MegaZeux is a game creation system built around boards, character graphics and programs attached to the world. Alexis Janson created the original DOS version in 1994. It belongs to the same tradition of player-made worlds as ZZT, while supplying its own editor, language and possibilities.
The official project history distinguishes that original program from its continuation: Exophase released a multi-platform port in 2005, and subsequent contributors developed and maintained it. The project’s credits name that work separately from Janson’s original design.
A character need not be a letter
The editor works with a grid, but the marks in its cells need not look like ordinary text. The character editor lets an author change their shapes. A cell can become part of a wall, a creature or a larger picture.
The manual also distinguishes a game’s world from its individual boards. Boards contain the places and elements through which play unfolds. Editing the layout provides a starting point; custom behaviour supplies more than the built-in objects alone.
Robots carry programs
MegaZeux calls programmable elements robots and its language Robotic. A robot need not be a mechanical character in the fiction. It is a place for instructions which can react, move things, display text and change the state of play.
The maintained manual explains commands, labels, messages and counters. A counter records a changing value which scripts can inspect and alter. Programs can therefore make an event depend on what has already happened, rather than only on which picture occupies a cell.
These are facilities described in the continuing tool’s documentation. The project has changed substantially, so a feature in the maintained manual does not establish that it existed in the first DOS edition.
A tool sustained by its users
DigitalMZX brings together the game archive, editing resources, competitions and discussion. It makes other authors’ work available alongside the creation system itself. That combination gives a tool a life beyond the software release: new games become examples, shared resources and reasons to keep improving the editor.
Repton Infinity offers another example of editable graphics joined to a language for object behaviour, on a different family of home computers.
Sources
- MegaZeux, official project README and credits: Original project history and credits; Janson’s 1994 program, Exophase’s 2005 port and later contributors.
- MegaZeux, original help file: Maintained help file; overview, world/board editing, character editor, Robotic tutorials and counters.
- DigitalMZX, official game archive: Community archive of games, resources and competitions, with links to help and discussion.