Quazatron
Quazatron was released on the ZX Spectrum in 1986. It was inspired by the Commodore 64 game Paradroid. You control Klepto, a droid assigned to deactivate the hostile alien droids of Quazatron.
Development Status
19 January 2003:
I finally got around to fixing the bugs I introduced when writing the grapple game. This latest version allows you to grapple with the enemy robots and grab their stuff when you beat them. The size of the flash file has gone up as I’m no longer loading all the level data from external files.
29 September 2002:
Mostly written the grapple game, I just need to link it into the main game before I upload my latest version for all to see…
4 August 2002:
Added info screens. Move the player over an info screen and press fire to get maps, lifts and droid data.
26 June 2002:
Added code for the lifts, and xml definitions for all of the levels. You can now move Klepto around all the levels from the original game!
To do:
- Write energy drain and damage code.
- Make the enemies shoot at the player.
- Make some decent graphics.
- Load game tiles from external files.
- Add settings for redefining controls and adjusting graphics settings.
- Add a highscore table.
- Fix loads of bugs
Previous updates:
The isometric game engine is stable. It creates a isometric game area from level definitions in XML files. The engine features collision detection and z-sorting of player and enemy droids. The enemy droids have a basic AI that moves them around the citadel randomly. The player and enemy droids can push each other around. Player and droid damage is yet to be implemented, so in the current development version of the game the player can’t die or kill other robots.
Play the game
Minimum Specs:
Flash isn’t the fastest technology to write games with. A scrolling isometric tiled map and 10 non-player characters is almost too much for flash. Thus I recommend having at least a 1Ghz processor. If you right-click on the Flash movie you can lower the graphics quality of the movie which may improve your performance. You must have the Macromedia Flash 6 browser plugin or better installed.
Instructions:
Use the arrow keys to move Klepto around the city. To use the lifts and info screens move the player over the lift or info tile and press the space bar. If the controls don’t work try clicking the mouse anywhere in the flash movie. If Flash gets stuck on the loading xml screen for more than a minute try refreshing the window. More detailed instructions can be found here.
Related Links
- World of Spectrum Quazatron page
- Review of Quazatron in Crash magazine
- Review of Quazatron in Your Sinclair magazine
- Retro-Remakes
- Retrospec
- Graftgold official tribute site