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Battle Arena series Gulvadon (by Xaq) Arena II: The Sequel (by Xaq) A very basic RPG battle engine. Select a character, win battles with said character. There is almost no variety despite plenty of selectable characters, as they play identically. These are almost more tech demos for a primitive RPG battle engine than actual games. |
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Colosseum Colosseum (by Kjorteo and Atomos) Orin has been abducted and forced to fight through the colosseum for Lord Evil's amusement. Fight through series of battles, grow stronger, save up money, and literally purchase your ticket to freedom. This is basically a fancier version of Xaq's Battle Arena series with more features. Though still somewhat primitive, this was possibly the most complex and ambitious game made during my QBasic days. Unfortunately, the system of having to purchase overpriced passes to the next colosseum makes for extremely repetitive grinding against literally the same encounter again and again to try and save up money. Also, the game isn't balance-tested at all. It may be literally impossible to complete the first battle as a Mystic. |
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Dark Angel series Colosseum: Quest for the 5 Runes (by Atomos) The Dark Angel, Part I (by Atomos) Of the old QBasic games I'm preserving here, almost all of them are primitive and are of almost unplayably poor quality, made by extremely young programmers in an extremely old language. Almost all of them. Colosseum: Quest for the 5 Runes, which is basically a clone of Colosseum made from the same engine, was by far the best QBasic game any of us made at the time, and amazingly enough, is good enough to actually be worth a quick play-through even today. The writing is still what would happen when someone in their early teens attempts to write something dark and edgy, but the gameplay is surprisingly solid, taking Colosseum and more or less fixing everything everything that was wrong with it. The only bad news is that the only way to avoid an extremely bad "bad ending" is through the password-protected secret classes, attempting to artificicially force replay in a game that doesn't really have a tremendous deal of replay value. As for Dark Angel, it is a straightforward dialogue-and-RPG-fight game like Warlord's Wrath, with poor linear gameplay, primitive battles, terrible writing, and a cliffhanger "stay tuned for part 2" call to an alleged continuation that was never actually made. About the only good thing I can say about Dark Angel is that at least both Xaq and Atomos also made embarrassing Warlord's Wrath clones, which makes me feel slightly better about having made Warlord's Wrath. |
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Quest of the Dragonslayer Quest of the Dragonslayer, Part I (by Xaq) Another linear dialogue-and-RPG-fighting game that ends abruptly and calls out to a Part II that was never made. I made Warlord's Wrath, Atomos made Dark Angel Part I, and Xaq made Quest of the Dragonslayer Part I. I think mine is still the most shameful of them all because I made four parts before abruptly scrapping the series instead of one, but at least I have some company in the embarrassing QBasic RPG scene. |
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Warlord's Wrath series Warlord's Wrath, Part I (by Kjorteo, with help from Atomos) Warlord's Wrath, Part II (by Kjorteo, with help from Atomos) Warlord's Wrath, Part III (by Kjorteo, with help from Atomos) Warlord's Wrath, Part IV (unfinished) (by Kjorteo and Atomos) The first three parts consist of reading dialogue and having RPG battles, with occasional minigames thrown in. Part 4 is more or less a feature/tech demo for a game that never was--you can see the neat map and wander around, but it's empty and there's no way to proceed, and you can fight a sample RPG battle in the new fancy interface, but it is a sample and has no bearing on anything. Parts 2, 3, and 4 are password-protected to try and make you play through the parts in order. If you want to skip around, though, the password for part 2 is PTDX, the password for part 3 is GLMQ, and the password for part for is CKWW. My greatest shame in this world is that I made Warlord's Wrath. The story is poor, the names are either incredibly, jarringly bland or syllable-mashing gibberish with absolutely nothing in between, and the dialogue is, atrocious, and there are bugs everywhere. The features in part 4 are fairly impressive for QBasic and might have redeemed the series, but it was never finished. |
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Adventure of Sam series Adventure of Sam (by Kjorteo) Adventure of Sam 2: Return of Sam (by Kjorteo) An ancient attempt at a comedy adventure game series. You are Sam, and must stop the evil Emperor Spade while putting up with the game creator and his friends themselves, who happen to seriousl not like you. If Warlord's Wrath is my greatest QBasic-related shame, Adventure of Sam is ZZT's equivalent. Watch out for every now-recognized mistake that ZZT newbies make in their first games: yellow borders, annoying fields of items, terrible writing, incredibly dated pop-culture references, and more. On top of this, both games (but especially the second) are incredibly buggy, and impossible to finish without cheating to get around the otherwise game-breaking bugs. |
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Colosseum: The ZZT Game Colosseum: The ZZT Game (by Kjorteo) A ZZT port/remake of Colosseum, the old QBasic game. Once again, you are Orin and must fight through Lord Evil's colosseum. Made for a Weekend of ZZT competition. Significantly better than the QBasic version, though with only three days to make it, there wasn't as extensive balance testing as I would have liked, and it's possible to get very powerful very fast and beat the game in about half an hour. Still, it's at least entertaining for that half an hour. |
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Ninja Games Ninja Games (by Kjorteo) Participate in three days of training in various minigames to become a ninja. Made with the SNES Pilotwings firmly in mind. Made for a Weekend of ZZT competition. It's incredibly short, but decent while it lasts, especially considering that it was made in three days. |
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Sands of Time Sands of Time (by Kjorteo) An attempt at a Sierra/LucasArts-style adventure game in ZZT. Play as three members of your family's lineage to solve puzzles in past, present, and future versions of the mansion where the fabled Sands of Time gem was kept. Made for a Weekend of ZZT competition. There are several minor issues that I would have fixed had I more time--a "look" command to get a description of the room your in if there's anything important, more specific failure messages if something close but not quite right is attempted (like doing the right action but in the wrong time period or something,) etc. The final puzzles in the ending area could have been improved as well. Still, while far from perfect, I'm pleased with how it turned out, especially for having been made in three days. |
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Xaq's *VERY* Mysterious ZZT Series Xaq's *VERY* Mysterious Dungeon (by Xaq) Xaq's *VERY* Mysterious World (by Xaq) Xaq's attempt at ZZT adventure games. As old as my Adventure of Sam series and with similar gameplay, though marginally better overall. Dungeon is primitive, but playable. World is almost a good game, though questionable writing and standard ZZT mistakes (giant invisible mazes, etc.) weigh it down. |
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ZZT Utilities The CKit (by Kjorteo) The KjKit! (by Kjorteo) ZZT Pro (by Kjorteo) Some utilities for would-be ZZT programmers. The CKit is my first attempt at an STK board, which are largely obsolete due to advanced editors like KevEdit anyway, though can still be fun to look at. The KjKit! is my second, and much more complete and comprehensive attempt. ZZT Pro is an advice world that talks about common mistakes and how to avoid them, much like Barjesse's ZZT Syndrome or Wong Chung Bang's ZZT Crime, though the subject matters it covers are slightly more advanced. |