Instructions for

Quazatron

Hewson Consultants / Graftgold Ltd,, 1986

Written by Chris Owen, HTML'd by Arnt Gulbrandsen.

Controls

Keyboard, Cursor, Kempston

Note : Quazatron is played diagonally, except when in grapple mode. If you are using a joystick it may help to rotate it 45 degrees clockwise.

Aim of the game

You control KLP-2 (Klepto), a droid assigned to deactivate the hostile alien droids of Quazatron. You must destroy the alien droids by laser fire, by pushing them to destruction, by ramming them (if you are stronger than they are!) or by grappling with them using your experimental Grapple Device. This allows you to dismantle the droid and use their parts to increase your own power and facilities. In addition, the alien computer system can be tapped to provide level maps and data on the droids and their various parts.

WEAPONS: Your weapons can be fired using the fire button or by pressing W to activate autofire. Weapons fire in the direction KLP-2 is facing. There are many different weapons which can be taken from enemy droids. The weapons can only be used while KLP-2 is moving.

GRAPPLING: Decide on your target droid, make KLP-2 stop moving and press fire until the yellow message at the bottom left shows GRAPPLE and the G light flashes. Then you can ram the enemy droid to dismantle it. To turn off GRAPPLE mode, press fire again. To successfully grapple you must overcome the enemy droid's security circuit. You must use your Pulsers to turn at least 7 of the 12 rectangles on the central bar to your colour. You have a few seconds to move left or right to select the side of the circuit which you wish to use. Your target uses the opposite side to fight back. Move your Pulsers up and down the wires and activate them with the fire button. Avoid Terminators, Joiners and Colour Switchers. Aim for Splitters and Auto Pulsers.

If you succeed in interfacing, the status of the enemy droid's Drive, Power, Weapon, Chassis and Devices are displayed. You can "steal" any of these parts for your own use by selecting them with up/down and pressing fire. Damaged elements are unusable. If you win overwhelmingly in the grapple game, the parts of the droid are less likely to be damaged. You should choose parts wisely. A weak power unit, for example, is likely to drain quickly if used with heavy weaponry. Similarly a poor drive unit will not support good shields. The alien droids are classified from A-1 (the highest and toughest) to X-9 (the lowest and weakest). The higher classes tend to have the best parts. The droids' identifiers are stamped on their breast plates. (Look out for the programmer's own "pet" droid, the A-B Andrewoid...)

LEVELS: To change levels, find a lift square and press fire. A side view of the city is shown. Move up/down to the required level and left/right to exit the lift.

CONSOLE ACCESS: Find a console and press fire. Use left/right to select an icon and press fire. You will see four icons:

LIBRARY: Use left/right or up/down to move to the next screen. Press fire to exit. You can only view data on droids of a similar or lower security class to your current class. To improve your status you must grapple successfully with a higher class of droid. The first screen displayed shows your current status including data on Weapon, Drive, Power, Chassis and Devices.

ENERGY: Your energy is shown by the rotation speed of the head of KLP-2. KLP-2's expression changes from happy to upset as he runs out of energy. Energy may be replace from energy points on some levels but your maximum energy allowed continuously falls as your power unit burns out under the burden of your Grapple Device. Replace power units for longer life. Extra equipment affects the rate at which your energy is consumed.

ALERT STATUS: The light on the right of the lower panel is the alert status monitor. Disabling droids in quick succesion causes the alert status to go to red and more points can be scored.

POWER DOWN: When the last droid on a level is destroyed the citadel lights automatically go out.

Comments

"One of the best games ever to come out on the Spectrum."

Rating

94% (CRASH #29, June 1986)

Now

A superb game - one of the best 8-bit games of all time, in my opinion (although ex-C64 owners may prefer Paradroid, on which Quazatron was originally based).

Keys

Left/up    - A, S, D, F, G              Joystick left
Left/down  - B, N, M, sym shift         Joystick down
Right/up   - H, J, K, L                 Joystick up
Right/down - Z, X, C, V, caps shift     Joystick right
Fire 	   - ENTER                      Joystick fire
Autofire   - W (toggles on/off)
Pause      - P                   (Not in Grapple mode)

Nettverksgruppa, 5/10-94, sinclair@nvg.ntnu.no