ZZT

ZZT is a top-down action-adventure puzzle video game and game creation system. Players control a white smiley face on a navy blue rectangle that can move around in four directions. Players can interact with objects by touching or shooting at them. Touching ammo containers, gems, torches, and keys adds them to your status bar.

Boxes of ammo allow players to fire bullets at objects, gems increase health and are used as currency, torches light up a small area around the player in dark boards, and colored keys allow players to open same-colored doors. Other objects in the game include bombs, doors, and scrolls. One type of object called "Object" interacts based on written scripts using the game's scripting language, ZZT-OOP. As an example, the object could be programmed to give the player health, or fire bullets at the player, flashing text in response.

Video game programmer Tim Sweeney, studying mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland, first developed ZZT as a text editor in Turbo Pascal. During this time, Tim did not know how to program graphics and only had a 286 computer and a Model M keyboard. The text editor idea came from disliking the included editors for the programming languages he tried on his PC. Instead he wanted to recreate his previously made Pascal-like programming environment for the Apple II.

He experimented with adding collision to text characters, and made the cursor a controllable character. He found it more fun to make it into a game by adding bullets and creatures to fight. From there, he designed his first levels from text files, creating different boards similar in style to Atari's Adventure, while continually offering additions to the game and editor. Sweeney studied during the day, and worked on his game during the night.

Following ZZT's release, about three to four copies were sold daily, at around 800 copies by November 1991, and around 4,000 to 5,000 copies in total by 2009. Sweeney earned around US$100 (equivalent to $240 in 2025) per day by November 1991, and around $30,000 (equivalent to $58,000 in 2025) from ZZT by May 1999, of which most of the profit came from its first year. After Sweeney moved out of his parents' house to establish proper corporate headquarters for Potomac Computer Systems, then renamed Epic MegaGames, his father Paul Sweeney, continued fulfilling mail orders to the original address under the Epic Classics label, allowing for purchase of physical copies of ZZT. The final copy of ZZT was shipped to game designer Zack Hiwiller in November 2013.

Contemporary and retrospective reviews from critics were mixed. A comment from Computer Gaming World billed ZZT as "truly charming", finding the gameplay simple to learn. Scott Wolf of PC Gamer (US) stated the graphics and sound for ZZT to be "truly awful", while the gameplay serves as a flashback to "when gameplay was not overshadowed by flashy video and animation". Benj Edwards has called ZZT an "influential and underrated game", crediting its current enjoyment from playing community made worlds and making unexpected things with the "fairly robust" built in editor.

By getting $100 per day from ZZT, Sweeney was convinced he could earn enough from the shareware industry, and decided to work in the video game industry. He renamed the company to Epic MegaGames in October 1991. Shortly after the release of ZZT, Sweeney started a level designer contest for registered users to make their own worlds and submit them to him. Over 200 users submitted their custom worlds.

The best collaboration games that won the contest were included in The Best of ZZT and ZZT's Revenge, released in 1992. The winners of the contest received prizes of gift certificates, while others would receive honorable mentions. The six winning custom worlds that made up ZZT's Revenge earned the designers employment in Epic MegaGames, with the winning worlds being "Ezanya", "Fantasy", "Crypt", "Smiley Guy", "Manor", and "Darbytown". Sweeney later asked one of these developers, Allen Pilgrim, to create the shareware world "Monster Zoo" for the sequel to ZZT, Super ZZT, released on October 15, 1991.