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In 1991, long before Epic Games was putting out blockbusters like Unreal, Infinity Blade, and Gears of War, Tim Sweeney released a strange little MS-DOS shareware game called ZZT. The simplicity of its text graphics masked the complexity of its World Editor: players could use ZZT to design their own games.
This feature was a revelation to thousands of gamers, including Anna Anthropy, author of Rise of the Videogame Zinesters. ZZT is an exploration of a submerged continent, a personal history of the shareware movement, ascii art, messy teen identity struggle, cybersex, transition, outsider art, the thousand deaths of Barney the Dinosaur, and what happens when a ten-year-old gets her hands on a programming language she can understand.
It’s been said that the first Velvet Underground album sold only a few thousand copies, but that everyone who heard it formed a band. Well not everyone has played ZZT, but everyone who played it became a game designer.
This feature was a revelation to thousands of gamers, including Anna Anthropy, author of Rise of the Videogame Zinesters. ZZT is an exploration of a submerged continent, a personal history of the shareware movement, ascii art, messy teen identity struggle, cybersex, transition, outsider art, the thousand deaths of Barney the Dinosaur, and what happens when a ten-year-old gets her hands on a programming language she can understand.
It’s been said that the first Velvet Underground album sold only a few thousand copies, but that everyone who heard it formed a band. Well not everyone has played ZZT, but everyone who played it became a game designer.
68 pages, Paperback
First published May 28, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
April 26, 2014
A PRETTY MUCH PERFECT book about the thing I spent many teen years making terrible RPGs in, and about the weird sleazy social demimonde surrounding those Teen Gaming Dreams. A book for anyone who was a confused kid finding solace in the weird world online, figuring out your space in the world through secret IRC channels, creating grandiose video game dreams that're totally irrelevant to the outside world. I'm even interviewed in it, y'all, so check it out
September 8, 2016
ZZT by Anna Anthropy is centered around a gaming community that consumed a big chunk of my life between the ages of 13 and 15. ZZT was a game creation system, which meant it came with it’s own built-in world editor. I discovered the game and community when we signed up for AOL using the AOL software for MS-DOS in 1995. There were tons of user-created games to download and play, and you could even upload your own. A magical time.
I made several games under my ZZT company Ultraware. The community I bonded with on AOL, then later via the web and listservs, allowed me to escape my restrictive homeschooled upbringing while hanging out with a bunch of people like me.
In ZZT, Anna Anthropy teaches the history of ZZT through the lens of her experience. Anna is a trans individual so throughout the book we’re given snapshots of her adolescent interactions with the game and it’s community as she discovers who she really is. One section highlights how ZZT specifically appealed to trans kids. The story of the first trans girl she ever met online tugs at the heartstrings a bit too.
That’s a theme present throughout the book. Many of the individuals interviewed had issues growing up: depression, abuse, identity confusion. A lot of lonely kids found comfort in this silly little game. I was one of them.
Outside of the biographical asides we’re given a detailed history of an almost-forgotten subculture. Alexis (formerly Greg) Janson, the creator of the Super Tool Kit and ZZT’s successor MegaZeux, has a stronger presence in the book than I expected. Janson was known in the community for being a little mysterious. You’ll find out why. Her interview in this book is the most open one I’ve seen from her.
There’s great original research that went into chronicling the ZZT scene on Prodigy: both ZZT CLUB and ZZT CLUB PART 2. Janson was a member of Part 2 which is where I’d heard of it, but it’s always been sort of a ‘lost chapter’. Anna talks to some original members and sources previous interviews to paint a pretty clear picture.
The book has it’s points to make. A lot of gender politics, but nothing I disagreed with. There’s a section towards the end that makes a great argument for computers as tools instead of appliances. I think modern gaming developments like Minecraft, Valve’s Source Engine, Little Big Planet, and others have done a great job carrying ZZT’s torch. She does have a point when it comes to “newb”-level computing.
At times the book gets too technical (the IRC tutorial seemed out of place for example), but this is honestly some of the clearest documentation I’ve seen on ZZT-OOP (ZZT’s programming language). The descriptions of game play even taught me, a guy who’s been playing this game nearly two decades, some new tricks. There’s also a decent list of suggested games and a tutorial to get ZZT running on a modern system in the back.
I’m glad somebody finally wrote the story of my people. ZZT provided a community for kids like me who didn’t have one in the real world, and as evidenced from the stories in this book we all still have a little ZZT in us.
I've been involved in several online communities since ZZT was a part of my life, but you always remember your first. Online communities come and go, but when you get in deep enough they inform and shape who you are. This quote from draco towards the end of the book sums it for me: “...we poured our blood, soul, and guts into those ASCII games. And that was the most beautiful thing possible for us at that time.”
I picked up this book expecting a fun trip down memory lane. I put it down surprised at how much it moved me. It blasts the nostalgia at full blast, but it also made me think about online communities and my relationship with them in a different way.
Highly recommended.
I made several games under my ZZT company Ultraware. The community I bonded with on AOL, then later via the web and listservs, allowed me to escape my restrictive homeschooled upbringing while hanging out with a bunch of people like me.
In ZZT, Anna Anthropy teaches the history of ZZT through the lens of her experience. Anna is a trans individual so throughout the book we’re given snapshots of her adolescent interactions with the game and it’s community as she discovers who she really is. One section highlights how ZZT specifically appealed to trans kids. The story of the first trans girl she ever met online tugs at the heartstrings a bit too.
That’s a theme present throughout the book. Many of the individuals interviewed had issues growing up: depression, abuse, identity confusion. A lot of lonely kids found comfort in this silly little game. I was one of them.
Outside of the biographical asides we’re given a detailed history of an almost-forgotten subculture. Alexis (formerly Greg) Janson, the creator of the Super Tool Kit and ZZT’s successor MegaZeux, has a stronger presence in the book than I expected. Janson was known in the community for being a little mysterious. You’ll find out why. Her interview in this book is the most open one I’ve seen from her.
There’s great original research that went into chronicling the ZZT scene on Prodigy: both ZZT CLUB and ZZT CLUB PART 2. Janson was a member of Part 2 which is where I’d heard of it, but it’s always been sort of a ‘lost chapter’. Anna talks to some original members and sources previous interviews to paint a pretty clear picture.
The book has it’s points to make. A lot of gender politics, but nothing I disagreed with. There’s a section towards the end that makes a great argument for computers as tools instead of appliances. I think modern gaming developments like Minecraft, Valve’s Source Engine, Little Big Planet, and others have done a great job carrying ZZT’s torch. She does have a point when it comes to “newb”-level computing.
At times the book gets too technical (the IRC tutorial seemed out of place for example), but this is honestly some of the clearest documentation I’ve seen on ZZT-OOP (ZZT’s programming language). The descriptions of game play even taught me, a guy who’s been playing this game nearly two decades, some new tricks. There’s also a decent list of suggested games and a tutorial to get ZZT running on a modern system in the back.
I’m glad somebody finally wrote the story of my people. ZZT provided a community for kids like me who didn’t have one in the real world, and as evidenced from the stories in this book we all still have a little ZZT in us.
I've been involved in several online communities since ZZT was a part of my life, but you always remember your first. Online communities come and go, but when you get in deep enough they inform and shape who you are. This quote from draco towards the end of the book sums it for me: “...we poured our blood, soul, and guts into those ASCII games. And that was the most beautiful thing possible for us at that time.”
I picked up this book expecting a fun trip down memory lane. I put it down surprised at how much it moved me. It blasts the nostalgia at full blast, but it also made me think about online communities and my relationship with them in a different way.
Highly recommended.
June 6, 2014
ZZT (Or This Is Our Punk Rock, to use the subtitle I imagined over the course of reading it) is a coming of age story for the PC generation’s middle children. In providing both an accurate and entertaining account of her experiences with the game, Anna Anthropy bottles the feeling of early Internet and the Wild West era of shareware.
Anthropy depicts youth with a rare honesty that scans as both intensely personal and instantly relatable. Using interviews with other ZZT creators in addition to her own accounts, she successfully captures the fear and excitement of self-discovery and self-expression, weaving these threads to illustrate the extraordinary impact of a simple game-creation tool. ZZT is a testament to the power of young minds.
Anthropy’s critique of Big Computing’s recent focus on consumption over creation is one of the book’s most powerful sections. Her insistence on seeing computers as tools for authorship as opposed to mere commodities underlines a sentiment that is downright radical in the era of App Stores and data-mining. “A kid who has the means to program computers grows up with a different attitude about what technology is for,” Anthropy writes. “Computers are tools, playgrounds, laboratories–they’re whatever you make of them.”
In the same chapter, Anthropy reflects on the fragility of digital mediums and mourns the loss of so many games to negligence and bitrot. In a time when the term “Indie Game” has been reduced to a PR buzzword, ZZT is a necessary reminder “that outsider amateur game-makers creating personal games have always been there.” Video games didn’t start with massive corporations. They started with people in their bedrooms and basements and garages who dreamt of creating whole worlds.
ZZT documents a crucial time in video game history that threatens to be forgotten. Anna Anthropy and Boss Fight Books have ensured that one fading corner of the digital landscape will be remembered the way that it was: invigorating, anarchic, naïve and beautiful.
Anthropy depicts youth with a rare honesty that scans as both intensely personal and instantly relatable. Using interviews with other ZZT creators in addition to her own accounts, she successfully captures the fear and excitement of self-discovery and self-expression, weaving these threads to illustrate the extraordinary impact of a simple game-creation tool. ZZT is a testament to the power of young minds.
Anthropy’s critique of Big Computing’s recent focus on consumption over creation is one of the book’s most powerful sections. Her insistence on seeing computers as tools for authorship as opposed to mere commodities underlines a sentiment that is downright radical in the era of App Stores and data-mining. “A kid who has the means to program computers grows up with a different attitude about what technology is for,” Anthropy writes. “Computers are tools, playgrounds, laboratories–they’re whatever you make of them.”
In the same chapter, Anthropy reflects on the fragility of digital mediums and mourns the loss of so many games to negligence and bitrot. In a time when the term “Indie Game” has been reduced to a PR buzzword, ZZT is a necessary reminder “that outsider amateur game-makers creating personal games have always been there.” Video games didn’t start with massive corporations. They started with people in their bedrooms and basements and garages who dreamt of creating whole worlds.
ZZT documents a crucial time in video game history that threatens to be forgotten. Anna Anthropy and Boss Fight Books have ensured that one fading corner of the digital landscape will be remembered the way that it was: invigorating, anarchic, naïve and beautiful.
July 15, 2016
I supported the Boss Fight Books Kickstarter and have received each of the books they've published to date, but ZZT is the one I was most looking forward to and the first one I read. I never played around with ZZT to the extent that the author or any of the people featured in the book did, but I do remember having a few ZZT games and wasting reams of paper printing out instructions on how to build my own games in the editor.
The book is solidly written and well researched, but it focuses more on the culture around ZZT and specifically the author's own experiences as a trans individual in the ZZT community. It shouldn't have surprised me that the book went in such a personal direction (the 33 1/3 series, which seems to be the model for Boss Fight Books, also allows authors a lot of freedom in their approach to the subject matter), and I found the personal stories really interesting, but I think I expected just a little bit more ZZT - which in retrospect is silly as there's really only so much to say about an ASCII text adventure game while there's a whole lot to say about the people who invested so much of their adolescent time in building worlds there.
Overall I found this enjoyable enough to read, but didn't feel it was strongly written enough that I'd recommend it to anyone who didn't specifically have an interest in any of the topics covered in the book.
The book is solidly written and well researched, but it focuses more on the culture around ZZT and specifically the author's own experiences as a trans individual in the ZZT community. It shouldn't have surprised me that the book went in such a personal direction (the 33 1/3 series, which seems to be the model for Boss Fight Books, also allows authors a lot of freedom in their approach to the subject matter), and I found the personal stories really interesting, but I think I expected just a little bit more ZZT - which in retrospect is silly as there's really only so much to say about an ASCII text adventure game while there's a whole lot to say about the people who invested so much of their adolescent time in building worlds there.
Overall I found this enjoyable enough to read, but didn't feel it was strongly written enough that I'd recommend it to anyone who didn't specifically have an interest in any of the topics covered in the book.
April 12, 2019
This book was pretty terrible. Full stop.
I was hoping for a journalistic discussion of the history, development, and impact of a curious little game from the 90s called ZZT. Unfortunately, the author spends a very short amount of space discussing Tim Sweeney, the creator of the game. After briefly discussing his process of releasing the game, there is no further direct discussion of the father of the game himself. It feels as if the entirety of the direct research was accomplished in a single email exchange with the creator.
As for the remainder of the book, it's mostly an ongoing discussion about the author's struggle with gender dysphoria during her childhood and descriptions of various ZZT creations. It honestly felt like the former was the actual purpose of the book, which was very odd (and self-indulgent) since the book was ostensibly about a video game and not the author herself.
I was hoping for a journalistic discussion of the history, development, and impact of a curious little game from the 90s called ZZT. Unfortunately, the author spends a very short amount of space discussing Tim Sweeney, the creator of the game. After briefly discussing his process of releasing the game, there is no further direct discussion of the father of the game himself. It feels as if the entirety of the direct research was accomplished in a single email exchange with the creator.
As for the remainder of the book, it's mostly an ongoing discussion about the author's struggle with gender dysphoria during her childhood and descriptions of various ZZT creations. It honestly felt like the former was the actual purpose of the book, which was very odd (and self-indulgent) since the book was ostensibly about a video game and not the author herself.
April 9, 2025
Disfruté mucho este libro desde el factor nostalgia: habla de ZZT, de cómo programarlo, mundos adicionales, de refilón habla de IRC y los BBSes. Un buen pedazo de historia sobre videojuegos e identidad en los noventa.
Sin embargo, es inevitable que la autora ponga sus matices personales. Explora su identidad de género, también elabora sobre ella. Puede ser interesante, quizás, pero yo creo que merece un libro aparte, enfocado en eso.
Nada mal.
Sin embargo, es inevitable que la autora ponga sus matices personales. Explora su identidad de género, también elabora sobre ella. Puede ser interesante, quizás, pero yo creo que merece un libro aparte, enfocado en eso.
Nada mal.
July 27, 2016
It took me WAY too long to discover Boss Fight Books. However, I made it a point to jump right in, and jump I did.
I spent some time reading many of the first ten books' intros, and while most intrigued me, it was Anthropy's ZZT that invited me back.
I really enjoyed this book--even having never heard of ZZT before. (Yes, that probably makes me a horrible "gamer," but I was never into the PC scene.) What made it work so well is that I not only felt like I understood what the game was about, but I also was able to see what it meant to Anthropy--and so many others in the world. This book gave this game value above and beyond entertainment, and I think any good analytical/non-fiction writing should do just that: add to what it's discussing. This book does that, and more.
A bonus to this book is the identity--mostly revolving around gender--that is explored when we play a game or create one, the way we embody our characters. (Honestly, I could've done with more of this, as it's really what caused me to burn through this book.)
There are some slower moments, and maybe some asides / contextual information that didn't necessarily add to the overall ideas and themes--at least to me--but it was a wonderful read in the end and made for a great intro into what I hope is a fantastic publisher.
I spent some time reading many of the first ten books' intros, and while most intrigued me, it was Anthropy's ZZT that invited me back.
I really enjoyed this book--even having never heard of ZZT before. (Yes, that probably makes me a horrible "gamer," but I was never into the PC scene.) What made it work so well is that I not only felt like I understood what the game was about, but I also was able to see what it meant to Anthropy--and so many others in the world. This book gave this game value above and beyond entertainment, and I think any good analytical/non-fiction writing should do just that: add to what it's discussing. This book does that, and more.
A bonus to this book is the identity--mostly revolving around gender--that is explored when we play a game or create one, the way we embody our characters. (Honestly, I could've done with more of this, as it's really what caused me to burn through this book.)
There are some slower moments, and maybe some asides / contextual information that didn't necessarily add to the overall ideas and themes--at least to me--but it was a wonderful read in the end and made for a great intro into what I hope is a fantastic publisher.
August 15, 2015
I was captivated by this book, but I'd be lying if I said there weren't a few things that primed me for it:
- I remember ZZT (what this book is ostensibly about) very fondly, especially the editor. It was my first foray into game development as a young'un, and I just loved having those tools at my disposal back then.
- I read this book at a time when I was heavily questioning my gender identity. The author, and some of the people she talks about in this book, are transgender, and this is discussed to some extent in the book.
- While I wasn't involved in the ZZT community at large (I was too young at the time and didn't hang on for as long), I have a pretty vivid memory of what '90s online communities were like, for better and for worse. (This book is very much about the community that surrounded the game, perhaps even more than the game itself.)
For me, it's was a definite 5-star, must-read book. That said, it's pretty hard for me to tell how "objectively" good it is since I relate to it on such a deep level (that many of my friends, for good or for ill, probably wouldn't be able to). I think I'd still recommend it, though -- it's not a very long read.
- I remember ZZT (what this book is ostensibly about) very fondly, especially the editor. It was my first foray into game development as a young'un, and I just loved having those tools at my disposal back then.
- I read this book at a time when I was heavily questioning my gender identity. The author, and some of the people she talks about in this book, are transgender, and this is discussed to some extent in the book.
- While I wasn't involved in the ZZT community at large (I was too young at the time and didn't hang on for as long), I have a pretty vivid memory of what '90s online communities were like, for better and for worse. (This book is very much about the community that surrounded the game, perhaps even more than the game itself.)
For me, it's was a definite 5-star, must-read book. That said, it's pretty hard for me to tell how "objectively" good it is since I relate to it on such a deep level (that many of my friends, for good or for ill, probably wouldn't be able to). I think I'd still recommend it, though -- it's not a very long read.
June 7, 2014
In the vein of Boss Fight Books Volume 1:EarthBound, but is written in a tighter fashion and also has good insight into the creative process behind a lot of personal game development.
Whereas the first book was a beautifully sprawling mess of biography and description, this one is tighter. This befits the narrative architecture of each game.
Anna Anthropy has shown a gift for embedding the autobiographical (esp. pertaining to her personal journey) into her work, and this book is no exception. It really captures the joy of what happens when a well-crafted (accidentally or purposefully) game engine allows someone who isn't a professional game developer (yet) to delve into the act of creation with no real clue to what they are doing.
Whereas the first book was a beautifully sprawling mess of biography and description, this one is tighter. This befits the narrative architecture of each game.
Anna Anthropy has shown a gift for embedding the autobiographical (esp. pertaining to her personal journey) into her work, and this book is no exception. It really captures the joy of what happens when a well-crafted (accidentally or purposefully) game engine allows someone who isn't a professional game developer (yet) to delve into the act of creation with no real clue to what they are doing.
May 16, 2016
Loved this, less about ZZT the game and more the community of players and creators that grew up around the game. The tools to build worlds in ZZT seemed to give voice to those not normally heard at the time - the marginalised, the strange, and the queer.
The book also documents how that community interacted through BBS, IRC, message boards and even the games they made. This makes it also very interesting study of early internet communities.
Finally, as a video game creator, I could really appreciate the creative spark that drives individuals to explore the boundaries of what is capable with Game Engines and really push it as far as possible. Doing this really leads to wonderful, strange and new games.
I now really want to play around with ZZT now!
Easily the best Boss Fight book that I have read to date.
The book also documents how that community interacted through BBS, IRC, message boards and even the games they made. This makes it also very interesting study of early internet communities.
Finally, as a video game creator, I could really appreciate the creative spark that drives individuals to explore the boundaries of what is capable with Game Engines and really push it as far as possible. Doing this really leads to wonderful, strange and new games.
I now really want to play around with ZZT now!
Easily the best Boss Fight book that I have read to date.
June 3, 2014
A great nostalgia-filled romp through a game that was a key part of many folks lives.
ZZT is basically what got me into programming all those years ago. It managed to hide the fact that it was programming until you were already neck-deep in it and by then it was too late: you were hooked.
This book is pretty light on the technical side of things -- it's mostly about the culture around ZZT and the author's experiences with it. For anyone in the ZZT scene as a kid it's going to bring back fond memories. If you never played ZZT but want to know how it kick-started a generation of programmers' careers it's a pretty good overview.
ZZT is basically what got me into programming all those years ago. It managed to hide the fact that it was programming until you were already neck-deep in it and by then it was too late: you were hooked.
This book is pretty light on the technical side of things -- it's mostly about the culture around ZZT and the author's experiences with it. For anyone in the ZZT scene as a kid it's going to bring back fond memories. If you never played ZZT but want to know how it kick-started a generation of programmers' careers it's a pretty good overview.
June 5, 2014
What an interesting, refreshing read. Probably not everyone's cup of tea, but I really enjoyed it. I'm a few years older than the author and missed the boat on ZZT back in the day, though I enjoyed plenty of text-character-based games and tried my hand at programming on the C64. The interweaving of the author's trans experience in early/pre-internet days added an excellent layer of humanity to what could have been a fairly bland history of a text game.
July 8, 2014
Another insightful look into the history of video games from Boss Fight Books. Even without playing ZZT myself, Anna Anthropy brings the game to life through the stories of the players who were shaped by it and shaped it themselves.
November 30, 2025
I've never played ZZT or any games made with its engine; I was introduced to it for the first time via Narcissa Wright's entertaining speedrun of Town of ZZT at SGDQ2014. All I knew about it was that it was an MS-DOS adventure game developed in the early '90s by a young Tim Sweeney, the first release from Potomac Computer Systems, now known as the developer behind one of the biggest games in the world - Fortnite. As such, I was incredibly interested to learn more about the game itself and found this book to be a great look into both the game and the community of fledgling programmers and game designers that sprang up around it.
Anthropy goes into great detail describing the different aspects of both the original ZZT games as well as the common traits of user-made games in its engine. Every detail, from which ASCII character is to be used to represent each entity to the separate commands you'd use to dictate NPCs' AI and decision making, is covered in this book. The book transitions nicely from describing the framework of the first game, Town of ZZT, to touching on the other Sweeney-developed games in the original ZZT series before covering the wide berth of games made in the ZZT engine by its extensive community. This world of homebrew game creation and selling was well before my time, so it was really neat to learn about the shareware/payware model of game distribution and monetization in this space of MS-DOS adventure games. I've seen my fair share of crazy games, stories, and various other creations in modern games with vast opportunities for user-made maps and level creation tools (e.g. Minecraft, Doom, Halo Forge, etc.), so it was incredibly interesting to read about how it was all predated by the games made in ZZT a couple of decades prior. In ZZT, people made versions of other games, original games and stories, adaptations of movies and TV shows, and working calculators (why is it always a working calculator or computer?!).
This book is also a personal one for Anthropy, as she goes over her own journey of discovering and reckoning with her trans identity while creating ZZT levels. She features quotes from various other ZZT community members who also found out more about themselves through creating art in the ZZT engine, as well as others who used it as a pure form of artistic expression and emotional catharsis (or even just dumb, for fun shitposts). Alongside all the discussion around the community formed around ZZT, there's just as much insight into the general culture on the internet at the time, good and bad. Just as it was (and still is) a space widely antagonistic to those of minority groups, it was also a place for those same minorities to both connect with each other and a blank canvas on which they could explore their own identities.
A great look into ZZT and the various creations born from its engine, and just a great introduction to Boss Fight Books. Excited to check out more of these!
Anthropy goes into great detail describing the different aspects of both the original ZZT games as well as the common traits of user-made games in its engine. Every detail, from which ASCII character is to be used to represent each entity to the separate commands you'd use to dictate NPCs' AI and decision making, is covered in this book. The book transitions nicely from describing the framework of the first game, Town of ZZT, to touching on the other Sweeney-developed games in the original ZZT series before covering the wide berth of games made in the ZZT engine by its extensive community. This world of homebrew game creation and selling was well before my time, so it was really neat to learn about the shareware/payware model of game distribution and monetization in this space of MS-DOS adventure games. I've seen my fair share of crazy games, stories, and various other creations in modern games with vast opportunities for user-made maps and level creation tools (e.g. Minecraft, Doom, Halo Forge, etc.), so it was incredibly interesting to read about how it was all predated by the games made in ZZT a couple of decades prior. In ZZT, people made versions of other games, original games and stories, adaptations of movies and TV shows, and working calculators (why is it always a working calculator or computer?!).
This book is also a personal one for Anthropy, as she goes over her own journey of discovering and reckoning with her trans identity while creating ZZT levels. She features quotes from various other ZZT community members who also found out more about themselves through creating art in the ZZT engine, as well as others who used it as a pure form of artistic expression and emotional catharsis (or even just dumb, for fun shitposts). Alongside all the discussion around the community formed around ZZT, there's just as much insight into the general culture on the internet at the time, good and bad. Just as it was (and still is) a space widely antagonistic to those of minority groups, it was also a place for those same minorities to both connect with each other and a blank canvas on which they could explore their own identities.
A great look into ZZT and the various creations born from its engine, and just a great introduction to Boss Fight Books. Excited to check out more of these!
April 26, 2018
Nutshell: Anna Anthropy provides a very personal account of being part of the ZZT game creation scene when the game (and the Internet) was new.
I've read a few Boss Fight books before, and liked them; a deep dive into a videogame that means a lot to the author feels like a warm hug of a book, if you're in the right mood. Despite that, however, ZZT sat on my shelf for a long time unread. I'd never had any personal experience with the game, and what I knew of it--action ascii adventure thing--felt awfully intimidating, and not the sort of thing you could get into now. Frankly, I should have known better; I've certainly played enough of Anthropy's text-based games to know she's an engaging author, and ZZT is no exception. (This isn't the first time I've made this observation with Boss Fight Books, but it is an issue that every time I discuss a book in their series, it turns into this weird who's on first where no one can be sure whether I'm referring to the book or the game. For the purpose of the rest of the review, ZZT will be the game, and ZZT* will be the book.)
ZZT* isn't just about ZZT (ok, that's only mildly less confusing.) It's about Anthropy growing up and realizing what it meant to not just play games but create them as well, what it meant to become aware of communities of people who make games. While a lot of the scene behind it was something that she didn't participate in actively at the time, it's fascinating to see how vast the community around the game was, the potential and energy that a lot of fledging designers poured into their game editors to make wildly different creations. Basically, it's not just a book about a game; it's a glimpse into a community, a world, a kind of snapshot into a state that isn't around anymore in the same way. And that made it a pretty cool read.
I've read a few Boss Fight books before, and liked them; a deep dive into a videogame that means a lot to the author feels like a warm hug of a book, if you're in the right mood. Despite that, however, ZZT sat on my shelf for a long time unread. I'd never had any personal experience with the game, and what I knew of it--action ascii adventure thing--felt awfully intimidating, and not the sort of thing you could get into now. Frankly, I should have known better; I've certainly played enough of Anthropy's text-based games to know she's an engaging author, and ZZT is no exception. (This isn't the first time I've made this observation with Boss Fight Books, but it is an issue that every time I discuss a book in their series, it turns into this weird who's on first where no one can be sure whether I'm referring to the book or the game. For the purpose of the rest of the review, ZZT will be the game, and ZZT* will be the book.)
ZZT* isn't just about ZZT (ok, that's only mildly less confusing.) It's about Anthropy growing up and realizing what it meant to not just play games but create them as well, what it meant to become aware of communities of people who make games. While a lot of the scene behind it was something that she didn't participate in actively at the time, it's fascinating to see how vast the community around the game was, the potential and energy that a lot of fledging designers poured into their game editors to make wildly different creations. Basically, it's not just a book about a game; it's a glimpse into a community, a world, a kind of snapshot into a state that isn't around anymore in the same way. And that made it a pretty cool read.
February 14, 2023
The third Boss Fight Book and already the series is going places I didn’t expect. In this case, a love letter to text-based shareware DOS games, in particular the puzzle-oriented ZZT series that was the foundation for the creation of Epic MegaGames. Anthropy clearly loves the game; the attention to detail and description of these games sound much better in her words than they ever did when I played them, likely because my first computer was a Macintosh and thus my earliest games on the computer had actual graphics.
The other surprise here is how Anthropy interweaves her personal story with the history of the game. Not the interweaving, per se, as that was definitely a part of both Baumann’s Earthbound and Williams’ Chrono Trigger, but the particularly story of how ZZT assisted those who felt different from their society assigned gender. So, yeah, this book is about ZZT, but it’s also about X and Y, too.
Unlike the other two books, I had no urge to play ZZT during or after reading this book, partly because I didn’t play it in the past and have no nostalgia for the game or its type. However, I did enjoy learning more about shareware games and the culture behind them.
The other surprise here is how Anthropy interweaves her personal story with the history of the game. Not the interweaving, per se, as that was definitely a part of both Baumann’s Earthbound and Williams’ Chrono Trigger, but the particularly story of how ZZT assisted those who felt different from their society assigned gender. So, yeah, this book is about ZZT, but it’s also about X and Y, too.
Unlike the other two books, I had no urge to play ZZT during or after reading this book, partly because I didn’t play it in the past and have no nostalgia for the game or its type. However, I did enjoy learning more about shareware games and the culture behind them.
April 21, 2019
Somehow, I have never actually played much ZZT, if any at all -- but I grew up in its era, playing other ASCII-based games and downloading other episodic shareware games from local BBSes. Lack of familiarity with the game being discussed in no way diminished my enjoyment of the text, which is really about larger themes of creativity and coming of age. This book does an excellent job of capturing a unique moment in time, where digital communication was still operating on a smaller scale, independent software was REALLY independent, and weird teenagers were discovering each other (and themselves) through digital creation.
I'm sure that everyone feels, to some extent, that their own formative years occurred at a special time that can never be exactly recreated -- that's just part of life. But this book neatly captures my special time, highlighting good and bad, and effectively articulating what we stand to lose by handing over so much control of today's digital environment to a few corporate entities. Not bad at all for a book about a rather absurd little computer game.
I'm sure that everyone feels, to some extent, that their own formative years occurred at a special time that can never be exactly recreated -- that's just part of life. But this book neatly captures my special time, highlighting good and bad, and effectively articulating what we stand to lose by handing over so much control of today's digital environment to a few corporate entities. Not bad at all for a book about a rather absurd little computer game.
April 14, 2022
It was fine. Actually, in many ways, it's the best of the first three Boss Fight Books. Where Chrono Trigger went way off the rails, Earthbound did its best to explore themes of the game in real life, ZZT manages to do both, but tells an interesting perspective of a gaming community and culture that existed prior to even my own time on the internet.
I knew nothing about ZZT before this book, and now it feels quite familiar to me.
One aspect of the ZZT timeline that felt familiar to me was the time I used to spend on IRC chat. Meeting with randoms around the world, building actually meaningful friendships that I remember even 15-20 years later.
My childhood internet was IRC, Starcraft UMS games, and building dumb games and stories in KidPix 3. This book took me back to that time in my life, and for that, I'm grateful.
That said, not sure what I expected from this book, but I'm sure if I actually played ZZT in my young years, it could have been more memorable.
I knew nothing about ZZT before this book, and now it feels quite familiar to me.
One aspect of the ZZT timeline that felt familiar to me was the time I used to spend on IRC chat. Meeting with randoms around the world, building actually meaningful friendships that I remember even 15-20 years later.
My childhood internet was IRC, Starcraft UMS games, and building dumb games and stories in KidPix 3. This book took me back to that time in my life, and for that, I'm grateful.
That said, not sure what I expected from this book, but I'm sure if I actually played ZZT in my young years, it could have been more memorable.
February 13, 2023
To me ZZT was nothing more than Town of ZZT, the tricky puzzle based game I don't remember finishing (though I did get at least a few of the keys). And this was at a time I remember finishing most of the games I owned. So the difficulty for me stood out. Seeing this book in a Humble Bundle inspired me to try it out, but emulated it runs too quickly, the enemies overpower you too easily, and I don't have the patience to try to fix the problems.
It was interesting to see how little of the game I had experienced. Yes, the builder came with the game, and I tested it out, but at a time when sharing wasn't easy, and I was never the type to lan party style, it didn't mean much. The experiences others had that led to personal decisions and their life growth, all because of a simple ASCII based game... Well.
I can't say that it was actually a well written book, but doing such a deep dive into, what was to me, such an obscure topic, definitely makes it worth checking out in my eyes.
It was interesting to see how little of the game I had experienced. Yes, the builder came with the game, and I tested it out, but at a time when sharing wasn't easy, and I was never the type to lan party style, it didn't mean much. The experiences others had that led to personal decisions and their life growth, all because of a simple ASCII based game... Well.
I can't say that it was actually a well written book, but doing such a deep dive into, what was to me, such an obscure topic, definitely makes it worth checking out in my eyes.
May 2, 2019
I adored this book. In it I got to dive in to a world I never knew of before, but Anna writes in a way that I felt like I knew it because it's about those weird little clics from our past I sometimes reflect on, where I got to try our identities. But instead of Star Trek roleplaying it's kids younger than me making entire video games! It had that feel I get when I hear about writers in Paris in the 20s, showing that those pockets of brilliance and creativity can appear anywhere and at any time and we can still have that.
This is a great read as an ebook for dipping in to for five to twenty minutes on commutes or bored waiting in lines. Basically every few screens is a new section so it's easy to pick up, and it'll leave you in an excited mood wanting to create and play.
This is a great read as an ebook for dipping in to for five to twenty minutes on commutes or bored waiting in lines. Basically every few screens is a new section so it's easy to pick up, and it'll leave you in an excited mood wanting to create and play.
February 29, 2024
For someone who's never read one of those 33 1/3 books (sorry, guys; I don't know, write one about The Stooges, Hound Dog Taylor or The Ronettes, then we'll talk), I've always been really glad they existed. Same for this similar series. Anna Anthropy's love letter to ZZT is easily the most substantial and enthralling of the three I've read so far. She's much more personal than Alex Kane on KotOR, and not annoying on the page like Michael Kimball on Galaga. I seem to be a sucker for nonfiction works on the meaningful human connections nerds, geeks and other such outcasts make through technology (and if you are, too, boy do I have a documentary for you). Add this gem of a book to the stack.
March 10, 2022
Throughout her book Anna tells you not just what ZZT is, who made it, and how it works, but also tells you about the community of people it inspired. The majority of this book is about how this video game and it's creation tools inspired so many young people to go out and create. Also an important thread inside this book is the story of how ZZT and it's online community helped Anna discover herself. This book is filled with nostalgia (not just for these games, but for the early internet), heart, and some sadness. An easy recommend from me.
April 10, 2023
Never knew about ZZT so very interesting. Good background of game and impact on community. The interviews are difficult to follow as it jumps around and I wasn’t sure whether it was the author or the person talking who’s voice I was reading a lot of the time. Bit repetitive at times, but I suppose that’s the nature of the subject. All in all, very good read
February 18, 2025
It was okay. As a description of the author's personal experiences with the modding community it was decent. But delved into too much detail that isn't interesting for the person not intimately familiar with it. Plus, it got too personal. I was interested in hearing about the game, not gender identity.
January 11, 2020
The latter portion of the book provides more of what I had expected from the Boss Fight Books series. The first half or so reads much more like a technical manual or instruction booklet for how ZZT works as a game.
August 17, 2021
3.5
Pretty interesting. I bought ths on a whim without knowing anything about the game and it made me want to check it out, Kudzu especially. I appreciated the personal notes and the emphasis on the community around the game - brought me back to my old forum life :)
Pretty interesting. I bought ths on a whim without knowing anything about the game and it made me want to check it out, Kudzu especially. I appreciated the personal notes and the emphasis on the community around the game - brought me back to my old forum life :)
May 23, 2022
The Boss Fight Books usually place a personal story about a journey with a piece of art in the wider context of the artform, and culture in general. The best ones show how important and meaningful that journey was in the author's life, and Anna Anthropy has written one of the best ones.
October 16, 2017
A fantastic book that combines personal memories of a game and its significance with an overview of its pop culture context in the days of the early internet.
January 1, 2019
An insightful look into pre-corporate game dev and the impacts of digital interactions
July 10, 2020
Very interesting subject and perspective.
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