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I was excited for this one, as I remembered really enjoying your 2.4 hour jam entry. This one has some similar vibes with weird science and unexpected traveling.

The burger minigame at the start was great, and the way it was revisited multiple times was really clever. For a game where most boards were just a single row of characters, you had an impressive amount of variety included, even when repeating screens in alternate universes. The way the game kept surprising me with its changes and the ways I begin to loathe repeat visits to places like the forest are a clear sign that your repeating dimensions were very well executed.

I made a sandwich today and all I could think about was that burger construction engine. Sunday night is pizza night FYI. (I'm glad I don't have to be the one to experiment with zeepza.)

Also the glimpses of 2D in the ending after a game of 1D boards really made them pop in a good way. Oh, the BBS posts were a lot of fun too, I'm sorry that I missed one. Part of me wants to suggest using different background colors per-universe, but I bet I still would have accidentally ran past the one I missed.

My only real complaint is that Harambe humor never felt good to me even then, and feels very out of place with the rest of the game's tone.

Yerbity Flerbity.

I never had a lot of exposure to MZX games of the 90s being too much of a baby to know what "conventional memory" meant. This feels like something that would show up on a ZZT Sunday stream of something from the AOL days.

When I heard this game had ties to Magic Quest and that people were missing out on something about it, I assumed that it was something too well hidden. But you named somebody gmail.com and I think that should clue people in. Given what little else is there, I'm surprised people took awhile to notice, such is the challenge of setting up an ARG I guess.

Like <s>Internet Explorer</s> Edge being the web browser of choice to download Firefox with, Yum Yum Town is a great way to find a zip file's password.

Love the name Yum Yum town too.

this is just a rip off of aura u faker

This is more of a mindfreak of a game than anything else. Exploring the already explored, long (probably not long) after its been left to decay makes for a good premise, and a healthy amount of time passed between this and the first Banana Truck game that I was able to feel like I was in a familiar space, but not one that I had a strong memory of. It was cool to get my bearings, remember a neat board coming up, and then see its fate.

I'm glad the Wheelers are okay.

The breakdown effect scratches an ADOM itch for me, and I had to stop myself from making jokes about not having the trident of the red rooster.

I had the thought before of how you might get web Zeta and ZZT to communicate with the webpage surrounding it, and was really excited to see that somebody finally did, and with a lot more crossing mediums than I'd have imagined such a game to have. Had it just been the flies alone, I'd be impressed, but more and more kept happening, and the game really captured the chaos and stress of trying to get things out of a state of disrepair.

This is a really strong starting point for a first Oktrollberfest. I feel like you captured the spirit of a trollgame without making it miserable to experience. (Except for me not thinking to just pause the music video.)

It's gonna be a dating sim. -> It's gonna be a dating sim about awkward teenage years. -> Ah. It's gonna be a dating sim. -> I have been hit by a car.

There's like nothing negative to say about this one. It was constantly playing with expectations, filled with beautiful expressive art of characters human and non-human alike, loaded with details in the early gameplay boards. It's even a wake up and save the world game!

Wait no, there was a zap factory specifically aimed at frustrating me. Luckily, you were too kind with it compared to Sweeney.

Great scenes, great sense of humor, great work with Gadfly's world, great job making the bird an actual threat outside of the final battle, and great job filling the game up with some much stuff to explore just for the fun of it. I won't be surprised if this is a Samantha Sweep.

I just opened the game in the file viewer to see if I'm forgetting everything and got to watch the FMV frame by frame. Incredible.

I enjoy these annual lampoonings of classic ZZT worlds, though it's definitely tougher now that you've through a lot of the iconic "good" ones. Neither Best of ZZT game is all that exciting today, so this is another instance of the troll game being generally kinder.

The drum blaster screen was a fun surprise. I like how the already joke of a weapon from the original was transformed into something wildly different. I also felt the most confident that I knew what people were talking about in these games for once. I've seen some Sailor Moon now. I've watched Cowboy Bebop. I have a basic understanding of these things!

The trivia was great, and I absolutely would have gone to look up the video(s) had I not been streaming. Asking me stupidly specific trivia that has an obvious place to look for the answer only for me to realize that it's not actually helpful to look up is a real powerful trick to play on someone.

I'm also going to be thinking about what it says about me that I saw some centipedes, squinted, and immediately realized what was going on. It's also funny to me that I thought of The Three Trials version of the gag and not the one from the game being parodied.

I think this is the best La Vie yet, though with these criteria for judging I have no idea if the scores will reflect that opinion.

This one was of course a challenge to get to the actual game. I kind of worry that the difficulty in getting to it pushed people away as there were similar troubles with last year's game. I think editing the childhood MZX game to point players where they needed to go to get the actual submission would have fared better than giving them a seemingly broken file. Even when people knew there was more to it, digging through ZZT/MZX files with a hex editor is something only sickos like me and asie do.

When I did finally get to the actual game, it was a very good surprise at least! People have been demanding 3D ZZT for decades, and using the Unreal engine as the medium to finally do so is the natural choice. Realizing I was in familiar territory made it fun to look at last year's entry, and you know something that felt like this would have been heralded as the greatest achievement in the ZZT/MZX communities of the mid90s.

Finally, the dream comes true.

I do really like the original idea of the random game installer, but was also one of the many folks unable to get it working.

ZZTorture you were there for the stream of, so yada yada good capturing of "my first ZZT game" energy with some fun art that made it feel more high effort than keeping the yellow borders and throwing in a pile of lions before calling it a day. Nice invisible centipede >:(

Sorry streaming plans fell apart and we couldn't go with the original plan of quietly streaming one per stream and making no comment on the fact that multiple games were made.

I did want to at least check out Dink while I had some time because I am a sucker for Zelda 1. I did at least record that: in this currently unlisted video. But the long and short of it is that it felt very early MZX-ey and felt like a solid enough groundwork for a more original Zelda styled game. (It's a tough sell to strip down the original game these days when it's so easy for folks to play.) I would genuinely like to see what a Weave Zelda-inspired original adventure might look like. Dink seems like a good rough draft to build from.

I do really like the original idea of the random game installer, but was also one of the many folks unable to get it working.

ZZTorture you were there for the stream of, so yada yada good capturing of "my first ZZT game" energy with some fun art that made it feel more high effort than keeping the yellow borders and throwing in a pile of lions before calling it a day. Nice invisible centipede >:(

Sorry streaming plans fell apart and we couldn't go with the original plan of quietly streaming one per stream and making no comment on the fact that multiple games were made.

I did want to at least check out Dink while I had some time because I am a sucker for Zelda 1. I did at least record that: in this currently unlisted video. But the long and short of it is that it felt very early MZX-ey and felt like a solid enough groundwork for a more original Zelda styled game. (It's a tough sell to strip down the original game these days when it's so easy for folks to play.) I would genuinely like to see what a Weave Zelda-inspired original adventure might look like. Dink seems like a good rough draft to build from.

I had a good time. The variety in effects was fun, and of course the initial game over was a surprise.

Would definitely have played for way too long between classes in my high school days. Could only manage 154 points.

I did record my playthrough on this still unlisted video that will be published sometime next week.

This was fun! I loved the sound design that made just hopping around enjoyable. The music is gonna be stuck in my head all day.

It successfully trolled in taking a bit to figure out the mechanics, going from realizing how adjacent boards "connected", and then realizing the ways you might need to move between boards in order to actually get there.

My only real complaint is that I wish the screen went black instead of white on board transitions, especially when there was a need to repeatedly flip between boards.

I did record my attempt at getting through (sadly I did not have time to play the entire thing) in this currently unlisted Video that I'll publish properly by next week.

This was excellently done all around! Really captured that late 90s ZZT vibe with lots of boards that were quite pleasing to the eye, and even the less colorful ones were still creative in their own way (the giant ships in the docks and the large crates).

It doesn't take long to figure out that the entire game is going to hinge on those wire cutters, but the variety, places to explore, and challenges faced were a treat to play. It nailed the atmosphere of various uncovered old ZZT worlds that are just mean spirited enough for folks to crack Oktrollberfest jokes without going overboard, making the game one a rare one for this competition where you can really recommend it to a wider audience.

The engine room puzzle aboard the UFO had so many good ideas, the relaxed pace of ammo duplication, the deadly box pushing puzzle, the split levers in a room slowly filling with ruffians. Genuinely iconic stuff. Especially if my deranged "get a ruffian to stand on a fake wall" strategy is the intended one.

The random boulder puzzles were also impressive to see and I appreciated the ability to skip one.

Shoot the board with the minefield was impressive too. Just high-quality material from start to finish with the only real complaint being a bug with the router where talking to the shopkeep again seems to have caused an extra zap causing me to hit some anti-cheat.

Winner winner chicken dinner

I had a really tough time with this from the flashing (which has seen been tweaked) which kind of made the experience much more of a struggle than expected. The art boards were quite nice, as were the backgrounds on the main gameplay screen.

I found the ship movement combined with the irregular movement of the enemies made it difficult to play. The freemium model for your cannons was a cute idea though!

I could have gone with a refresher on the story. The names were familiar but I had a genuine worry before looking at the board count that it was saved on the wrong board. I recalled the names, but not so much the events that already transpired.

I definitely got got on the way out by the sudden tigers, and liked the infinite respawning of them. Also I used -DARK on stream so now I'm banned from Twitch which is an easy +1 to trolling.

Excellent art with the plane at the end too.

Definitely the kind of game I'd expect to find on a shareware CD. Fun and simple and adored the monster graphics. I did not actually stick around for the full experience due to a lack of time, and seeing how it took me at least a year to return to Bubba's Bubbles, I don't want to promise to do so anytime soon, but at the very least a young me would have played this constantly.

Word got out to me that someone who made something for Zin's Neat ZZT Board Jam submitted to Oktrollberfest and my first thought was "I hope it was the person that made the beach board." so needless to say I was pumped to play this one.

I really liked it! I streamed it along some others on Twitch (link to VOD forthcoming). Excellent use of integrating ZZT's editor into part of the challenge. Though I lingered on the title screen before starting for too long so I knew immediately the editor would be involved.

It's a bit tough to tell exactly what code you should be modifying with certainty. I had the crew turn into lions on me and am now wondering if I should have added a #die to the object leading into that section or if there was another method, but this was good stuff! Good obfuscation and using pre-bound objects to make the hunt a little harder.

Okay so it was a little long for a single-sitting stream, but it was shorter than I expected owing to the source material. Which is my biggest issue with it, that the parody ends up being tamer for the player than the real deal. You accidentally made a better version of Best of ZZT!

Great death animations. Nice to look at. The shark board was a nice interpretation over the original (though I am terrible at baccarat). I enjoyed the head headhunter actually making good on his promise if players followed (though I wouldn't have thought to on my own probably.) Lots of other moments where player actions get to change dialog that older ZZT games wouldn't have expanded on like trying to buy more rope and health potions.

I peeked at the boards that I missed on stream, and quite like the chess board... board, and the alternate ending.

As a Gem Hunter trilogy completer, the hidden treasures turning out to be required may have been a bit much. I worry most folks (myself included were you not watching the stream) won't have actually gotten to the end naturally because of it

The Good:

Really impressive! Lots of innovative new puzzle designs with the slider and pool cleaning jobs, and an impressive number of pop-up messages for the latter. The art absolutely sold the game, and while your art has always been fantastic this one is really loaded with complex poses and angles that still read easily in ZZT. Those little extra animations like the thumb moving in the first gig and the tail wagging in the ending were great touches as well.

The Bad:

About the only real issue is that I feel like the kid scaring game didn't seem very cooperative unless you were in a straight hallway, something I don't think could really be fixed, but might have been encouraged via narrative (something like "shuffling around corners in that suit may be noisy, causing kids to check behind them")

The large amount of text for the Steam parody was also welcome, but because the service was sometimes down I definitely would have been combing through it for awhile between days to look for any changes had I not been informed on stream that there weren't any.

Big fan of all the Jill-isms. The apples (that give you health) don't fall too far from the tree wrt Sweeney going from ZZT to Jill. Everything was colorful and nice to look at, especially the conversion of Jill's mystic vaporwave ending. Some of the "upgrades" for Dungeons were a blast. Touching the alpha was an incredible experience. The invisible bullets and ricochets guarding that key got me good. The effects when playing as Keyko gave me some ADOM vibes ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9htAyGyfi0 ).

Other times though, it really felt like I was playing a late 90s "Dungeons Special Edition" which, while a solid game, didn't add as many surprises or commentary on the source material that I'd have wanted to see for a Trollgame jam.

Jolly Time was the arcade at my local mall growing up, but boy if "Jenk" wouldn't have been an apt name for this one.

I do like these puzzles that let folks flex on esoteric knowledge.

As it turned out, I figured out what to do pretty quickly for hard mode, but even then was too afraid to actually try lest my thought process be incorrect. The blend of elements here also makes esoteric knowledge a burden just as much as it helps! Gems have weird rules with pushing/crushing. Duplicators mean you can play with the stat order of what's on screen, and crushing things can have weird effects if the element crushed is earlier in the stat list which sent me on a wild goose chase thinking there might be some way to use all these to destroy the key somehow.

Honestly I was even wondering if the colors of the sliders was in some way relevant!

Gave an extra star in sounds because you're not the one to blame for duplicator sound effects.

This one does some great work with Zima that makes it really neat to look at! A fun homage to the Barney games of old with some far more valid grievances than "ugh he sings and loves". It's very difficult to navigate the space though! Especially with limited ammo, which makes me fear that a lot of content will go unseen by players.

Game did let me be a chicken in vinyl though...

A previous apartment I lived in had a fridge that wasn't that great and milk tended to go bad days before the date. This let me relive the terror.

I loved the giant face in the mirror.

Thank you for the kind words! I cannot say Tuna Diver is my own phrase though. It comes from the NES port of Maniac Mansion when they had to censor "Kill Thrill": https://www.crockford.com/maniac.html

More like key hallway.

The weird layouts and strange mix of good/bad keys combined with all good cats made this fun to run through!

My god it's full of stars.

Short in length, but it stay managed to get me good a few times.

A surprisingly full riff on City! I liked the subversion with the elevator in City Hall as well as the fakeout with Dr. Stupid. Also this take on on the ZZT Bandit is the best one yet.

Excellent art and extremely good street crossing simulation.

There's a reason I avoid these games!

But it was well done save for the kind of awkward springs and the original version not making it clear how to scale the window so I had to play in tiny mode for a bit.

The overall shortness of the levels made it a lot more tolerable than it might have otherwise been!

I had a smile on my face the whole way through! And got exactly what I hoped the ending would be.

Definitely need to make my boyfriend play all these games in the near future.

This is an expertly crafted puzzle game, or I'm just bad at it. I only played one and a half levels, but flipping through the file viewer to post screenshots for the tweets about it being published on the Museum meant recognizing a box puzzle that was being used for a weird explosives engine previewed some time ago that I assume was used.

Really though I can tell this one is a thinker.

I'm unfortunately unable to give this 256 stars.

It got me! This is the kind of game you'll probably have to restart a few times, but it's brief enough that you won't mind doing so. Good cats.

Brilliant in every horrible way. My only complaint is that there's no real guidance other than the ?+HINT feature which just outright tells you where to go next. Without hints I don't think I would've tried going into the sidebar or out of bounds ever.

The editor was great though.

The puzzles on this one were fun! But the game itself didn't feel trolly! Still a cute little (and big) adventure.

This one was weird! Very good cats, but that torch maze was very jarring in a way that made it tough to want to get through. Granted, my own stubbornness when playing on stream didn't help.

This one was fun! It felt more like it was playfully teasing the player than trolling them, which arguably makes for a better gameplay experience.

Not a fan of the key cutter.

Lots of dirty tricks which I definitely came up with my own before playing. This manipulates the rules of ZZT in a lot of fun ways.

Also it respected my interest in an alternate ending.

I just got through this and had a lot of fun with it! (No spoilers in this review, so don't hesitate to read it)

When I discovered the previous game, "The Testimony of Trixie Glimmer Smith", I was really surprised at just how much it hooked me. After my first playthrough I knew I wanted to go back and see the other paths the game offered, and even got to the point where I was trying things just to see the minor alterations they'd have on the game's ending, so seeing a new VN from Digital Poppy, I knew I'd be playing it immediately.

Though still being a horror-themed VN and starring two of the previous title's characters, the tone on this one felt different! The horror (mostly) played a backseat to just letting the characters interact with each other, and I found myself laughing at a lot of the game's lines. "Trixie" had its humor, but it felt like comic relief to its more pressing plot. "Barrow" seems to be much more willing to just try to be funny, and does a great job of it, even if the situation is more dire. (Even without a supernatural horror, the characters do have to deal with potentially being trapped in the barrow and not being able to get out!)

In "Barrow", you get to play as the new character, a transwoman fox named Tabby. She's a very fun character and I couldn't help but pick all the happy/positive/shippy choices whenever they were presented. She gets to play the role of mediator to Trixie and Nikita who have a very aggressive relationship with each other. The description says that you don't need to play the previous game to enjoy "Barrow", but I would highly suggest doing so myself, as it makes their dynamic a lot more understandable when you know what they went through in the previous game instead of just being told something happened last summer and to drop it. At the same time, Tabby does get to try and learn a bit about them and if you yourself are a blank slate you'll be able to pick up on some of it, if not the specifics.

Also I am extremely jealous of her dress. Though it is perhaps not the best outfit to be wearing on an outing to some weird old barrow.

"Barrow" builds on "Trixie" in terms of interactivity by turning the game into a series of limited choices. This was explored a little in a library scene in "Trixie", where reading books passed X hours and you only had so much time to get the relevant lore, but here it's the main conceit of the game. This time the lore is there but you can only read so much of it before having to work on other things. There's still plenty of old forgotten tales to be read of wars with abominations and magic spells to banish evil, but this time the player has to keep it in their own mind at the end where they need to demonstrate they've been paying attention (and hopefully got all the information needed).

At the time of writing, I've only done a single playthrough. "Trixie" was a very similar game with most of its prompts leading to the same results other than a decision of which character to spend time with, which made subsequent playthroughs a lot of mashing clicking to get to this main split. (Of course, you could just save before making any choices...) "Barrow" is structured in a way that I feel like when I get around to my next run that the differences should happen a lot faster.

As a whole, it feels more compressed than the previous game. It took me a little over 2 hours to get through, but not for lack of content. It's a quicker pace and is able to get to those decisions a lot faster given the context that the game takes place with the characters trapped together so there's no need to talk about what to snack on at a bakery or who to text about the day's events. It's just three lesbians in a barrow after all. It was a very fun two hours, and I'd definitely recommend it (and "Trixie") to anybody who wants a story focused around LGBT characters that isn't a romance.