ZZT On ZZT
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).
Roadmap
World | Board / Contents Listing | Details and Categorization |
---|---|---|
DEMO.ZZT | X | |
TOUR.ZZT | X | |
Learn ZZT | ||
ZZT Editor Trainer | X | |
ZZT Syndromes | X | |
The UNOFFICIAL ZZT Programming Guide | X | |
ZZT Encyclopedia | X | |
Cliche: a Guide for the Advanced ZZTer | ||
ZZT Crime | ||
Emon's Guild To ZZT | ||
Mystical Winds Encyclopedia | X | |
ZZT Pro | ||
ZZT Programming Tricks and Techniques | WIP |
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
Contents
Items
- Items Main Page
- Ammo
- Torches
- Dark Rooms
- Gems
- Scrolls
- Bombs
- Keys
- Doors
- Duplicators
- Energizers
Creatures
- Creatures Main Page
- Centipedes
- Bears
- Ruffians
- Lions
- Tigers
- Objects
- Slimes
- Spinning Guns
- Pushers
- Sharks (No subscreen.)
Terrains
- Terrains Main Page
- Water
- Forest
- Solids
- Breakables
- Fakes
- Normals
- Boulders
- Invisible walls
- Sliders
- Blinkwalls (Blinker)
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
- City of ZZT
- Caves of ZZT
- Dungeons of ZZT
Learn ZZT
Author: Chris Jong
Year: 1992
Description: "By the time you finish playing this tutorial, you should be able to create your own simple games to start out with."
Notes: Demonstrates various ZZT-OOP commands.
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.
Contents
Board 1
Board 2
Board 3
- Lesson 5: Breakable Walls and Ammo and Bombs
- Lesson 6: Invisible Walls
- Lesson 7: Blink Walls + Lesson 8: Text + Lesson 9: Gems (Three topics in one object)
- Lesson 10: Water
- Lesson 11: Duplicators ( or Doublers )
Board 4
Board 5
- Lesson 15: Spinning Guns and Stars
- Lesson 16: Ricochets
- Lesson 17: Movers ( Conveyors )
- Lesson 18: Forests
- Lesson 19: Pushers
- Lesson 20: Energizers
- Lesson 21: Transporters
Board 6
- Lesson 22: Slimes
- Lesson 23: Sharks
- Lesson 24: Lions and Ruffians
- Lesson 25: Bears
- Lesson 26: Tigers
- (Conclusion)
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
- Big-empty-room Syndrome and Yellow-border Syndrome
- Big-pile-of-monsters Syndrome
- I-gotta-fill-in-the-board Syndrome
- A demonstration of Creative Contours
- One-way-board Syndrome
- Outta-sync-doors Syndrome
- ie-Ca'nt-spel Syndrome
- Zero-plot Syndrome
- Poor-man-with-a-big-dog Syndrome
Fatal Syndromes
- Not-enough-ammo Syndrome
- Not-enough-health Syndrome
- Overwhelming Opposition Syndrome
- Too-many-stars Syndrome
- Tryme-trap Syndrome
- Gimme-money Syndrome
- Ping-pong-path Syndrome
The UNOFFICIAL ZZT Programming Guide
Author: Corey "Des" Garriott
Year: 1996
Description: "Want to begin ZZT programing? This game may silence some discordant items in your games!"
Notes: Describes itself as an 'intermediate' tutorial. The preserved copy seems to start on the wrong board. This is divided into a beginner section and then an intermediate section, both available from the intro board. Additional authors listed in-game: Mark McIntire and Others.
- Museum of ZZT: https://museumofzzt.com/file/u/coprogram.zip
Contents
- (Title Screen)
- hello! (Seems to be the proper start board)
Part 1
- Learning Change Command
- Learning Play Command
- Learn to make doors
- Learn enemy object making
- Learn good puzzle skills
- Learn to lock!
- Ending Sequence
- Goodbye! (1)
Part 2
- Generation Two
- Advanced Play Command
- Coloring Techniques
- Advanced Object Accessories
- Object Accessories TWO
- Put COMMAND
- Logo Building
- Helpful Hints
- Char/Set/Lock/Bind/Zap Commands
- Boringness
- The END
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
- Fades
- Glowing
- #put any color
- #color 1
- #color 2
- Other colors
- Color flashes
- Color sensor
- Keep Background
- Carpet
- Text colors (updated)
- Activated Fades
- Scroll Random
- Color Password
Category 2: Player Clone v1.17
- Object Transporter
- Give items
- Step Logger
- Coordinates
- Anywhere Transport 3
- directtype
- Key Transport
- #put LitBomb (old)
- Illusion, Illusion Room, Board w/passage
- Faster torch/energize
- #put LitBomb
- Anywhere Transport 2, Anywhere Transport 2b
- Anywhere Transport, New Board
- Direction Logger
- Bullet Logger
- Space Bar
- NextBoard Transport, Next Board
- Shooting Scrolls
- Player hold engine
Category 3: Weapons v1.15
- Sword Engine
- Bomb Engine
- Machine Gun
- Grenades
- Better Bombs
- Anti-Shoot
- Nukes
- Indestructible Bombs
- Boomerang B
- Boomerang Engine
- Weapon Selector
- 6-Shooter
- SEEK Bug
- Enemy Ammo
- Infinite Ammo
- Wave Gun
- Super driller
- Remote Mines
Category 4: Counters v1.17
- Shopping
- Time A
- Counter Testing
- Time B, Time B 2
- Counter Setting
- Counter Flags
- Counter Maximum
- Status Engine
- Random Powerups
- Display Fixer
- #set health to
- T Pressed
- Inventory B
- Torch menu
- Game SuperSpeed
- Multi Value Gems
- Counter-to-counter test
- Physical counters
Category 5: Flags and Conditions v1.18
- Flag Counters
- Counter Flags
- Composer's Engine, Composer's Room
- Pressure Plates
- Forest-to-Floor
- Color Sensor
- Memory Saving Tips
- AND
- #if at south edge
- If at edge
- Inventory Engine
- Custom Cheats
- Help File
- Password, Password ][
- Search
- Portable Store
- Quadrant Sensor
- Cross world item engine
Category 6: Anti-Cheats v1.2
- Anti-flag cheat
- Anti-Zap 1
- Anti-Zap 2
- Anti-KEYS
- Anti-Dark
- Anti-gems
- Anti-health
- Anti-editor
- Anti-unlock
- Anti +-Flagname 2
Category 7: Board Edge v1.09
- 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
- Random Place, Random Place 2
- Bomb random
- Random Fighter
- Card
- Odds
- Shapeshifter
- Random slot machine
- Spider Web Engine
- Random Duplication
- General Randomness
- Timing slot machine
- dexter's gamething
- SEEK randomness
- Randomizer
Category 9: Game Engines v1.15
- 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
- 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
- Messages
- Special Characters
- File Reading
- No Sound
- Moving Sharks
- Sound Effects
- Disappearing Path
- Clear message
- Runtime me!
- Paused Transport
- black wall method 1
- black wall method 2
- Slime Tricks
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."
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.
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
Game Engines
Anti-Cheats
Counter Functions
- MW Math Functions
- MW Set To Zero
- MW Set Counter
- MW Value Exchange
- MW Set Max Value
- MW Set Min Value
- MW Binary Conversion
- MW Password
Part B
Overcoming Limits
- MW File Access
- MW Diagonal Movement
- MW More In-Game Colors
- MW New Elements
- MW Auto-Pause 1/2, MW Auto-Pause 2/2
- MW Give Any Item
- MW Remote Placement
Other
- MW Puzzle Techniques
- MW Text Attributes
- MW Player Coordinates
- MW Fading Bombs
- MW Painter By Player
- MW Submitted - Pachinco Machine
- MW Submitted - Dig Engine
- MW Submitted - Bullet Dodge AI
- MW Submitted - Randomizations
Extra
Part C
Toolkits
- Mystical Winds TK - Items
- Mystical Winds TK - Creatures 1
- Mystical Winds TK - Creatures 2
- Mystical Winds TK - Terrain
- Mystical Winds TK - Text(AllClrs)
- Mystical Winds TK - Object Speeds
- Mystical Winds TK - LitBomb Fuses
- Mystical Winds TK - Duplicators
- Mystical Winds TK - Hidden Things
- Mystical Winds TK - Art Set
- Mystical Winds TK - Art Set Adv.
- Mystical Winds TK - Ultimate Art
- Mystical Winds TK - Obj. Lib 1.4A
- Mystical Winds TK - Obj. Lib 1.4B
- Mystical Winds TK - Smooth Shades
- Mystical Winds TK - RainbowLayout
- Mystical Winds TK - Txt/Clr Grid
- Mystical Winds TK - CharSummary 1
- Mystical Winds TK - CharSummary 2
- Mystical Winds TK - ZZT Sounds
- Mystical Winds TK - All IG Colors
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: "Here are many kinds of tricks and techniques that may be used in ZZT. Some of them need external editors such as ZZTQED (which was used to make this world file). There are a lot of possibilities! Look at many of these programs using the editor to see how they work. If you are reimplementing ZZT, it might also help to look at these things, to see if they function properly."
Notes: Boards contain multiple subsections arranged by category.
- Museum of ZZT: https://museumofzzt.com/file/z/zztptt.zip
Contents (incomplete)
Arithmetic
- Greater than variable?
- Greater than constant?
- Double
- Binary storage
- Half
- Use of the TIME counter
- Take 1 of each
Flags and counters
- Fake walls
- Colours of objects
- Numeric flags
- Other board, Extra room for flags
- Doubling counters
- Invisible walls
- Messages
- Flag limits
- Repurposing counters
Strange directions
- Animation (of idle transporters)
- Blink walls (with tweaked XY steps)
- Sensors (remote #if blocked <dir> check using tweaked XY steps)
- Remote #PUT
- Pusher interleave
- Duplicators
- Teleporting program (object tunneling through solid terrain with tweaked XY steps)
- Diagonal bullets
- Two hits (Separate board. Demonstrates an example of storing state with remote #put commands in the context of object binding.)
- Three hits (Separate board, similar to "Two hits")
Teleportation
- Auto board teleport (Using a duplicator, player clone and edge tile)
- (Unnamed) "Elbow" transport (Using objects and sliders to push a player through multiple transporters at once to travel down a non-straight path.)
- Location teleport (The classic player clone teleport)
- Unseen passage
- Noiseless teleport (On a subscreen.) This is the technique seen frequently in FlimsyTown to preserve the player's board position when traveling via edge tile.
- Programmed teleport (On a subscreen.) Places two player clones next to two passages such that moving in any direction causes the player to warp to another board.
Stats and statless elements
- (Board intro) Outlines the contents of this screen, and includes some information on player clones.
- The following statless elements are demonstrated along the top of this board:
- WALLS
- DUPLICATOR
- SHARK
- BLINKWALL
- "(none)" (Horizontal blinkwall ray) (ID 33)
- "(none)" (Vertical blinkwall ray) (ID 43)
- PUSHER
- OBJECT
- "(none)" (ID 46)
- CREATURES
- LION
- TIGER
- RUFFIAN
- BEAR
- SEGMENT
- HEAD
- BULLET
- OTHERS
- "(blankname)" (Board edge) (ID 1)
- STAR
- PASSAGE
- SCROLL
- WALLS
- Changing destinations (shifting a passage onto a new stat with a different board destination)
- Scrolls:
- Stat breakables
- Stat boulders
- Stat inheritance
- Instant explosives!
- More explosives (Subscreen)
Centipedes
- (Board introduction)
- Remote (Bomb linked to a segment)
- Intelligence
- Reversal (Includes a stat slider as segment)
- Moving stuff (Includes stat ricochets and a transporter as segments)
- Sleeping
Darkness
- (Board intro)
- Torch outline mask
- Statless player clone mask
- Revealing hidden torches with stat inheritance
- Pushing statless player clones to move visible entities in the dark
Miscellaneous
- Locked player movement
- Program colours: Method 1, Method 2
- Enter board triggers (Subscreen)
- Gate
- Warnings (Subscreen) (Touching a scroll on the edge of a connected board)
- Password (Subscreen)
- #BECOME colours
- Fast energy (Subscreen) (Consuming energizers faster with player clones)
- Messy lines (#change line line)
- Fast movement
- Put colours
Undocumented features
- Ricochet
- SEEK
- #GIVE/#TAKE
- Put next to south edge -- Demonstrates that #put along the bottom row is not possible.
- #CHANGE and #PUT
- #IF ANY and Monitors
- Duplicators and Edges
- #RESTART -- Includes notes on zapping restart as a label.
- #SEND
- Cheat codes -- Small addendum: though I'm not sure how useful this is, the cheat prompt is accessible on the title screen by pressing the "|" key.
Blink walls
- Fakes
- Recolouring
- Preset beams
- Stat beams
- Unblocked west (Player being pushed onto other entities by a vertical blinkwall ray)
More miscellaneous
- Passages (Under element following the player upon stepping off a passage)
- Star field
- Disappearing passages (When stepping off of one and onto another. Additionally, demonstrates some odd behavior with stats underneath the destroyed passages.)
- False room (Subscreen with explanation)
Listing is incomplete, more on the way soon!