User:Zzo38/Super ASCII MZX Town

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Super ASCII MZX Town is a computer game written by User:Zzo38, using the MegaZeux game engine. It is in the public domain.

  • The tile set used for this game is the PC character set, and using the standard colors too (but high intensity background mode is used instead of blinking text). The screen is 80x25 tiles (a requirement in MegaZeux), too.
  • You can save anywhere, and you are going to need it and furthermore you are probably going to need several save files at once since you can make mistakes easily if you do not understand the situation. (All of this is documented in the help file included with the game, yet people still frequently just don't get it.)
  • In one puzzle there is a potion labeled "DANGER! POISON!" but it is actually "kill enemies" potion and will make the puzzle impossible to solve because now there are some pieces missing.
  • Spanish Inquisition appears twice because someone (explicitly) does not expect it.
  • A castle has two sides: kingside and queenside.
  • In the game you can go to hell. Once you go through once, a man will ask you several questions; even if you answer them correctly, he refuses to let you by; he says he won't let you by until hell is freezing. Just after he says that, hell is freezing and you can get past.
  • There is one scroll in this game that says that this game is bad because Hitler played it. (Of course you realize, this is complete nonsense.)
  • High score: You can try to complete the game with higher scores by collecting the money, ammunition, etc and not using them much (therefore pacifist run is worth more). Note that you do, in fact, earn points for defeating other characters, however you earn much more points for conserved ammunition; therefore, shooting and missing is even worse for purpose of a high score; taking damage is also worse, and so is wasting too much time.
  • Some people have said that if they play this game (possibly to make a video of it), then they might kill themself with a knife. However, other people like this kind of torture.
  • The puzzles are perfectly logical, and full source codes are available. Nevertheless it confuses almost everyone, by the merit of revealing everything. Invisible/hidden things are rare, although you can still save and restore at any point in the game (and occasionally this is precisely what will kill you if you are not careful). Despite being perfectly clear, the codes are what might confuse you more than other things.
  • Some puzzles involve using obscure and seemingly unintentional features of the system to solve a puzzle, for example: In one puzzle a dragon takes away all of your weapons and then tells you to kill all of the other dragons in another room (he will give them back to you once you defeat all of the other dragons). Winning involves taking advantage of a strange feature of MegaZeux where non-under pieces are destroyed if walking onto a board onto a cell containing such a piece. In another area, you have to rearrange digits to create a proper multiplication, and then push the space-bar and the door will open. It is explicitly designed to be impossible using the digits provided (the author has tested this). There is an option in the game engine to display the player character as a number 0 to 9 if a certain quantity is 0 to 99 (health, ammo, torches, torchlight, etc). However, someone gives you a whole bunch of stuff that he claims you need (but that is actually 100% worthless) (it also includes a multimeter, which has no effect on the game whatsoever except appearing in your inventory); this prevents this solution. You cannot light a torch since the room is not dark, you cannot shoot in this room, there is nothing that can hurt you in this room, and you cannot go back either. The previous room is dark, so what you have to do is set the player display to "torchlight" and then light a torch in the previous room just as you are about to enter the next one, arrange the digits quickly and stand in place of one of them just as its value becomes exactly what you need. (Therefore, some of the provided digits will remain unused.)
  • Guns Are Worthless: Someone gives you a bunch of ammunition just when you will not need it and it is worthless for the rest of the game. (In fact, it even hinders you.) There are also many situations where you cannot effectively use the guns, such as in the library, when fighting Dr.Gray (who is also immune to laser beams, as it turns out), and BIG_MONSTER is completely immune to any weapon you (or others in the game) can use against them (fortunately, they are good and you shouldn't kill them anyways).
  • Landlord's Game: At one point you have to win a Landlord's Game against someone in order for them to let you through. You get to choose whether the pieces go around clockwise or counterclockwise. The dice are blank, meaning the pieces will never move, and nobody can ever win.
  • MEDIUM_SIZE_MONSTER asks for a copy of this game on VHS (as well as several other things, such as a clock and a book), in order that they can take over the world. In the library, there is a DVD (actually on one side it is a DVD and on the other side it is a CD), but not of this game; it is a DVD of the game "Sub-EBCDIC ZZT Village" (something like how the bibliography in Gödel, Escher, Bach, mentions an imaginary book "Copper, Silver, Gold") (and unlike this game which is in the public domain, Sub-EBCDIC ZZT Village is licensed under the GNU GPL version 42).
  • "Hello, I am Dr.Gay. I mean, Dr.Gray. O no, I cannot even spell my own name correctly... Fight!" (This is actually a typographical error made by the author. He kept it in and just decided to type more, instead of deleting and retyping what was originally intended. Learn From Your Mistake.)
  • There is a sign that says "DO NOT READ THIS SIGN".
  • "He who lives by the sword, dies by the gun. He who lives by the gun, dies by the atomic bomb."
  • Another thing you can find in hell is a telephone. It has a sign on it marked, "THE ONLY TELEPHONE IN ALL OF HELL! LOCAL CALLS ONLY, PLEASE." However, once you reach the other side of the screen, it starts ringing anyways and you have to go back and answer it (only to find that there is nobody there, it rang in error) before you can continue.
  • In one area, there is a narrow gate and a wide gate. A scroll left on the ground reads, "Enter by the narrow gate please!" However, both gates lead straight into the lava and directly to your death. You have to choose the third choice.
  • Fake Fake Trap: The potion labeled "DANGER!POISON" in one level might be considered as such.
  • Hold second one as you hold a pencil, and now you can pick up anything save a few gibbering mouther from the king's army.
  • Mercy Rewarded: Indirectly, because you earn extra points for conserved ammunition. With one exception, there aren't any points directly for don't kill someone.
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