Kangaroo effect
The kangaroo effect is a visual technique for displaying art on dark boards outside the field of vision of the player entity.
For gameplay reasons, torches, passages, and the player are unconditionally visible on dark boards. By placing large quantities of these entities with the same foreground and background color, one can depict inaccessible regions as solid bodies.
History
Early ZZT worlds used a precursor to this effect - by placing large patches of plain brown-on-black torches, a thick, forested area could be suggested[1][2][3].
The first documented use of this effect is in 1998. The game Punctuation People by Newt utilized it for intermission artwork[4]. This use remained largely unnoticed.
The person who went on to use this effect more extensively and raise public awareness of it was gingermuffins. Having documented the effect in January 2007[5], he would go on to use it in his games throughout 2007 and 2008. The name "kangaroo effect" was coined by Ellypses in the same forum thread[6].
References
- ↑ Kowinsky, Jamie. (1992, June 21). Escape from the land of NOZ, board 12. Museum of ZZT.
- ↑ Darrow, Evan. (1993, May 28). Catalog of ZZT Games From Darrow Software!, board 5. Museum of ZZT.
- ↑ Taylor, Shaun. (1993, August 14). Adventures in OakTown, board 22. Museum of ZZT.
- ↑ Newt. (1998, July 3). Punctuation People, The, board 22. Museum of ZZT.
- ↑ gingermuffins. (2007, January 3). dark boards. z2.
- ↑ Ellypses. (2007, January 5). dark boards. z2.