Happy Pride Month, y'all!

Introduction

Atop the Witch's Tower is a 2017 ZZT game developed by John Thyer that was inspired by Anna Anthropy's book about ZZT. The game is about Mary the witch, getting ready for a sacrifice. I highly recommend playing through the game for yourself since it's both a short game and it's a narrative driven ZZT best experienced at a normal pace. Watching this TAS is not an optimal way to experience the game.
ZZT release of Atop the Witch's Tower at the Museum of ZZT, including the ability to play it in browser: https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/atwt/
In 2023 asie, who has also worked on Zeta (a modern emulator made to run ZZT and Super ZZT on modern computers) and The Reconstruction of ZZT (a reverse engineered recreation of ZZT's source code) made a WonderSwan Color port of the ZZT engine. Atop the Witch's Tower was chosen for the first WonderSwan Color ported ZZT world.
WonderSwan Color port of Atop the Witch's Tower: https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/atwt_ws_v1.1/
There's a bit of backstory on why I did this. First I watched streamer authorblues play through a bunch of ZZT worlds on his stream a few years ago, which planted an initial interest of ZZT on to me. Fast forward to this year when after clearing up my backlog of physical books mostly about video games so I bought and read through Anna Anthropy's book about ZZT for myself as well. The book was a good and informative read of ZZT's history up until the writing of the book and lots of information on why the game was so compelling for others to both play and create ZZT worlds. After reading the book, I started playing some ZZT worlds on my own in earnest. I can say that I've enjoyed my experiences with ZZT worlds, and that's kind of partially why this submission exists in the first place.
Boss Fights Book link to Anna Anthropy's book about ZZT: https://bossfightbooks.com/products/zzt-by-anna-anthropy
A look of at the 2010s of ZZT history for further reading that I recommend: https://museumofzzt.com/article/view/459/the-2010s-of-zzt/

Run notes

  • Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9.1
    • Cygene/Mdnafen core
  • Takes damage to save time by running into the centipede
  • Gets a ritual sacrifice ready
  • Solves a few puzzles
Look, this ZZT world is more about the story so it's not really needed to talk about any mechanical specifics on combat or major routing decisions. The only parts that kind of matters is getting the key from the doppelganger last in the second half.

Extra notes

asie's work on Zeta means that there's a way to run ZZT on Linux. I hope that just mentioning that fact in this submission could possibly lead to someone using LibTAS and Zeta to TAS the numerous different ZZT worlds available out there thanks to Dr. Dos running the Museum of ZZT.

CoolHandMike: Claiming for judging.
CoolHandMike: Optimization looks good. Did not see any room for improvement on the spots checked. This is one of those systems where the inputs vary position so each input looks like it was tested. Unless there are more new tricks this may be as fast as it gets.
Accepted to Standard.
Congrats!

despoa: Processing...


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #9138: Darkman425's WSWAN Atop the Witch's Tower in 03:17.86
CoolHandMike
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Could you describe a little more about the goals for various sections? I understand that several parts need keys, but why you need them or what you are doing to unlock them is unclear sometimes.
discord: CoolHandMike#0352
Darkman425
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Joined: 9/19/2021
Posts: 263
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I can explain what's going on in a rough order. I'll put them in a spoiler tag since this is a primarily narrative-focused game. I felt the game was straightforward enough that I didn't feel like I had to explain what was done and why but I guess I assumed wrong in this case. 1st half as Mary
  • Get the ritual book from the library
  • Get the bat guano from the centipede's room
  • Get the knife from the torture chamber
  • The order of the ritual items obtained doesn't matter
  • Go to the rooftop and attempt to sacrifice the princess
  • Fail to sacrifice the princess and return to Mary's mind palace
2nd half as Lucy
  • Get the green key from the spider queen's chamber by talking to her
  • Get the purple key in the torture chamber by pushing a block into the spot that opens the door
  • Get the red key in the library by activating books to open the passageway
  • Get the cyan key by talking to Mary's doppelganger
  • The order of the keys only really needs the cyan key collected last
  • Use the four keys to enter Mary's mind palace
  • Navigate the maze and talk to Mary to gradually open up the path to the center for the ending
Switch friend code: SW-2632-3851-3712
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [6054] WSWAN Atop the Witch's Tower by Darkman425 in 03:17.86