v1.18

(Title Screen)

Category 6: Anti-Cheats v1.2

(Title Screen)

Category 7: Board Edge v1.09

(Title Screen)

Warning, Warning 2
Object 1, Object 2
Border Illusion, Yellow Border
Edge-Board Object
Anywhere Transport 2, Anywhere Transport 2b
Illusion, Board w/passage, Passage lead-in (illusion)
Can't go that way!
Trapped!, Trapped! 2
("Path Revealer") Before, After

Category 8: Randomness v1.13

(Title Screen)

Category 9: Game Engines v1.15

(Title Screen)

Racing Engine
Arcade MaZe!
mIMIC engine
Side scroller
Missiles
Breakout Engine
RPG Battle
Running Battle, Gollum Chow, Up, Up and Away!, End of World
Space Shooter
LoC's UltraJumper
Drawing Engine ][
RPG Battle Engine
ZShooter 2
Drawing Engine
Under Water
dexter's colorlayr
Racing Engine (A different one)
rockpaperscissors
Zombie Crap
Jerina
Sliding Puzzle

Category 10: Objects v1.15

(Title Screen)

Power Armor
#bind
Animation/Marquee
Creditz
1 Object Fire
Stars, Doors, etc.
Clock
Objects
misc
Double touch
Alligned doors
Terminating Loop
Player Death
Object Race
Better combination locks
Put tricks
Diagonal Movement
Cars
Super Speed
untitled (Seems to have duplicate info also appearing in Category 11 Miscellaneous / Messages)

Category 11: Miscellaneous v1.13

(Title Screen)

Cliche: a Guide for the Advanced ZZTer

Author: JoE

Year: 2000

Description: "It's kinda like a sequel to Syndrome. It tells you what NOT to do. Have fun and try to LEARN(barf) something!"

Museum of ZZT: https://museumofzzt.com/file/c/clichegui.zip?file=CLICHE.ZZT

ZZT Crime

Author: Wong Chung Bang, Scorch3000

Year: 2000 (Version 2), 2001 (Versions 5 and 6), 2007 (Version 8)

Description: "A ZZT world for newbies. Points out what not to do in ZZT files."

Museum of ZZT:

Emon's Guild To ZZT

Author: Emon

Year: 2001

Description: "From basic stuff to cool tricks with ZZT-OPP." First topic is rooms with yellow borders.

Museum of ZZT: https://museumofzzt.com/file/e/Emonsguild.zip?file=EMONGUID.ZZT

Mystical Winds Encyclopedia

Author: Nanobot

Year: 2002

Description: "The Mystical Winds Encyclopedia is a collection of various engines and some information about how they work."

Notes: There are versions 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 preserved on the museum site. I compiled a list of board links of the latest version, as with the Chronos30 encyclopedia. More detailed breakdowns will have to wait another day. Part C is just toolkits without commentary, but I've gone ahead with listing them because they include ZZT sound effects as well. This package also contains a number of reference docs and object libraries, which are listed out at the end of this section.

Museum of ZZT: https://museumofzzt.com/file/m/Mwencv14.zip

Part A

(Title Screen)

Game Engines

Anti-Cheats

Counter Functions

Part B

(Title Screen)

Overcoming Limits

Other

Extra

Part C

Toolkits

(Title Screen)

Additional Documents

Note: The museum file viewer doesn't parse .doc files correctly, but they are mostly readable.

mwencv14.txt: Main readme file.

CharMap.txt: Info on the text mode character map
exam.txt: ZZT technical information
mod2zzt.txt: Information on converting MOD tracker music to ZZT #play commands.
MW Command Reference
MW Direction Reference
MW Element Reference
MW File Format
MW Label Reference
MW Location Reference
MW Operator Reference
MW Quick Reference
MW Status Reference
MW Template Reference
MW Terminology
MW Tips & Tricks (Note: This link doesn't go directly to the document because of the ampersand in the URL.)
oop4ever.txt: "This describes a recognizable line of ZZT-OOP. It is in standard DOS parameter format."
zexeinfo.txt: ZZT.EXE Modification
zztop.txt: Explains the inner workings of some ZZT behaviors.

ZZL Object Libraries

ZZT Pro

Author: ChocoboKick, Kjorteo, Celine Kalante

Year: 2005

Description: "This is a how-to help utility world along the lines of ZZT Syndromes by Barjeese and ZZT Crime by Wong Chung Bang. ZZT Pro is essentially supposed to pick up where these two fine games left off."

Museum of ZZT: https://museumofzzt.com/file/z/zztpro.zip?file=zztpro.zzt

ZZT Programming Tricks and Techniques

Author: zzo38

Year: 2018

Description: A newly-minted ZZT-on-ZZT world!

Museum of ZZT: https://museumofzzt.com/file/z/zztptt.zip

ZZT On ZZT