Crankgod has finally released his MegaZeux sidescrolling masterpiece Adlo, after many years of work. It has been released under the Interactive Fantasies banner and is available here. Yesterday Crankgod also held his goodbye ceremony on Austnet. People got a chance of saying things on his behalf and I am honored I was chosen as the first person to say something. Adlo was distributed afterwards. I (Hercules) missed half of the event, so I don't have a complete log up yet, but I'll try to put one up soon for those of you who missed it.

kev-san informed me of the fact that the ZZT company Koiten is dead. Smiley14 and kev-san were the only remaining members and, according to kev-san, Smiley14 has quit ZZT, which only leaves kev-san. After this, kev-san decided to kill the company.

Crankgod and me (Hercules) have decided that Adlo, Crankgod's MegaZeux side-scrolling masterpiece, will be released under Interactive Fantasies. Crankgod will be leaving the scene tomorrow (there's gonna be a goodbye ceremony at #darkdigital) and then he'll release Adlo. Crankgod has been the temporary 10th member of IF, after Zenith quit. Crankgod will be gone again by tomorrow, after releasing Adlo. On the related note: it is still not sure who is gonna be IF's new member. You'll hear more about this later.

Matt Williams is going to redesign his famous MegaZeux homepage, mWorld. The original redesign can be previewed here. After some problems with the color schemes, Matt Williams decided to change it around a little. The newest new design can be previewed here. Also, mWorld will be put on a different server, which is most likely to be Rydia.net (Dormando's server).

Dragonlord has decided not to judge the entries of the Eagle Rock Interactive 24 hours of Programming ZZT. Among the entries were quite a lot of fake newbie-look-a-like entries, which sucked. The judges decided not to come up with results at all, which does indeed suck for the people who actually put effort into the contest. Read Dragonlord's little rant here. Note that Dragonlord is not quitting the scene - he was just pissed off at the moment of writing the rant.

Dragonlord has finally uploaded the redesigned version of the Eagle Rock Interactive page. It contains more info than the old page and looks pretty good. Visit it here.

tseng is now doing issue 8 of iFantasy (IF's ZZT magazine), after Zenith dropped it and quit Interactive Fantasies. Send all your previews, reviews, art, advertisements, etc... to tseng.

The Eagle Rock Interactive 24 hours of Programming ZZT are over (the contest ended on 7:00 PM EST this sunday). Dragonlord received 13 entries, which is still quite a lot seeing not many people were participating and several dropped out (including me, Hercules). Koopo has joined the judging team and the judging has started yesterday, so it should be done within a few days. Keep checking the ERI page for the results.

Ryan Riegel (Riegs) has joined Jeff Conroy's ZZT/MegaZeux company Underneath it All. Riegs is the author of the ZZT classic "Legend of Brandonia" and some people might remember that game. Also, Underneath it All might be doing a ZZT or MegaZeux group project soon.

Zenith has quit ZZT for a while, mainly because of him having created a lot of games lately, exams and more. Full details can read here. Also, Zenith quit IF, because he felt somebody else would be way more useful to IF now. So there's an open spot in IF again.

Crankgod is leaving the community. On January 30 he'll be on #darkdigital to formally DCC his finished MZX masterpiece Adlo to one person. Afterwards, Adlo will be distributed on IRC. Crankgod will be changing his email address and AIM screenname, too and he says we'll probably never talk to him again. I must say this is a big loss to the community...

Knightt, who recently quit SkulSoft, has joined Eagle Rock Interactive. He has picked up work on the Stupid RPG series, which is cool. Also, he's a judge in the ERI 24 hours of Programming ZZT (FreeZerBurn dropped out of the judging team).

tseng has released two ZZT products: one being the ZZT masterpiece Gem Hunter 3 (a game with kick-ass graphics, a truly awesome plot, thrilling action and more) and the other one is tseng's Da Hood artwork collection, Stairway to Da Hood. Grab 'em both here.

The oldbie MegaZeux company Arctic Fusion, led by Inmate2993, finally has a page up! It contains quite a lot of information about their projects, members, downloads and more. Also, Inmate released the first Arctic Fusion MZX game: MegaZeux Combat Trainer. Go here to check out the page and download their first game.

Zenith has released the sequel to his ZZT puzzler <untitled>, nEGATIVE. It's a short, but extremely enjoyable puzzle game that you should really download. Grab it here. Some of you may have downloaded the game before - well, that was little misunderstanding between me (Hercules) and Zenith. I uploaded the unfinished version (of which I thought it was the finished version), then removed it and now the final version is out.

Scott Hammack has released the special Collector's Edition of his ever-so-famous Saga of the ZZT/MZXers. Quoting Scott: " ...with editor's running commentary through all four original collections and the lost episodes! Plus additional materials: not random crap but the cream of the crop!". The Collector's Edition can be read here and you can visit the Saga of the ZZT/MZXers page here. Also, Collection 5 episode 1 and 2 have been released.

WeP has entered his request for planetzztpp.com, which will be the URL of the new official ZZT++ homepage. The page isn't up yet (nor is it officially registered yet), but it will be in the near future.

Jacob Hammond is working together with Skepty to redesign and update the ZZT Metro. The new design is up and now there is actually some useful stuff there. I highly suggest you visit this new and very interesting ZZT page now.

Dunkinbean has won the Ibuki Other 24 hours of ZZT, the contest originally thought up by Ibuki for all people who couldn't participate in the Winter 1999 24 hours of ZZT. Ibuki gave the hosting rights to Wayward. After many problems in the judging phase, the results have finally been posted. You can read them here.

Dexter held some weird, but funny awards in which you could only vote for Jujubee, Dexter or Knightt. Some of the categories were: Best Girl of ZZT, Best Dexter of ZZT, Best Person that isn't Draco, etc... The results can be read here.

The new version of tucan's famous ZZT site, the Cosmic Melon, will be up way later than it was supposed to be. tucan said he'd have the new look up by January 1, but he was and is too busy with school, guitarplaying, social life and that sort of stuff. The new version will now be up somewhere in April or at least this summer. You can read tucan's little story here.

We didn't hear much of the ZZT company Large Orange Lump (run by tucan and yllek) lately. They are, however, still alive. CoolZx has been releasing a few products under their banner (A Dwarvish Mead-Dream Demo, Graphix Shite and Piranha) and Lord Igsel and EvilMario (who returned to the scene) joined them. Both Igsel and CoolZx have a company page up. Try these two URLs: Igsel's LoL page and CoolZx's LoL page.

I (Hercules) have published the results of the Interactive Fantasies Annual ZZT Excellence Awards 1999 here. Draco won the Game of the Year award with his game Teen Priest 2 and Zenith became ZZTer of the Year. Dragonlord has already uploaded an unedited log of the whole ceremony here. I might upload a log on the IF page, too. Now, my friends, there is a new year with brand new possibilities! =)

tseng has published the results of the Hoodian Awards here. Teen Priest 2 is the Game of the Year and tseng himself won the ZZTer of the Year award. The results were announced during a #darkdigital ceremony. IF has also won five awards: tseng was chosen as ZZTer of the Year, Koopo won the Best Programmer award, I (Hercules) won the Best Demo award (An Ewok's Life Demo 2.0 - in cooperation with EvilMario), Blue Magus won the Best Dungeon Game award with his game Deep December and Zenith won the award for Best Comedy with his game ChickenWire.

WarpZone has quit Eagle Rock Interactive, because he lost interest in ZZT and he wanted to spend more time on other things, such as Duke Nukem 3D. Two people already asked to join ERI and now Dragonlord and DoggyShop (head counsellor) will discuss who's going to join. Also, the ERI page will be redesigned soon and Robvine will be writing info on all ERI games.

Prophet Ibuki is hosting the Winter Weekend of Zeux, starting at January 22. If you want to sign up or need more detailed and up-to-date info on the contest, go here.

JZig has released MegaZeux v2.51s3.1, which fixes the bugs that were still in s3 (the bug fix for s2). The main page for it is located here and you can directly download it here. JZig tested it well and hopefully all bugs have been removed now.

tseng has decided to cancel his "serious" ZZT game, Capital Punishment. He lost interest in it and therefore continuing it wasn't any fun anymore. However, Gem Hunter 3 is making good progress.

After Akwende cancelled his famous MegaZeux project Final Fantasy: Dynasty Prelude and decided to quit MegaZeux, his MZX "company" Square of MegaZeux sorta died (since Akwende owned it). Some of SoM's ex-members decided to form a new company, as a sort of small rebellion against the whole Square of MegaZeux/Akwende deal. The new company is called MindForge Entertainment and some of the members are Burandonu and Esdemo1. Square of MegaZeux has been revived by some of the remaining members, such as Cid and Raleigh. MindForge is not in any way anti-SoM, but still there are problems around this thing (see mWorld's message boards). It's sad and I hope everything will be solved soon.

GipFace has some news on the Spring 24 hours of ZZT, that he will be hosting. It will start on March 25, 7:00 PM EST. A page will be somewhere in the beginning of February. More news about this later.

All entries of the Winter Day of Zeux can be downloaded here. Also Ibrahim made a mistake while adding up the scores, which resulted in slightly different results. Ibrahim apoplogizes for this (he was sick for a few days).

Scott Hammack has decided to continue his ever-so-famous saga, the Saga of the ZZT/MZXers. He has started on collection 5. The entire saga can be read here.

I (Hercules) have uploaded the nominees of the IF Annual ZZT Excellence Awards! All nominees are listed here. Remember that the winners will be announced live at #if (Austnet IRC) on Saturday January 8 (2:00 PM EST).

There is now a way to help support Interactive Fantasies and this page. I (Hercules) have added a "Recommend-it" button at the bottom of the IF page index. By clicking on it, you will get a pop-up window which gives you the option of recommending the IF page to your friends (by filling in a simple form). After this, you can sign up for tons of free newsletters (there are many subjects which may be of any interest to you). If you sign up for one of the newsletters, you will receive a confirmation email. When you've confirmed that email, you will now get the newsletter(s) you subscribed to. You may wonder what the purpose of this is. Well, if you sign up for one of the newsletters and remain a member for more than a month, you will finance IF, which will be really appreciated. Recommend us here.

Ibrahim has announced the results of the Winter Day of Zeux. The defending champions, Kev Vance and Lipid (Team of Doom) won once again, Team Tinkles (Zorkboy, Anonani and ScarJT) came in second and Elliot Moriarty placed third. All results can be found here. Note that the entries haven't been uploaded yet. Ibrahim will do this soon.

tseng will hold the ceremony for The Hoodians (his ZZT awards) at Friday, most likely at 8:00 PM EST. It is not sure whether the ceremony will be held on IRC (#darkdigital or #sledgehammer) or via Shoutcast. You can still vote on The Hoodians here. On the other tseng-related note: Gem Hunter 3 is about 75% done!

Dragonlord is hosting the Eagle Rock Interactive 24 hours of Programming in ZZT contest. It takes place from January 21 (7 PM EST) to January 22 (7 PM EST). Three topics will be announced on #zztdungeon and the ERI24hoPZZT page and then all competitors need to create one for each topic. You can sign up and get more info here.

I (Hercules) have set the date for the IF Annual ZZT Excellence Awards ceremony. The ceremony takes place on Saturday January 8 at #if (Austnet IRC). It starts on 2 PM Eastern Standard Time. During this ceremony the awards will be presented to the winners by either me or special ZZT/MegaZeux guests. All info on the IFAZEA 1999 can be found here. Don't miss it! It's probably the first big ZZT event of the Millennium!

Blue Magus has released a graphics-remake of Kev Carter's ZZT rock opera, Freedom. Blue's graphics look really good and Kev Carter's music is absolutely fabulous! Go grab it here.

Zenith has cancelled his ZZT project Shock. Shock looked to be really awesome, but Zenith lost interest in it. It's a shame, but things like this happen. He is now working on a sequel to his ZZT puzzler <Untitled>.

Today Interactive Fantasies has released two new ZZT games: Freak da Cat 2 (by Hydra and MeBo) and The Hague: City Behind the Dunes (by Hydra and Hercules). Go grab them here.