The graphical capability of ZZT is both minimalist and inspiring at the same time. It is entirely possible to insert lengthy songs with little more than some patience and a bare minimum of musical knowledge thanks to the simplicity of the programming language. Sound and music are both done through the PC speaker, which would normally grow old in a hurry, but clever programming allowed ZZT to play a full range of notes that could imitate a three-voice system. Each world (and any created by users) also has a corresponding high-score file automatically generated for it, allowing for both replayability value and for players to challenge one another. They can best be described as halfway between straight adventure games and puzzle games. The four worlds included with the registered version of ZZT are Town of ZZT, Caves of ZZT, City of ZZT and Dungeons of ZZT. You can literally run the game with as little as monochrome monitor and on a computer with no hard drive. Its rock bottom system requirements let it run on practically any computer with more processor power than a toaster, and its minuscule file sizes allow the game and dozens of levels (called 'worlds' ingame) to fit comfortably on a 1.44 diskette.

Graphically it's roughly similar to games such as Kingdom of Kroz combined with a elements of a role playing game and a 'dungeon crawl' like NetHack. Its title (rumored to stand for 'Zoo of Zero Tolerance, but later disproven) was deliberately chosen so it would always appear at the bottom of newsgroup listings, making it easy to find. ZZT is truly an odd bird among games to say the least.

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