the folks that brought us Gears of War and Unreal Tournament.

Yes, ZZT was made by THAT Tim Sweeney and THAT Epic Games. One awesome trival-bit about ZZT is that it was made by Tim Sweeney and a very early Epic MegaGames. Another reason these games are awesome is because they are often simple to play. When the player is a simple smile on a screen the epicness of what you are doing lies in your mind. I think one of the reasons I love MUDS, ANSI adventure games like ZZT and the like and find more modern incarnations in games like Dwarf Fortress is because of the imagination you have to bring to the game. I always dreamt about making my own levels in the 'for pay' version but never had the money to actually spring for it. As they were both Shareware, I never did actually beat them but played the hell out of what the shareware versions did include.

I heavily played the original ZZT and Super ZZT the most. Well that and they were all available as some form of shareware. I really enjoyed Kroz, but the quirky nature of the ZZT kept me coming back to it.

When ZZT came out, it wasn't entirely original as the ANSI style was pioneered in other games like The Kingdom of Kroz and others. As most DOS games at the time were moving on to CGA, EGA and the super-ultra-deluxe-epic VGA graphics, ZZT games lived entirely in ANSI.

ZZT isn't one of those classic retro DOS games that garners a ton of critical acclaim like Commander Keen, Warcraft or Doom but that doesn't mean I don't look back on it fondly. To celebrate today's retro Tuesday I decided to dust off a DOS classic, ZZT.

ZZT! for windows download