This comment was posted in General:
...most of what you can do in ZScript is somewhat doable in just ACS. Unless you care that much about your screen rolling or fancy shadow effects or whatever that don't contribute to the gameplay whatsoever.
I stand by my response to it on that thread, but I refrained from any direct argument about how aesthetics contribute to gameplay. Then I thought about it.
Now I want to make an entire IWAD in which all the walls are blank and just colour-coded for ease of reference (all map geometry is within a specific range of grey or brown that no actor is, except for the bright green, orange and red that mark damage floors), all monsters are red rectangles with black outlines, all weapons are black rectangles with white numbers, all players are green rectangles with black outlines and black numbers (for the player number), etc., for an absolutely minimalistic abstract game.
The manual will read like this:
Slot 3 state-making item (seven-ray version)
This state-making item casts 7 rays simultaneously in a horizontal fan in front of a player. If an actor crosses one of these rays before it hits the map geometry, it will have its "health" property depleted by 1d3*5 for each ray. The ray-casting sequence takes 4 game ticks to activate when you press the "fire" button, and requires 30 [or however long that animation normally takes] to finish resetting before the sequence can be executed again or another state-making item is brought up to the player screen state.
Each sequence depletes 1 unit of state-making item-connected item type #2.
...
Reactive hitscan target #1
These will randomly project a single line in the general direction of the selected playerpawn. If the "health" depletion sequence is executed on it for an aggregate of 20 points or more, it will become passable and remain passive until the end of the level or reactivation by reactive hitscan target #6.