Editing ZZT (section)

== Legacy ==
By getting $100 per day from ''ZZT'', Sweeney was convinced he could earn enough from the [[shareware]] industry, and decided to work in the [[video game industry]].<ref name="ZZT-GU2" /> He renamed the company to Epic MegaGames in October 1991.<ref name=":23" /> Shortly after the release of ''ZZT'', Sweeney started a level designer contest for registered users to make their own worlds and submit them to him.<ref name="ZZT-Museum912" /> Over 200 users submitted their custom worlds. The best collaboration games that won the contest were included in ''The Best of ZZT'' and ''ZZT's Revenge'', released in 1992. The winners of the contest received prizes of gift certificates, while others would receive honorable mentions. The six winning custom worlds that made up ''ZZT's Revenge'' earned the designers employment in Epic MegaGames, with the winning worlds being "Ezanya", "Fantasy", "Crypt", "Smiley Guy", "Manor", and "Darbytown".<ref name=":03" /> Sweeney later asked one of these developers, Allen Pilgrim, to create the shareware world "Monster Zoo" for the sequel to ''ZZT'', ''Super ZZT'', released on October 15, 1991.<ref>{{Cite web|last=DOSGuy|date=April 27, 2015|title=Allen Pilgrim Interview|url=https://www.classicdosgames.com/interviews/allenpilgrim.html|access-date=February 7, 2022|website=RGB Classic Games|archive-date=February 7, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220207104137/https://www.classicdosgames.com/interviews/allenpilgrim.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Other worlds available for purchase were "Proving Grounds" and "Lost Forest". The game plays similarly to ''ZZT'', while adding more features such as greater colors accessible within its editor, new enemies and objects, and scrolling map screens that allowed for larger boards than in ''ZZT''. Although ''Super ZZT'' incorporated several additions to ''ZZT'', it never caught on with the ''ZZT'' community like the original ''ZZT'' did, and very few games were ever created for ''Super ZZT'', with one reason being due to the editor being hidden during normal play.<ref name="ZZT-InterFanta2" />

After publishing ''Best of ZZT'' and ''ZZT's Revenge'', Sweeney realized the community began creating worlds that reached or exceeded the quality of his work.<ref name=":33" /> Furthermore, he believed that games with cutting edge graphics and sound similar in commercial quality to [[Super Nintendo Entertainment System]] or [[Sega Genesis]] games would have higher sales in the shareware model, taking influence from ''[[Commander Keen]]'' and ''[[Duke Nukem (video game)|Duke Nukem]]''. As such, he moved away from ''ZZT'' indefinitely to work on other projects like ''[[Jill of the Jungle]]''. He has commented on wanting to build a [[Massively multiplayer online game|massive-multiplayer online]] version of ''ZZT'' during an interview, but his future focus on the company was to move forward with new franchises, while learning from the success of ''ZZT''.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Elig|date=July 15, 2007|title=An Interview with Tim Sweeney|url=https://www.digitalmzx.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12521|access-date=December 28, 2021|website=dMZX Forums|archive-date=December 28, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211228051840/https://www.digitalmzx.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12521|url-status=live}}</ref> Sweeney and Mark Rein later credited that much of the core idea of ''[[Unreal (1998 video game)|Unreal]]'' and ''[[Unreal Engine]]'' came from what Sweeney learned from the success of ''ZZT'', with a focus on building games with clean code and editing tools, so that others can build their own games.<ref name=":12" /><ref name=":53" /> Mark Rein has claimed that ''[[Unreal Tournament]]'' became a spiritual successor to the game thanks to the game's modding community and versatile developer tools.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kohler |first=Chris |date=February 5, 2007 |title=Interview: Epic's Mark Rein |magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] |url=https://www.wired.com/2007/02/interview-epics/ |url-status=live |access-date=December 17, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220213084933/https://www.wired.com/2007/02/interview-epics/ |archive-date=February 13, 2022 |issn=1059-1028}}</ref>
<!--[[KevEdit]] and [[ZZTAE]] redirect here.-->

An early modding community emerged within [[Prodigy (online service)|Prodigy]], [[AOL|America Online]], [[CompuServe|Compuserve]], and the Internet.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Au |first=Wagner James |date=April 16, 2004 |title=Triumph of the mod |url=https://www.salon.com/2002/04/16/modding/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150703193721/http://www.salon.com/2002/04/16/modding/ |archive-date=July 3, 2015 |access-date=January 8, 2022 |website=[[Salon.com|Salon]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Schreiner |first1=Lukas |last2=von Mammen |first2=Sebastian |title=The 16th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) 2021 |chapter=Modding Support of Game Engines |date=2021-08-03 |chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1145/3472538.3472574 |series=FDG'21 |location=New York, NY, US |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery |pages=1–9 |doi=10.1145/3472538.3472574 |isbn=978-1-4503-8422-3|s2cid=239053857}}</ref> Many fan-made worlds and editing tools are curated on a fan website, ''Museum of ZZT''. The game provided the community with an outlet for creativity and self-expression without artistic or programming skills, especially among stigmatized groups such as [[transgender]] people.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Welch|first=Tom|date=December 2018|title=The Affectively Necessary Labour of Queer Mods|url=http://gamestudies.org/1803/articles/welch|journal=Game Studies|volume=18|issue=3|issn=1604-7982|access-date=December 28, 2021|archive-date=December 9, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201209094717/http://gamestudies.org/1803/articles/welch|url-status=live}}</ref> As of 2021, more than 3,000 worlds have been created using the built in editor, or third party editors such as KevEdit.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Dr. Dos|title=Mass Downloads|url=https://museumofzzt.com/mass-downloads/|access-date=December 27, 2021|website=Museum of ZZT|archive-date=December 28, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211228051831/https://museumofzzt.com/mass-downloads/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Dr. Dos |title=Closer Look: Modern ZZT Editing With KevEdit |url=https://museumofzzt.com/article/232/closer-look-modern-zzt-editing-with-kevedit |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180418031706/https://museumofzzt.com/article/232/closer-look-modern-zzt-editing-with-kevedit |archive-date=April 18, 2018 |access-date=April 17, 2018 |website=Museum of ZZT}}</ref> Tim Sweeney has claimed that tens of thousands of workers in the game industry have previously made worlds in ''ZZT''.<ref name=":42" /> A port called ''Zeta'' allows for playing ''ZZT'' games on Windows or a web browser, and another source port, ''DreamZZT'', allows ports to consoles, specifically the [[Dreamcast]] and [[Nintendo DS]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Carless |first=Simon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zrqz84QUuSEC&pg=PA67 |title=Gaming Hacks |publisher=[[O'Reilly Media|O'Reilly Media, Inc.]] |year=2004 |isbn=9780596007140 |edition=1st |location=Sebastopol, CA |pages=67 |oclc=326649266 |access-date=April 17, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220108122300/https://books.google.com/books?id=zrqz84QUuSEC&pg=PA67 |archive-date=January 8, 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> Worlds continue to be developed that have expanded beyond its intended genre, creating [[shoot 'em up]]s, [[List of Tetris variants|falling block puzzle games]], complex [[Role-playing video game|role-playing games]], and [[Point-and-click Adventure|point-and-click adventure]] games, sometimes deriving from other entertainment releases.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Kohler |first=Chris |title=Retro Gaming Hacks: Tips & Tools for Playing the Classics |date=October 12, 2005 |publisher=[[O'Reilly Media|O'Reilly Media, Inc.]] |isbn=978-1-4493-0390-7 |editor-last=Jepson |editor-first=Brian |location=Sebastopol, CA |pages=441 |chapter=Chapter 8, Playing at Game Design |access-date=June 18, 2018 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fz8lndvLhJQC&pg=PT441 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220108225428/https://books.google.com/books?id=Fz8lndvLhJQC&pg=PT441 |archive-date=January 8, 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Switter-Host3" /> The [[source code]] of ''ZZT'' was lost in a computer [[Crash (computing)|crash]],<ref name="ZZT-GU2" /><ref name="Tim-Note2" /> a community developer, Adrian Siekierka, [[Reverse engineering|reconstructed]] and released the source code in 2020, creating a binary accurate executable of ''ZZT'' with Sweeney's permission.<ref>{{cite web|last=Gipp|first=Stuart|date=March 17, 2020|title=ZZT's source code has been reconstructed - Reconstruction of ZZT is a game-changer for the ZZT community|url=https://retronauts.com/article/1480/zzts-source-code-has-been-reconstructed|website=Retronauts|access-date=April 12, 2020|archive-date=March 18, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200318034925/https://retronauts.com/article/1480/zzts-source-code-has-been-reconstructed|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Siekierka|first=Adrian|date=August 4, 2020|title=ZZT Stories: The Reconstruction|url=https://blog.asie.pl/2020/08/reconstructing-zzt/|website=asie's blog|access-date=July 18, 2021|archive-date=July 24, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210724233720/https://blog.asie.pl/2020/08/reconstructing-zzt/|url-status=live}}</ref>

On January 28, 2023, the original source code for ''ZZT'' 3.0 (without third party content) was uploaded to [[GitHub]] under the [[MIT License]] with permission of Tim Sweeney.<ref>{{Cite tweet |last=Siekierka |first=Adrian |user=cbrzeszczot |number=1619439008827973632 |date=28 January 2023 |title=According to [Tim Sweeney], the original ZZT source code was lost in the early 90s: "[... If] I had it, I'd release it, but I lost it in a crash a long time ago." But they were all of them deceived, for another backup was made. |access-date=31 January 2023 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230131040434/https://twitter.com/cbrzeszczot/status/1619439008827973632 |archive-date=31 January 2023}}</ref>

Other games have been inspired by ''ZZT'', such as ''MegaZeux'', ''PuzzleScript'', and ''[[Frog Fractions 2]]'', and authors of ''ZZT'' worlds became professional video game developers.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Warren|first=Jonah|title=2019 IEEE Games, Entertainment, Media Conference (GEM) |chapter=Tiny online game engines |date=18-21 June 2019|chapter-url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8901975|location=New Haven, CT, US|publisher=IEEE|pages=1–7|doi=10.1109/GEM.2019.8901975|isbn=978-1-7281-2404-9|s2cid=208210552|via=IEEE Xplore|access-date=February 7, 2022|archive-date=January 8, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220108122956/https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8901975/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Graft |first=Kris |date=February 20, 2018 |title=Frog Fractions 2 ARG co-creator reflects on what makes a good alternate reality game |url=https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/-i-frog-fractions-2-i-arg-co-creator-reflects-on-what-makes-a-good-alternate-reality-game |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211214222058/https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/-i-frog-fractions-2-i-arg-co-creator-reflects-on-what-makes-a-good-alternate-reality-game |archive-date=December 14, 2021 |access-date=December 14, 2021 |website=[[Game Developer (website)|Game Developer]]}}</ref> ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' has made comparisons to ''[[Minecraft]]'' and ''[[Roblox]]'', in its ability to serve as a start for new [[video game developer]]s. ''Wired'' and ''Hardcore Gaming 101'' found similarities in its seamless blend of gameplay and editing to ''[[LittleBigPlanet]]''.<ref name=":63" /><ref name=":1" />