A note from ZZT's creator, Tim Sweeney: ZZT was released as shareware in 1991 and it was Epic's debut title. Though it was quite minor in the grand scheme of things, registrations from ZZT paid for the computer, hardware and artwork I used to create my second game, Jill of the Jungle. Jill of the Jungle put Epic MegaGames on the map as a leading shareware publisher, and helped to attract our founding developers, including James Schmalz (Solar Winds and Epic Pinball), and Cliff Bleszinski (Jazz Jackrabbit), who I'm now working with on my third game, Unreal. ZZT's text-based graphics looked dated even in 1991, so they certainly are not leading-edge now in 1997. But, it's still fun to play, and the level editor built into ZZT has inspired hundreds if not thousands of user-created levels. Some of these levels can still be found on the web from sites such as:
Butz Klauzer's ZZT Page To the best of my knowledge, ZZT was the first PC game to feature a built-in level editing tool and scripting language. Looking back, I'd really like to thank Scott Miller of Apogee for his early advice and encouragement with ZZT, Johnny Wilson of Computer Gaming World for the first mainstream press that Epic received with ZZT, and all of the people in the ZZT community who created add-on levels and utilities for ZZT. Enjoy!
Tim Sweeney Release notes:
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