(ƒ) does a happy lil' dance

 
 


news archive  


June 2000

Day of Zeux ends results published
Thursday 29 June 2000
The results of the Summer 2000 Day of Zeux have been published here. There were 14 entries. Team "Final Revolution" (Exophase, Starfire and Ghent) came in first with their entry "Freedom Bound". Steve Kirby surprisingly place second with his game "Microsoft Madness". My very own team "Soulful Experience" (me, Trev MUN and BiG BuBBa) placed third with the entry "No Restrictions, No Control". The judges were Ibrahim, Wervyn, JZig and md. All entries can be downloaded here, too.

#zeuxstream roundtable on July 1st
Thursday 29 June 2000
Matt Williams posts on mWorld: "This Saturday's roundtable discussion (IRC chat on channel #zeuxstream, server us.austnet.org, 1PM ET) will be a series of BKZeux Rounds. For the uninitiated, BKZeux (or Blitzkrieg Zeux) is what originally spawned the Day of Zeux. BKZeux is a lightning round game making competition. In this particular instance, there will probably be four 15-minute rounds, each with its own topic. I encourage everyone to join the roundtable and participate in the competition.". Visit the #zeuxstream page here.

zzt.org redesign is up
Thursday 29 June 2000
xabbott has finally uploaded the new design of zzt.org. There are still a lot of broken links, but he will be fixing them soon.

New Eagle Rock Interactive page coming up
Thursday 29 June 2000
Blazer finished the main lay-out of the new page for the ZZT company Eagle Rock Interactive a while ago. DoggyShop, the president of ERI, will finish the new page shortly, he says. Also, ERI still has one open spot. If you're interested in joining, e-mail DoggyShop here with a sample of your work.

Day of Zeux ends, results to be up soon
Tuesday 27 June 2000
The Summer 2000 Day of Zeux, hosted by Ibrahim ended on June 25, at 3:00 PM EDT. 14 people/teams submitted their entries (including me and my team). The winners will be announced tomorrow (June 28) at 1 PM Eastern Time, at #zeuxstream (austnet, IRC). Then the entries will be released on the official DoZ page. The judges for this contest are Ibrahim, Wervyn, JZig and md.

IF24AHOZ results published!
Saturday 24 June 2000
I have finally published the results of the Interactive Fantasies 24 artistic hours of ZZT contest here. coolzx won the contest, Misteroo came in second and BenW became third. The company contest has been won by AKWare, just like last IF24AHOZ contest. Blazer made the best Future board, Blue Magus made the best Winter Board and coolzx made the best Horror board. The results have been published in 5 detailed results tables, which took me many hours to make. The judges for the contest were me (Hercules), darkmage, Creator and Dexter.

Death Defyer Products
Wednesday 21 June 2000
Tseng has started a new ZZT company, called "Death Defyer Products". The members are Tseng, kev-san and Ryan Thompson. They are looking for members. If you're interesting in joining, send a demo of your work to renner@bellsouth.net and it'll be reviewed and discussed with the other members. On the somewhat related note: Tseng is working on a page for DDP and his Da Hoodian Awards 2000 will be co-run by Lemmer. Read Tseng's post on the IF message boards here.

#Char 2 White on Blue will no longer be updated
Wednesday 21 June 2000
Blue Magus will no longer update his ZZT resource #Char 2 White on Blue. He'll be archiving it this summer. He said the following about his other two websites (TEENpoetry and Camera Left): "teenagepoetry.com, which features the work of many ZZTers, will be redesigned next week. Work starts thursday. anthonytesta.com will continue to kick ass.".

Sei Mamoruno to host MegaZeux IRC Party
Tuesday 20 June 2000
Sei Mamoruno (aka Burandonu) will be hosting a MegaZeux IRC Party on Espernet (irc.esper.net) at #MindForge every Wednesday. People will just hang around, discuss things about MegaZeux and more. I'm not sure about any time schedules.

Game Shows of Zeux
Tuesday 20 June 2000
Magus919 writes on mWorld: "I, Magus919, will be hosting a new contest idea called the Game Shows Of Zeux. The Idea is to replicate classic game shows with a twist to play in MZX. Contestants earn points on how well they replicate the old game, and how much more interesting they make it! Teams are encouraged, and there will be a significant amount of time for the contest. If interested in contesting or judging, email me at magus919@hotmail.com. A web page will be up soon with full details and rules.".

KevEdit 0.1 released
Friday 16 June 2000
Kev Vance has released KevEdit 0.1 for the IF 24 artistic hours of ZZT. "It's hardly a full fledged editor yet, but it does make artwork less tedious, since you can make colours without jumping to toolkits, or copy whole gradients from toolkits since it has a large backbuffer (as opposed to ZZT's 1-block backbuffer).". You are allowed to use KevEdit for your IF24AHOZ artwork, since this is just an art-only ZZT version with SuperToolkit integrated into it and it exports the files to .ZZT format. Whether you use ZZT, KevEdit or both for the IF24HOZ is a matter of preference. Download KevEdit 0.1 here.

FotZ is back
Friday 16 June 2000
The ZZT company FotZ (Fellowship of the Z), run by Wayward, seemed to be dying lately, but it's back at its feet again. The remaining members, Wayward, TimeWaster and Xibeck, have welcomed two new members with potential: ZZTyrant and Redmage. FotZ has an unfinished page up here and also has its own IRC channel (#fotz) on Austnet. The company still has two open member spots as well.

megazeux.net to go down soon
Friday 16 June 2000
Jeff Conroy writes on megazeux.net, his MegaZeux source: "well, kids, it's true. I will soon be getting rid of megazeux.net as you know it, but replacing it with something that I feel is better. you all will find out soon enough what that is. =) if there's anything you want to get off of this site, do it soon, for I do not know when I will take it all down to be replaced.". It may be so that Jeff Conroy will be coming up with something like his old MegaZeux Warehouse again.

Summer 2000 IF 24 artistic hours of ZZT pulled back a week
Thursday 8 June 2000
I (Hercules) have pulled the date of the Summer 2000 IF 24 artistic hours of ZZT a week back. This means it now starts on Friday June 16 at 7:30 PM Eastern Time. I'm aware that it's not yet Summer, then, but I had no other choice. The topics will be announced live on #if (austnet, IRC) and the contest ends on Saturday June 17 at 7:30 PM Eastern Time. The reason of the rescheduling is the Summer Day of Zeux, which takes place on Saturday June 24. More information on the IF24AHOZ can be found here.

Vision Tech dies
Thursday 8 June 2000
The ZZT company Vision Tech, formerly run by Parasite has died. After KKairos (aka LowerVP) left, only Parasite, DeathFox and DarkShadow remained. KKairos joined AuroraSoft, which now seems to be run by BenW because Theta14 (the president) is still gone. Now Parasite, DeathFox and DarkShadow have all joined AuroraSoft.

Summer 2000 AK Fest
Tuesday 6 June 2000
Misteroo informs us all of the Summer 2000 AK Fest. It will be a big event where the ZZT company AKWare, which has been idle for a while, will release several ZZT games. The event will take place at #AKWare (austnet, IRC) on July 1st (12-6PM EST). Quoting Misteroo: "Well, basically, we took a look at the page, only to see that we haven't updated it since december of 1999... and, also, there weren't any games to add since long before that. For this, we came up with the idea to hold the first ever AK Fest, in order to bring us back up to par as far as activity with the ZZT Community is concerned."

Ibrahim hosts the Summer 2000 Day of Zeux
Tuesday 6 June 2000
Ibrahim is hosting the Summer 2000 Day of Zeux (aka 24 hours of MegaZeux). It starts on Saturday June 24, 3:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -4). At the moment of writing this, the DoZ page just went up and it is not sure who the judges will be. The topic will be announced live on #zeuxstream (austnet, IRC), at 3:00 PM EDT. Visit the official Summer 2000 Day of Zeux page here. On the somewhat related note: you might have noticed that the DoZ starts on the same day as the IF 24 artistic hours of ZZT ends (this contests ends on 7:30 PM Eastern Time on June 24). This means the DoZ starts while the IF24AHOZ has not ended yet. This shouldn't be a big problem, because most people in the IF24AHOZ probably won't participate in the DoZ since they are ZZTers. Moreover, if you decide to participate in both contests, you will have time enough to finish up your 3 art boards for the IF24AHOZ before the DoZ starts.

KKairos quits Vision Tech
Tuesday 6 June 2000
KKairos (aka LowerVP) has decided to quit the ZZT company Vision Tech (run by Parasite), because it didn't really work for him anymore. Right now it seems that he may go solo. If not, he might join AuroraSoft. KKairos is the creator of for example the innovative ZZT games Dungeon Guru Nostalgia 1 and 2.

zzt.org to undergo several changes
Sunday 4 June 2000
Dragonlord, co-maintainer of zzt.org, writes about the changes zzt.org is about to undergo in the near future: "Just thought I'd tell you all of the major updates that are going to take place here at the za during the next few weeks/months. First of all, xabbott has been working on a zzt.org remake which is pretty much finished. It should be up sometime next week. Secondly, after that, a rating system will be added. This is to prevent me from filtering out everything. ;) On top of this, the databases will be improved to handle game info pages which include screenshots, ratings, a game-adder review, and a place to submit your own reviews for the game. I will also be attempting to do an entire game inventory in july or august. Uploads MIGHT be disabled during this time, unless I do a few games at a time. This will all be complete throughout the next few months. They will probably take place in the order I have written them. You can expect delays, as I would still have to create a script to handle the reviews and a lot of other stuff. Summer's coming, though, so I'll have more time. Dragnog out."

MegaZeux Entertainment Expo delayed
Sunday 4 June 2000
Big Bubba has delayed the MegaZeux Entertainment Expo (MeE), because he has been very busy lately. The MeE is an E3-clone for ZZT and MegaZeux on IRC (austnet, #meE). It was supposed to take place at June 3 and it is not sure when it'll be held now. The official page is up here.

Interactive Fantasies is now 4 years old
Sunday 4 June 2000
Interactive Fantasies, run by me (Hercules), celebrated its 4th birthday at June 2. Just like last year, the members of IF (and also ex members of IF, this time) are working on a special birthday ZZT world, which should be out within 10 days.

Zenith joins Lame Game
Sunday 4 June 2000
KKairos (aka LowerVP) has decided to quit Zenith, who came back to IRC quite a while ago, also decided to return to ZZT itself again. He has decided to join the big ZZT company Lame Game. I'm not sure on what projects he is working now.