I wish I'd had the foresight to enter this trooberfest because I would vote for you 10 thousand million times. I know this wasn't an easy few weeks to try and make a game in and you were sick for part of it, but what you made I have no words. The Arantesverse continues to deliver straight bangeroos. Not as many play-y game-y things as last entry but so much sumptuous art and story. Something about reading "enjoy being a short queen for now, you can save the galaxy later" hit me right in the feels. I don't know. I'm losing my mind over this. People need to know about this.
WiL
Creator of
Recent community posts
Nothing in the game is hidden or locked. The OBJ code for the three-armed bandit is in the following locations:
- Render code for the reels and handles:
- GFSOBJ\REEL.OBJ
- GFSOBJ\HANDLE.OBJ
- Input handling:
- GFSOBJ\W9IMP.OBJ
- Time tracking + Board change handling:
- GFSOBJ\STBASIC.OBJ
Additionally, some onboard objects are present that handle various aspects of the bandit's function. These are all on the three-armed bandit board, titled "%Story% Week 9":
- [9,13] @l4wild
- Handles the random speeding up and slowing down of the reel.
- [29,8] @L5capture
- Displays the number that appears at the top right of the Bandit.
- [2,3] @taunt1
- Displays the quotations at the top left of the screen.
- [9,14] [9,15] [9,16] @Handle1 @Handle2 @Handle3
- Tracks the number of pulls of a given handle. After 18 pulls of any one handle, "GIVE UP" will appear as an option on screen.
Final notes:
There is some cheeky code in GFSOBJ\HANDLE.OBJ that is probably the code you're looking for. It's the critical code determining the value of the number in the top right of the bandit, and whether the reels stop. Local5 and Local7 are the primary variables involved.
Thanks for your kind comments! To note: much of what I'm doing now wasn't possible 25 years ago or even 5 years ago with ZZT. It's only because of the rediscovery and reconstruction of the source code, and the Weave 3 modding tool (https://meangirls.itch.io/weave-3) that these games are possible in their current format. (A downscaled version of them is almost certainly still possible in vanilla ZZT, but would have taken many more months and the end result been less interesting IMO)
It's a good sign when folks play and wish there was even more game - branching paths, multiple endings, pickier customers with more complex habits. I agree, I think this one could go bigger and offer dedicated players more challenge and opportunity. A small update coming at the end of the month addresses a couple ambiguities you mentioned, but rescoping the game for more content isn't possible; ZZT is already bursting at the seams holding the current game. Still it's very cool to think about. Whatever I end up making next, I'll try to leave myself some room at the end to add more content later. (Or pick an engine that can handle more than 63.5kb at the same time lol)
Holy ?! It is a bug! I will patch this in a future release, but for now you can type ?noclip to get yourself back in the skypertube and type ?clip once you're inside to finish the puzzle. Thank you for finding this, I have in my notes that I tested this exact scenario, so it must have regressed at some point.
This is PHENOMENAL. Not only was it an amazing shaggy dog, but holy shit some of the puzzles/action sequences I felt myself approaching genuine madness. The trick to a trollgame is to keep tantalizing the player with possibility, feed them just enough progress that it keeps them playing, and then adds just enough unfair each time to ruin them. This was maybe the most effective trollgame in the lot, because it kept me playing for the longest and had me big mad nearly the entire time. I love this. Love love love this.
Holy sh- outstanding. I said aloud, to my screen, "Now this is some goddamn fuckery."
While it is wonderful that many beautiful games of length owe their existence to this contest, it's even more wonderful, to me, that the contest continues to deliver unique ZZT experiences. I've never played a ZZT game where the game is just all "figure me out in the editor, fucko, if you dare" and then makes me decide how much editing is actually required and whether I've actually "won". Bravo.
Beautiful. I managed to do the things, I am still working on the bear. The needing to rearrange the buttons for quick fiddlywinks on the zoo-zah was really a nice touch. I liked the real subtle trolls like the complete lack of juice on the pingpong to indicate whether the object was actually touched or not.
I had to revisit and re-rate because I missed one!
While ZZTort purports to be a game in the "classic" style, the thing it has that eluded the "lost" games we see nearly every week - polish - is also present in the other three offerings to various degrees. Fire1000 feels like it would have fit right in with the entries of the last 2.4HoBKZZT - a slightly janky, fully softlockable, expression of a core idea. Dink is the most ambitious and would have been an absolute nightmare to debug - I didn't encounter any game-breaking bugs or other major flaws the entire time I played - remarkable!
[Edit: Super Wall Puncher's the one I missed. And genuinely, flawless. I played through three times and got a different ending each time. The punchiest ending really doesn't disappoint. Gave me genuine big laughs]
"Remarkable" is correct all round. Aggressively weird trolls from left field combined with ones I saw coming a mile away. A rich tapestry that managed to amuse again and again. Bravo.
Bright and colorful and strange and beautiful, with legit trolls and a couple moments where I found myself laughing helplessly at the screen. A superb La Vie, superb Weaving, and as always I love the fact that it's a reinterpretation of known source material, the ZZT-official-equivalent of reversing the hard ceramic back into soft clay to be sponged into a new shape.
verasev has an uncanny ability to create modern ZZT action games with diverse, viable playstyles, a talent which is on full display here. I love playing a Belmont with strong whip action, I love the diverse subweapons, the bosses, the environments. I am not quite skilled enough to make it all the way to the end on my own merits, but I'm save-scumming my way through it and enjoying every second.
Love it. Love it love it love it. Wonderfully polished movement, very "grippy" and the character never moved in a way that didn't make sense or felt unnatural (at least inasfar as a kid in a Davy Crockett hat climbing a thirty foot wall can seem "natural"). Fun mechanics, very polished and tight world with each room introducing one or two new design ideas apiece. Bravo. This is the game to beat.