Ibrahim has announced the topic of the Winter Day of Zeux contest: "Exploration". It started yesterday at 3:00 PM EST and you have until today, 3:00 PM EST (12:00 PM EST, 8:00 PM GMT) to submit your entry. Go here for detailed information.

Tseng (Mike Renner) is hosting the Decade of ZZT Hoodian Awards. These are special user-based awards for all ZZT games released from 01/01/1991 to 12/01/2000. You have to vote for your top 3 per category and submit it to Tseng. Detailed information can be found here here.

Eagle Rock Interactive, the ZZT company run by ex-IF member FreeZerBurn, has recently gone through several line-up changes. Oldbies Tseng (who is working on Emerald Fusion), Breakout (ex-Damage Inc) and EvilMario (ex-IF) surprisingly joined the company. Whirligig and Mini_Maul are out and the promising ZZTer Flimsy Parkins (who got 2nd in the Fall 2000 24 hours of ZZT) joined as well. These are the current ERI members: FreeZerBurn (president), Scribbit (vice-president), Blazer, Benco, Breakout, EvilMario, Flimsy Parkins, GipFace, Tseng, Wayward and Xerox. The ERI page is located here.

Ibrahim has pulled the Winter Day of Zeux contest back a day again. It is now being held on December 28 at 3:00 PM EST (12:00 PM PST, 8:00 PM GMT). Visit the official website here.

Dragonlord and FishFood, the maintainers of zzt.org, have recently both quite the ZZT scene (and Austnet and zzt.org with it). Since xabbott, the owner of zzt.org, doesn't want anything to do with it anymore and HM (the ex co-maintainer of zzt.org) is too busy, a new maintainer had to be looked for. Dragonlord and FishFood decided to choose Knightt, who has already been on the zzt.org staff for quite a while. Knightt seems to be doing a good job so far - he already uploaded the new games and may be putting the message boards up again. It is not known why FishFood is leaving the community. He handed his Austnet channel, #mofo, to Lemmer. Dragonlord is moving on to other things and doesn't want to have the responsibility for having to update the central site of the community anymore.

I (Hercules) have finally set the time for the Winter 24 hours of ZZT contest. It starts at 3:00 PM EST (noon PST, 8:00 PM GMT) on December 27. It's not too late to sign up, so hurry up! For detailed info, go here.

Ibrahim has pulled the Winter Day of Zeux contest a day back, because some people were complaining about the date (December 30). Australians would actually be participating during New Year's Eve, which isn't a good thing. The contest now starts at December 29, 3:00 PM EST. For detailed info, go here.

Lemmer has published the nominees of the Hoodian Awards 2000, the awards formerly hosted by Tseng/Mike Renner. Now it's time for all ZZTers to vote on one nominee per category. You can vote here.

Ibrahim is hosting the Winter 2000 Day of Zeux contest, which is taking place on December 30 (3:00 PM EST). Currently, I (Hercules) am the only judges - the other two judges are still to be picked. For detailed information and to fill in the sign-up form, go here.

The MegaZeux Excellence Awards 2000, being hosted by me (Hercules), is getting into a serious phase now. The council members are currently nominating. When they are all done, the nominees will be posted. A little later, the council will vote on their favorite and the category winners will be announced. Finally, there is going to be a public voting, the Ampersand Awards, where all MZX users can vote on their favorite category winner. Detailed info on the MZXEA 2000 can be found here.

Jeremy Lamar (Snigwich), the creator of MegaZeux smash-hits like Bernard the Bard and Talon's Tale, has recently returned to the scene! Even better, he is working on a new MegaZeux game. Quoting Snigwich: "Okay, I've decide that my new MZX game is going to be based off of a BESM ('Big Eyes, Small Mouth', an anime RPG) campaign that I've been running. I know, I know, medievel/fantasy type settings are way overdone, but all those guys think it'd be pretty bitchin' to have a game of the campaign. All the characters are pretty cool, so I think I'll go for it. The battles will be RPG style, and there will be around 10 playable characters total, of which you can have 3 in your party at any given time. Lots of cool spells n' weapons, too."

I (Hercules) have won the Autumn 24 hours of ZZT contest with the entry "Their way, the Soulful Way". Flimsy Parkins surprisingly came in second with his nifty entry "Drip". Knightt ended up on the third place. This means I am hosting the Winter 2000 24 hours of ZZT. Detailed information on this contest can be found here.