i have a major problem with the 24hozzt. it has lost the almighty power it had back in misteroo's contest, (which, in my opinion, was the best contest.) and has now degenerated to the level it is, today. welcome to chapter two of the chronicles. first, a history lesson, from my point of view.

i've been throughly involved with the 24hozzts since myth's first contest in the winter of 1998. it was here that i made my three hour entry, "the history of da hood". the reason why i even bothered is throughly confusing. the topic for that contest was "history". a topic that i greatly disliked. i wanted to drop out. i think it was a combination of both darren hewer and myth who made me, but i shelled out my second-to-last place entry just to piss off the judges. deadwok was the one who really started the most annoying fad in the 24hozzts, although i had a hand in it with history of da hood. i will go on record in saying that my reason was because i just hated the topic and was psychologically forced into turning in an entry. i was very vocal about how i hated the topic. hm won with the "black library", if i remember the name, correctly.

during hm's contest in the spring of 1999, another topic i hated, "fear", was introduced. i dropped out of "fear" as soon as i heard the topic. bah, i hated that one, too. the "fear" contest came up with a winner in akware's greatest member, misteroo, who released something that had to do with bugs and the sun. i don't remember. i linked up with my friend, misteroo, and asked to judge the next contest. i will never regret it. the summer 2000 contest, in my estimation, and despite some bad organization by misteroo, will always be my favorite 24hozzt contest. it turned in some tremendous entries, including the 24hozzt game of the year, koopo's "space invaders". i had a hand in picking the topic. in fact, i was the one who suggested to misteroo to make the topic, "space", a topic that, if i had taken it, i would have probably won or second-placed the damn thing. but after the fear contest, i had decided to never enter another 24hozzt, so what the hell? i believe the next contest to start the downward spiral.

the "fantasy" contest, the fall 1999 24hozzt, started a downward spiral of 24hozzts. it was hosted by interactive fantasies, since knightt was a member at the time. again, i was judging, along with knightt, lemmer, and skullie, i think. the winner was hercules with his cute story about goblins or some shit like that, in which we get a lovely picture of someone getting hanged. a kids' game! uhm, anyway... on to hercules. hercules hosted the winter 1999 contest, which is the "violence" contest. no, no one used my violence toolkits. and if they did, don't come bugging me about it. for the third time, i was judging, along with my good buddy, lemmer. i was a bit saddened by a lot of the entries, the ones i found notable were gipface's "must not kill", which had the niftiest engine in 24hozzt history, and captain "el capitan" piccard's warped entry, which i can't remember the name for. gipface won. now, here comes the hell.

just before the contest, i had quit zzt. end game. but i still maintained constant conversations with lemmer, chuck, knightt, and kev, just to name a few. all of these people saw the entries. there were many problems with this contest. beginning with lemmer and this other guy. gipface claimed that these two were being biased. if lemmer was giving people zeroes to a lot of the entries, then he probably has good reason to. lemmer's opinions are usually the same as my own, so most of the entries probably just sucked. r.carman, hell, i don't know anything about him. so i can't say anything. when knightt, lemmer, and carman will all knocked off the staff, i was asked to judge the 24hozzt. not wanting to have much else left to do with the actual zzt scene (the only noteworthy thing i do in zzt is post incredibly off topic messages in zzt.org's general discussion boards), i declined the offer. the contest ended with my own doubts. myth had become the first 24hozzt winner to two-time winning it. that was fine. i can see that. what i don't see is how kkairos's group got second place, even though two of the judges didn't judge the entry. gipface, i guess, is much too lazy to change that. so i'll just announce the winners, on my own accord.

la-dee-fucking-dah. there's the real first, second, and third place winners. now, here's my issues. first and foremost, and again. the oldbies who intentionally turn in shitty entries. if you're going to do that, drop out or don't enter at all. and if a judge DOES see that, they shouldn't judge the entry at all. what i'm seeing and hearing about are more and more oldbies turning in shitty entries. that's destroying the 24hozzt. soon enough, everyone's going to be doing that. every single motherfucking bastard. and then some newbie's gonna come up with a good entry and win the bitch. is that what all of you oldbies want? because if it is, you probably don't deserve to be called oldbies. i have respect for people like blazer, who keeps trying for that top spot (although i'm expecting him to not try another knightt joke in the next contest.)

another problem i have with the 24hozzt is an observation i made a while ago that i wish i hadn't mentioned. the "winner of the 24hozzt hosts the next one" tradition. it sort of ended after misteroo's contest, but it picked right back on up after knightt's contest. i mean, it's great when a responsible zzt/mzxer like myth wins it, but what about people like misteroo? being the main helper of roo's contest, i realized that roo's contest was very unorganized. i really wish i hadn't have made that observation. the tradition should end with myth and if he breaks the tradition, then i'm happy. someone responsible, like, say, for instance, hercules or hm, should host them. hell, since if is basically the microsoft of zzt, what the hell, right?

which brings me to number three. we need more of those specialty contests. i had a blast making my art entry a year ago in the if24hoart, which is the only 24 hour contest in which i had placed in the top five. i would love to see another one. hell, even in my quit-zzt state, i could probably go for one more round of an art contest before i offically hang up my copies of violence stk and revision. hell, if you ask me, the art contests are a HELL of a lot more fun to do than making an actual game in 24 hours. so, dammit, hercules, start another art contest. i also liked making my entry for dragon's programming contest, and even though it didn't get off the ground all that well, i think it was the only contest where i ever really won. oh well. i think it'd be interesting if we tackled the other realm in zzt games. a 24 hours of zzt music. except that kev would enter and everyone would drop out. er, nevermind.

i hope you enjoyed my history lesson and my opinions on the 24hozzts. unlike what i read about ringworm's opinions of the 24hozzts, i actually like the 24hozzt. it's just that a) the topics usually suck, except for the "space" contest of the summer 1999 and the "violence" contest of winter 1999 (which i liked, too.) and b) i've seen some truly good things come out of the 24hozzt. virtually everything viovis, myth, and hm have done, as well as piccard's and gipface's winter 1999 entries, and a lot of the summer 1999 entries kicked ass. there are a lot of bad things, but i'm talking about the good. however, the 24hozzt CANNOT TOUCH the zzt art contest in terms of fun, and i would love to see another art contest. i'd enter it, too. watch me.