Wiki:Scope

NOTE: This page is definitely a draft.

What is this wiki about? ZZT! What precisely is ZZT related? That's the question this page tries to answer.

Lists on this page are not exhaustive, but they should give some overall sense of what is in scope. For more of a sense of what this wiki is looking for, you might check out the Requested articles page.

Currently in scope

• Anything that's part of ZZT itself: Known versions, technical info, ZZT-OOP, bugs, official worlds, etc.
• ZZT tools: Toolkits, external editors, font creation utilities, DOS emulation, etc.
• Specific ZZT techniques: Player clones, the kangaroo effect, etc.
• ZZT's descendants: Super ZZT, Megazeux, other ZZT clones like ZIG.

Be careful to keep a ZZT focus for topics that extend significantly beyond ZZT. For example, an article on DOSBox might briefly introduce what it is, what it has to do with ZZT, and any ZZT-specific details (e.g., some games specify a specific number of DOSBox cycles). It wouldn't be a comprehensive guide to DOSBox, though it might link to the DOSBox website and encourage the reader to go there for more info.

Definitely in scope

Articles on the following topics are definitely welcome:

ZZT itself

• History of ZZT versions
• Technical info on the ZZT executable itself, ZZT.DAT, etc
• Anatomy of a world: components (boards, title screen, etc) and file formats
• Tile types: player, lion, solid, etc.
• ZZT-OOP
• How ZZT executes a board (stat order, counter behavior, bugs, etc)
• The built-in editor: behavior, bugs, accessible colors and properties, etc
• Any other behavior built into ZZT, e.g., the Game Controller/Video Mode prompt shown at startup

Using ZZT

• Running ZZT: FreeDOS boot disks, DOSBox, Zeta
• Tools for making worlds: toolkits, external editors, font creation utilities, etc
• Techniques for creating ZZT worlds: player clones, the kangaroo effect, etc

ZZT worlds

• The worlds that come with ZZT: Town, Caves, City, Demo, Dungeons, Tour

In scope, but deferred to a later date

I want these topics to be documented, but I'm not 100% sure what the scope should be. Maybe we can focus on creating articles that are definitely in scope first, and come back to this later?

ZZT worlds

• Published ZZT worlds
• Any relevant in-jokesor background info needed to understand a world

The ZZT community

• Community history: significant events (e.g., release of STK, AOL shutdown) and when they happened
• ZZT sites and archives
• Community gathering places (Zeuxworld, IRC)

People

• Creators of ZZT worlds
• People who played significant roles in the community, but never made a world?
• People from the greater ZZT/Zeux community?

ZZT-inspired software

• Successors and clones: Super ZZT, Megazeux, ZIG