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                          ||......| ||......|  .||.


ZZT is a game that Tim Sweeney (later creator of Unreal) programmed in 1991. Its biggest feature was the editor, which allowed you to create your own games. Needless to say, since ZZT was released 15 years ago, it's ridiculously dated and still uses ANSi graphics when other games have graduated onto ridiculous innovations like so-called "3D." Anyway, I learned how to code in the programming language when I was about 12 and have been releasing games for a while. I hadn't done anything with it for five years, when I released a pretentious "art & music collection," but I started again for the ZZT:#Endgame project, which was where a bunch of people from the ZZT community got together to make one last game. If it piques your interest even a little, check out the main community site or the ZZT wiki. The game is called "A Heaven of Hell," based off of the original project, "Fred the Misunderstood Demon."  ContAnyway, after releasing this, I'm a little more than embarassed about it. I was pretty much drunk every time I was working on it, and it's basically a pseudo-satirical personal exorcism, so there's your disclaimer. But it was a lot of fun to make one last game, esp. exploring absurd occult esoterica and hipster self-love. If you're curious, you can download it right here with ZZT included, or right here if you've already got it.

The game itself is absurd, basically. It's sort of an abomination that I worked on something like this for so long, but it was a welcome distraction from programming credit card terminals at the time. It's a gnostic fantasy about a group of hipsters that find themselves in Hell and use great occultic forces from the past, like the Lance of Longinus and some Manichaean artifacts to kill Yahweh. Surely this wondrous game will change the course of civilization and rescue it from the insanity and banality which persistently persecute the just! It will also revolutionize modern theology and philosophy with incendiary literary wit and grace.

Okay, maybe not, but it was fun to work on.

Screenshots:

New York City
Throne Room
RPG Battle
Babble
Art Board