Internal Strings

ZZT has a number of internal strings that it displays for several purposes.

Message Strings

This is a list of internal string messages displayed on the bottom of the screen, along with their durations and whether or not they are set to only appear once.

Note that the duration variable here is scaled according to the game speed.

Message	Duration	Show Once
Bomb activated!	200	No
Energizer - You are invincible	200	Yes
Gems give you Health!	200	Yes
Ammunition - 5 shots per container.	200	Yes
Can't shoot in this place!	200	Yes
You don't have any ammo!	200	Yes
You now have the [color] key.	200	No
You already have a [color] key!	200	No
The [color] door is now open.	200	No
The [color] door is locked!	200	No
Torch - used for lighting in the underground.	200	Yes
Don't need torch - room is not dark!	200	Yes
Room is dark - you need to light a torch!	200	Yes
You don't have any torches!	200	Yes
You are blocked by an invisible wall.	100	No
A path is cleared through the forest.	200	Yes
A fake wall - secret passage!	150	Yes
Your way is blocked by water.	100	No
Running out of time!	200	No
Ouch!	100	No
Game over - Press ESCAPE	32000	No
ERR: [error]	200	No
[object/scroll messages]	200	No

Note that the Game Over message (a) has a leading space character, and (b) is not displayed if a message is currently displayed onscreen.

ZZT-OOP Errors

Errors thrown is an invalid command is encountered:

Bad Direction

Bad object kind

Bad #BECOME

Bad #PUT

Bad #CHANGE

Bad command [command]

Colors

The list of valid ZZT-OOP colors:

Blue

Green

Cyan

Red

Purple

Yellow

White

The color black is technically the color 0, which is out of bounds of the color name array. ZZT attempts to read a string that starts 8 characters before the first one, and it's length end up being 46 (corresponding to the character #char 46 . (0x2E) in an unrelated string). The full string for the color black is as follows:

.-♣....\♦Blue    ♣Green   ♦Cyan    ♥Red     ♠P

(The clubs and diamonds and such are the length parameters for the other color strings.)

Messages are limited to 58 characters in length. Thus, the messages that use this string end up being truncated. Also, due to an off-by-one error, collecting/using a black key will visually overwrite one tile of the sidebar with a black tile.

Text Windows

There are a handful of built-in messages displayed via text windows.

TODO: There should be a few more window titles, particularly in the editor.

World Selector

When selecting a world or saved game, a text window appears with the title ZZT Worlds or Saved Games.

When loading this window, filenames are checked against a small internal list to provide official worlds with fuller names:

TOWN       The Town of ZZT
DEMO       Demo of the ZZT World Editor
CAVES      The Caves of ZZT
DUNGEONS   The Dungeons of ZZT
CITY       Underground City of ZZT
BEST       The Best of ZZT
TOUR       Guided Tour ZZT's Other Worlds

"BEST" is notable for being unused, since the final result of the Best of ZZT contest was released in two parts: BESTZZT1 and BESTZZT2.

The last line of this window is Exit.

High Score

When viewing or entering a high score, a window appears with the title High scores for [World Name] or New high score for [World Name].

Score  Name
-----  ----------------------------------

Score entries are in the format of [Score] [Name], with score being five digits padded to be right-aligned. The placeholder name when entering a high score is -- You! --.

File Not Found

If a file IO error is encountered, this error message box may pop up. The title for this message box is Error # [Error Number].

$DOS Error: 

This may be caused by missing
ZZT files or a bad disk.  If
you are trying to save a game
your disk may be full -- try
using a blank, formatted disk
for saving the game!