Duhreetoh has recently quit the big MegaZeux company Arctic Fusion. His reasons for leaving are unknown. Duhreetoh has released Zane: Professional Idiot demo, BooshKies demo and made Weirdness: SE.

The #zeuxstream (austnet, IRC) roundtable of this week will be a special one. Everybody will be able to bring their ideas to be critiqued. More info should be up soon at the #zeuxtream page. The roundtable starts on Saturday May 27 at 4:00 PM Eastern Time.

JZig announces the following very intesting bit of news about MegaZeux v2.7: "The mzx 2.7 effort is far from dead, and I just released the first milestone of 2.7. Basically, right now the program is a board viewer, and lets you view any board in any mzx game from linux (may not work on protected games). Note, it is only for linux right now, I will port 2.7 to windows after I have a fully functioning game player. Also, you need glib and ggi installed to get it to run. Go get it here, and make sure you get mzxlib as well, you need it to run mzx2.7. On a related note, mzxlib has reached 0.2.0, and is considered stable. It has many useful mzx features, and utility writers should consider using it. There, happy? Note, don't ask me when 2.7 proper will be out, it'll be a while."

Currently, the council of the resurrected MegaZeux Excellence Awards consists of 9 members: Hercules (me), Kev Vance, Wervyn, Myth, Matt Williams, Akwende, Waka, Luke Drelick and Ibrahim. Akwende made a design for the webpage and Hercules will be writing the contents later. Most of the rules will be the same as in 1996 and 1997, but so far, a "Best Day of Zeux game" category was added. More news will follow later, when I (Hercules) return from my holiday somewhere near August 8.

This week's #zeuxtream roundtable starts on Saturday May 20, at 4:00 PM Eastern Time and will be about "Release cycles" (e.g. when to release a demo of your game, how/when to set a release date, how to handle hype and advertisement, et cetera). Note that the roundtable has been scaled back to one hour. The moderators for this session are Ibrahim and Lacan. Visit the #zeuxtream page here.

I (Hercules) have finally set the date and time for the Summer 2000 Interactive Fantasies 24 artistic hours of ZZT contest. It starts on Friday June 23, at 7:30 PM Eastern Time and ends on Saturday June 24, 7:30 PM Eastern Time. The topics will be announced live at #if (austnet). For detailed information on the entire contest, go here.

Big Bubba is holding an E3-like thing for MegaZeux (and ZZT), called MegaZeux Entertainment Expo (MeE for short). It will be held on #MeE (austnet, IRC) on June 3rd (note that the date might be changed). People will be showing each other their projects, can ask for help/advice and more. Detailed info can be found here.

This week's #zeuxstream roundtable discussion is over again (it was held on Saturday, as usual). The topic was "Level Design" and quite a lot of people showed up. As of yet, there is no log of the roundtable available, but there should be soon. Next roundtable starts at 4:00 PM Eastern Time on Saturday May 20. Stay tuned for the topic.

I (Hercules) have decided to and host the second IF 24 artistic hours of ZZT this summer, due to great interest from many people. The date for the contest hasn't been set yet, but it will probably be somewhere in June. All info you need is up here.

Blue Magus/Shigesato has fired the entire #Char 2 White on Blue (his ZZT page) staff, because he felt like they didn't do enough as when Blue Magus himself updated the page frequently. Now he will be working on the page himself again more, but other people can still submit their articles and things like that. The page has also been renovated again. Check it out here.

tucan informed me that he and CoolZx, members of the ZZT company Large Orange Lump, both joined the ZZT company Reptile House. According to tucan, Large Orange Lump still exists as a sub-label.

Chuck took his ZZT page The Vortex down a while ago and started work on a new page. It's up now and it's called "Transient Disturbance". Go check it out here.

Agent Orange (aka 2378TCDD) has joined the ZZT company Eagle Rock Interactive, which has now only one open spot left. Agent Orange is the creator of for example the Demon Pogie series and the Game of the Month-winning Rippled Flesh. He also placed 4th in the Spring 2000 24 hours of ZZT. Check out the ERI page here. If you are interested in joining ERI, send a sample of your work to DoggyShop.

E. Megas is no longer in charge of the #zeuxstream roundtable discussions, which are held weekly at #zeuxstream on Austnet. He said there was too much pressure on him and he will now be handing the job over to a group of people. Krelian might be the head person in charge, according to Megas. Check out the #zeuxstream page here.

SilentSpy writes in to announce the following:
 
"I have been working on a new game creation system similar to megazeux for quite a while now. Within a month or two I will be releasing the beta version on the internet. I am just writing to you to tell you the features it supports...
 
(Display)
Different size character Cells like SupperZZT... (28x80, 24x80, 14x80, 28x40, 24x40, 14x40).
Palette Editing.
Character Set Editing.
256 Colors.
Scrolling Boards.

 
(Playablity)
Multiplayer on same keyboard, Multiplayer over internet. (customizable keys).
Connections via IP & characters can upload and download bytes.
Characters can test for mouse clicks locations and movements.
Can create/edit .ini files to save/load games/values.
Internal Clock support.
Joystick Support.
Characters can have UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT or 2D movement.
Global Characters.

 
(Sound)
Supports .WAV, .MOD, .SAM, .MID, .VOC., & can be outputted to blasters or PC
Speaker.
PC Speaker support.

 
Plus much more...
 
Any questions, email me at silentspy@email.com"

tseng has uploaded his brand new webpage, Erratic Denomination. It contains a lot of cool stuff, including "the best of the Roadblock" (the Roadblock being tseng's old page), Da Hood info and stories (Peace, Love and Life Savers) and more. The page also has a staff: Kevin Carter and Lemmer. Check it out here.

Myth is hosting the Summer 2000 24 hours of ZZT, as you might know, since he won the Spring 2000 24hoz with his entry "Szechuan Chicken". The Summer 24hoz will probably be a very special contest, according to Myth himself. He may be handing out cash prizes to the winners. More news on this will follow later. If you'd like to contribute to this contest monetarily or have any suggestions, you can contact Myth here.

Benco has returned to the ZZT company Eagle Rock Interactive, after he left not so long ago to join Inverted Thoughts Inc Dot. Benco called his ERI-quittage a big mistake. This means ERI has 8 members again and there are still two open spots. If you are interested in joining Eagle Rock Interactive, email DoggyShop. On the somewhat related note, Emerging Lurker has joined Inverted Thougts Inc Dot.

E. Megas has uploaded the log of last week's #zeuxstream roundtable discussion about "Artificial Intelligence in MegaZeux". The log can be read here. The next roundtable will be about "Sound Design" and the moderators for this session still have to be announced. The roundtable is being held at May 6, 4:00 Eastern Time. Visit the #zeuxstream page here.