Bossfight Books: ZZT by Anna Anthropy

Quadko · Post by **Quadko** » Wed May 28, 2014 4:14 pm

New book 'ZZT' by Anna Anthropy just published. I've just gotten my ebook copy, haven't read it yet so no review to share.

http://bossfightbooks.com/collections/b ... a-anthropy
http://bossfightbooks.com/

I'd heard of it on kickstarter, now it's out, and to my surprise they have other game based books as well - Chrono Trigger, Jagged Alliance 2, Galaga.

Post by **wardrich** » Thu May 29, 2014 9:42 am

Moved thread from Find Old Games to General Gaming.

Quadko · Post by **Quadko** » Thu May 29, 2014 9:58 am

Oops, thanks!

I've started and am enjoying the book. So far it is a history and description of the author's experience with ZZT. It brings back memories of the wonders of gaming as a kid, where half the time I didn't really get the games but sure had fun playing with them.

Post by **emmzee** » Thu May 29, 2014 10:24 am

Wow sounds like a great book. Being a ZZT/MZX guy from way back, I'm very interested in it.

Quadko · Post by **Quadko** » Sun Jun 01, 2014 7:42 pm

I finished the book and very much enjoyed it. The first third is "the game", ZZT itself. The middle third is "the games", the content created by the ZZT community. The final third is "the community", from the BBSs to IRC to the internet that the community connected on.

The author is present throughout; this is a very personal journey and introduction to ZZT, which is very engaging. Like any personal story, some things resonate with my experiences strongly, while others are foreign and understood only as dim but important glimpses into the experiences of others. Ah, the memories of being a teenager. There are interviews and retrospectives of user's games and discussions of the community interactions.

The appendices recommend version 3.2, Dosbox, the windows emulator "Lyon," and a list of notable community games to start with after playing with the original boards, should one want to get started with ZZT off of zzt.org.

Someday I'd love a second edition of the book with even more interviews and stories and perspectives, but I can't think of anything beyond that that this first edition lacks. Maybe more colorful pictures of puzzles? Great job to the author! On the strength of this one, I've preordered the Galaga and Jagged Alliance books as well.

Post by **emmzee** » Sun Jun 01, 2014 9:08 pm

Cools I'll check it out.

(I think mentioning DOSGames.com as well as _death_.zzt would made it better IMHO

)

Quadko · Post by **Quadko** » Sun Jun 01, 2014 9:23 pm

I think we have our first edition 2 interview candidate!

I'll have to check _death_ out at least! Any others I should try?

Post by **emmzee** » Sun Jun 01, 2014 9:43 pm

My other games on ZZT.org are not great ... I could list some of my favorite ZZT games from back in the day, but I haven't been playing any in the last few years so I dunno about more recent games!