Let's go ASCII adventuring!
The original ZZT was a pretty fine old-school ASCII-style dungeon crawler that made good use of the available technology to create a decent game that was perfect for fans of Rogue and Hack. Players could explore a series of vast top down dungeons, watching out for traps, slaying monsters, solving puzzles and grabbing loot, while a clever level editor also added in plenty of extra appeal. This sequel is basically more of the same and while its lack of true development is a little disappointing, it remains a first class experience for fans of this kind of thing. Gameplay remains the same, with the player taking control of a smiley face which must explore a huge series of worlds, each simply brimming with more monsters, traps, gold and even a couple of little quizzes, just to jazz things up a bit. Everything is represented by symbols rather than true graphics, which might seem odd to newcomers to this sort of thing, but it soon becomes second nature to accept it. In terms of old-school dungeon crawlers, this really does have about everything you could ask for. The levels are extensive and superbly designed, making exploration and combat both thrilling an enjoyable. The puzzles and traps are cunning and equally well set up and combine to make the whole game highly challenging but rarely less than supremely entertaining. The visuals are of course simple but this is part of the charm to this kind of game, although it can occasionally be a little tricky figuring out whether you're supposed to collect something or kill it. This niggle aside, this is classic stuff.
