sweet dreams

Back in early 2021 I felt the urge to make a ZZT world under two arbitrary constraints:

1. The filesize should be less than 10KB.
2. The world sould be made using the built-in ZZT 3.2 editor.

I'm not sure why I picked those constraints, but the general concept for the game coalesced in my mind almost immediately. I quickly drafted up some plans, and proceeded to work in a stream-of-consciousness style manner until I ran into a creative roadblock (right after finishing a board named "light congestion", fittingly enough). The project sat on the backburner for several months until the end of the year when the final ideas finally came together. I was very glad that I could wrap a bow on the project before the end of the year.

Working with vanilla ZZT's editor without relying on external "toolkits" was artistically freeing. By reducing the amount of colors and visual flourishes I could use, and removing the incentive to write dozens of pages of inane text, I was able to free myself from the dreaded taskmaster of "polish". Sure, the end result is perhaps a tad light, but it's as light as I intended, and I could just let it be that and nothing more.

In terms of interpretation, I offer none. I'd rather hear what you think.

Stats

• Filesize: 7455 bytes
• Boards: 11
• Largest Board: 806 bytes
• Smallest Board: 409 bytes

Trivia

I was able to get around some ZZT color limits by placing elements with non-standard colors and having an object run a few #change commands upon board entry. I got a lot of mileage from energizers and doors this way. Technically, it might be possible to collect an energizer if you're quick enough...

I reused the "fish" pattern in SAM-GIG.ZZT on the swimming pool board, but it was rotated 90 degrees and only constituted a small part of the board, so I'm not sure if anybody noticed.

Fan Art

A lovely friend of the site, neen, made some nice SNES resolution fanart of this:

I just think they is neat. :)