Quazatron

THE SPECTRUM GAMES DATABASE



QUAZATRON



PUBLISHER

Hewson Consultants



AUTHORS

Graftgold Ltd (Steve Turner/Andrew Braybrook)



YEAR

1986



DESCRIPTION

Quazatron is a 3D arcade strategy game.



CONTROLS

Keyboard, Cursor, Kempston.

Left/up - A, S, D, F, G

Left/down - B, N, M, symbol shift

Right/up - H, J, K, L

Right/down - Z, X, C, V, caps shift

Fire - ENTER

Autofire - W (toggle)

Pause - P (except in Grapple mode)



INSTRUCTIONS

You control KLP-2 (Klepto), a droid assigned to deactivate the

hostile alien droids of Quazatron, which basically means destroy

all the robots on each level. This can be done by laser fire,

by pushing them to destruction, by ramming them 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.



You can fire your weapons by 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.



To grapple and enemy 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 while stationary.

To successfully grapple you must overcome the enemy droid's

security circuit. The idea is to turn as many lights your colour

as possible by shooting the pulses at them. 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. The channel of the pulses is affected

by any hardware on the tracks. If you succeed in interfacing,

the status of the enemy droid's Drive, Power, Weapon, Chassis and

Devices are displayed. You can then take any of these parts for

your own use by selecting them with up/down and pressing fire.

Damaged elements are unusable. The more lights that you made

your own colour, the less parts will be damaged.



You must make sure when choosing parts that they are suitable.

For example, you will need a strong power unit to power and

strong weapons or drive units that you may have.



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.



To use a console, move up to it and press fire. Use left/right

to select an icon and press fire. You will see four icons:



1. Robot - Return to game

2. Diamond shape - 3D map of current level

3. Side view - side elevation of citadel

4. Query robot - droid data 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.



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.



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. When the last

droid on a level is destroyed the citadel lights automatically

go out.





CHEATS

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. A table of all the different droids was

printed in an issue of Sinclair User, around 1986, so if anybody

has an ASCII version of it, or would like to type it out, please

contact me at stevo@jonlan.demon.co.uk.





SEQUELS/PREQUELS

Quazatron was followed up by a slightly similar game called

Magnetron. It was a flip-screen version, and had a different

grapple game.





INLAY CARD TEXT



QUAZATRON



for the 48K ZX Spectrum, Spectrum Plus

and Spectrum 128K



You control KLP-2 (Klepto) a wayward Meknotech

droid assigned to deactivate hostile alien droids

which inhabit the underground city of Quazatron on

the planet Quartech. You must destroy the alien

droids by laser fire, by pushing them off their pro-

grammed routes to destruction, or by ramming

them (provided you are stronger than they are).



KLP-2 has a prototype Grapple device enabling the

alien robots to be stopped and dismantled. The

parts recovered from the aliens can be added to

KLP-2 to extend his facilities and endurance.



The alien computer system can be tapped to provide

maps of the various levels and obtain data on the

alien droids and their constituent parts.



LOADING THE TAPE

If you have a joystick then plug it into the edge con-

nector at the rear of your Spectrum. Connect your

cassette player to the Spectrum in the usual way.

Place the cassette in the cassette player, rewind it if

necessary and press the PLAY button. If you have a

Spectrum 128K make sure it is in 48K mode. Type

LOAD " " on the Spectrum keyboard and press the

ENTER key. Wait a few minutes for the game to load

and the keyboard/joystick selection menu to be

displayed.



HOW TO PLAY

Quazatron is played diagonally except when in

Grapple mode.

------------------------------------------------

TO MOVE LEFT AND UP TO MOVE RIGHT AND UP

A, S, D, F or G H, J, K or L

or joystick left or joystick up



TO MOVE LEFT AND DOWN TO MOVE RIGHT AND DOWN

B, N, M or s/s Z, X, C, V or c/s

or joystick down or joystick right



TO FIRE

ENTER key

or joystick fire



AUTO FIRE ON

Press W key (repeat to turn off)



PAUSE (except in Grapple mode)

Press P key (press fire to restart)



If you use a joystick it may help to rotate it 45

degrees clockwise.



WEAPON SYSTEMS

These can be activated using the fire button or by

pressing W to select auto-fire. Weapons fire in the

direction KLP-2 is facing. Many different weapons

can be taken from enemy droids and the data library

contains hints on which weapons are most useful.

The weapons can only be used while KLP-2 is

moving.



GRAPPLING WITH A DROID

Decide on your target droid, centre the joystick (or

take your hands off the keyborad) 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. If you wish to

turn off "GRAPPLE" mode and switch back to

weapon mode press fire again.



To successfully grapple with a droid you must

engage its 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 acti-

vate them with the fire button. Try to avoid Ter-

minators, Joiners and Colour Switchers. Aim

instead for Splitters and Auto Pulsers.



If the Grapple action is successful the status report

of the control elements Drive, Power, Weapon,

Chassis and Devices of the target droid is displayed.

If you wish to remove one or more of these elements

for your own use make your selection using up/

down and pressing fire. Some of the elements may

be damaged and therefore unusable.



If you win the Grapple action overwhelmingly, the

elements of the alien robot are less likely to be dam-

aged. In all circumstances you should select ele-

ments wisely. A weak power unit for example will be

drained uncomfortably quickly by heavy weaponry.

Similarly a poor drive unit will not support substan-

tial shields.



Each alien droid is classified from 1 (the most

sophisticated and difficult to beat) to 9 (the most

menial). The higher classes of droids tend to have

better elements for you to win in a Grapple action. A

preceding letter distinguishes between different

droids within the same class. The identifying letter

-------------------------------------------------------

and number are stamped on each droid's breast

plate.



CHANGING 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 or right to exit the lift.



CONSOLE ACCESS

Find a console and press fire. Use left/right to select

an icon and press fire.



Your robot symbol - return to game



Diamond shape - 3D map of current level



Side view - side elevation of citadel



Query robot - droid data library



DROID DATA LIBRARY

Use left/right or up/down to move to 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 the KLP-2. KLP-2's expression changes from

happy to upset as he runs out of energy. Energy may

be replaced from energy points on some levels but

your maximum energy allowed continuously falls

as your power unit burns out. Exchange 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. Disabling droids in quick succession causes

the alert status to rise 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.



C Hewson Consultants Ltd 1986 and Graftgold Ltd

1986

Made in Great Britain



The program and data are copyright and may not

be reproduced either in part or in total by any

means without the written permission of Hewson

Consultants Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide.

Unauthorised hiring or lending is strictly prohibited.

No responsibility is accepted for any errors.



Our policy is one of constant improvement, there-

fore we reserve the right to modify any product with-

out notice.



Gameplay based on Paradroid for the C64 by

Andrew Braybrook.



Hewson Consultants Ltd

Hewson House

56B Milton Trading Estate

Milton

Abingdon

Oxon OX14 4RX





URL

ftp.dcc.uchile.cl/pub/OS/sinclair/snapshots/q/quazatrn.zip



SCORES RECEIVED

Crash gave it 94% in June 1986. It got 5/5 in Sinclair User, and

a Sinclair User Classic.



GENERAL FACTS

Quazatron was based on a similar C64 game called Paradroid,

written by Andrew Braybrook, also of Graftgold.



NOTES

Look out for the programmer's own "pet" droid, the A-B Andrewoid.