Great profile on Tim Sweeney from Stephen Totilo. Again, part of my childhood gaming, especially ZZT, which was a brilliant editor and one of the first play/create tools I messed around with. Striking to see how much impact the shareware creators of my youth - Carmack, Sweeney, and all the Apogee/id/Epic crews - have gone on to have in the modern industry. Also: striking to be reminded how much of those early PC gaming days were about borderline geniuses writing terrifying graphics engines.

"...this is a good time to consider zzt’s library - not because it’s changing, but because it’s probably complete. the long-running game archive z2 just declared zzt dead, and why not - it’s served its purpose: allowing people who aren’t programmers or digital artists an avenue to game creation before game maker or construct existed. now they do." ZZT must have been one of the first games I played, and I poked around its level editor. This retrospective both fascinates and arouses nostalgia in equal measures.