Lazer Zone pits you against more bad guys than you care to count. They enter the playfield from the top and from the left. You control two Assault Antennae, one on the right, and one on the bottom. These move independently. The right Antenna shoots to the left, and the bottom Antenna shoots straight up. Each Antenna can also shoot diagonally toward the side where the other Antenna is. This is so you can eliminate pesky invaders that made it to the edge without getting shot.
You are given three Electros to start the game. When you fire these off, they destroy every bad guy on the screen. Each time you clear a level, you get another one of these, for a maximum of four.
To clear a level, you must destroy a certain number of enemies. The Bar in the lower right corner monitors your progress toward this goal. As you destroy more invaders, the Bar gets shorter. When it disappears, the level is done. At the moment you destroy the last enemy of a level, a free Electro goes off; this destroys all enemies remaining on the screen, but gives you no points for them.
You start the game with four sets of Antennae. As these are matching sets, you lose a set even if only one of your Antennae is destroyed during a level. Once these are gone, the game ends.
Lazer Zone may be played by two players simultaneously. Just assign the controls so each player has control of one Antenna. Normally, one button fires both Antennae, but it is possible to assign each Antenna's firing to a different key for two player games.
Specifics of How To Play Lazer Zone
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Lazer Zone has two major modes of play: Original, and Super. The outline given above in the Overview pertains to both of these versions. The two sections below cover the important differences.
Super
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This version includes Nifties, Bonus points, and different types of enemies.
Nifties
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Nifties are items that give you good things and bad things, more often good than bad. To get one, you must first break open a NiftyHolder by shooting it repeatedly; these are circling gray spheres with question marks on them. Firing an Electro will not destroy the NiftyHolder, rather the NiftyHolder takes one hit. Once the Nifty is released, you can tell what it will give you by its markings. The Nifty then moves toward one side; run into it with an Antenna to pick it up. If it hits the edge before you pick it up, it just disappears. Also, Nifties are destroyed by Electros. Nifties can give you any of the following things:
XS: This adds 1 to the number of shots allowed on the screen from the Antenna catching it. An Antenna is allowed no more than three shots at a time. This Nifty gives you 500 points bonus if you already have three shots with the Antenna catching it.
X: This adds one to your Bonus Multiplier for a maximum of X5. It gives you 500 points bonus if you already have X5.
Electro symbol: Awards one free Electro. Gives you 500 points bonus if you already have four Electros.
Antenna symbol: Awards one free set of Antennae. Gives you 500 points bonus if you already have four sets of Antennae.
500, 1000, 2000, 4000: These give you the indicated number of bonus points.
-S: This subtracts one from the number of shots the receiving Antenna is allowed. An Antenna may always fire at least one shot.
Bomb: This destroys the receiving Antenna.
Bonus Points
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At the end of each level while playing Super, Lazer Zone awards bonus points. These come in two flavors: Overkill, and Bonus.
At the end of a level, all enemies are destroyed by a free Electro, giving you no points. If you fire off an electro just before you shoot the last few enemies needed to clear a level, you can actually kill more enemies than you need to. For each one you toast beyond the call of duty, you are awarded 100 points of Overkill.
Bonus is the sum of all points collected from Nifties during a level. If you die during a level, Bonus is reset to zero.
Bonus and Overkill are then added together to make the Total Bonus. It is this bonus that gets multiplied by the Bonus Multiplier.
Enemy Types
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Most bad guys on a level are Boxes and Tetras. Boxes come from the top, and Tetras come from the left. These just head straight across the screen until they reach the side. Once there, they chase the Antenna on that side. Boxes and Tetras are worth 25 points each.
Beyond Boxes and Tetras, there are 5 other types that appear.
Dead Ringer: These appear at the top or left edge, and travel at high velocity in a straight line toward the other side of the screen. If they reach the side where your Antenna is, they stop moving and wait for you to run into them. Worth 50 points.
Bomb: These appear in the middle of the playfield, and take several shots to destroy. If you do not destroy them before they rev up completely, they explode into four indestructible bullets that fly away from where the bomb was. Worth 100 points.
Weirdos: These look like the normal enemies, except they come from the wrong side. This will make more sense once you run into them. It takes two shots to destroy them. The first makes them change their look and direction of motion so they now look as if they had come from the other wrong side. (Again, you have to see them to know what I mean) The second shot destroys them. Should they reach the edge before you kill them, they move toward the Antenna sharing the edge they got to. If this happens, it only takes one shot to destroy them, whether or not they were shot once before. Worth 100 points.
Launchers: These look like a silver ball with a cool looking green thing spinning around them. These appear on the top or left, and move at high velocity toward the opposite side. Should they reach the edge, they launch the ball at whichever Antenna is on the side they reached. This ball travels in one direction only, and disappears when it reaches the edge. Also, the ball may not be destroyed by shots. Worth 50 points.
Tripods: These look like a blue saucer with three green prongs coming out of the back. They appear on the top or left edge, and make their way toward the other side. If they reach the side, they head toward the Antenna on that side. The catch is that they may not be destroyed from the front. This means that a Tripod may only be destroyed by a shot coming from a direction other than the one opposite the direction they are traveling. For example, if a Tripod is moving downward, you can peg it with any shot from the Antenna on the right side, or with a diagonal shot from the Antenna on the bottom side. Anyshots fired straight up into it have no effect. Worth 100 points.
Original
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This version is designed to give some feel of what the original Commodore 64 game was like. There are no Nifties, or bonus points. Overkill is still possible, but you only get the normal amount of points for destroying the extra enemies. There are only three types of enemies: Boxes, Tetras, and the Thing.
The way the levels are programmed is different, and there are not seperate scores kept for each player during two player games. Also, bullets do not pass through the Thing as they did on the C64. The real purpose of Original is so you can see what the game is like without Nifties and all the different types of enemies.
The Boxes and Tetras are worth 25 points, and the Thing (which takes multiple shots to destroy) is worth 250.
You must become a master of the diagonal shot to do well at Original.
The Main Menu
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When you start the game, you are presented the Main Menu. From this screen, all of Lazer Zone's options can be accessed.
Click Credits to find out who worked on or helped with Lazer Zone.
Click Options to go to the options selection page.
Click Play to start a new game. This option may also be selected by pressing the Restart Hotkey, which defaults to the "r" key.
Click Controls to go to the key configuration and volume control menu.
Click Scores to go to the High Score Table.
Click Quit to exit Lazer Zone.
The Options Menu
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This is where you select the options that govern how the game behaves while you are playing. These options are as follows:
Super: This is the updated version of Lazer Zone with Nifties, Bonus Multipliers and Points, and many different types of enemies.
Original: This is the version that more closely resembles the Commodore 64 version of Lazer Zone. There are only 3 types of enemies, no Nifties, and no Bonus Multipliers or Bonus Points.
Hard: Sets the game to tromp all over you. Don't expect it to give you much of a break on this level.
Easy: Sets the game to take it easy. This is a good way to learn to deal with Lazer Zone's unusual demand that you control two things at once.
On: Sets the game so that extra Antennae can be earned. This only applies the the Super version of the game, as no extras are available on Original.
Off: Sets the game so that no extra Antennae will be available on Super, either.
Click Done when you are through selecting options. The options will be saved, and used next time you start Lazer Zone.
The Controls Menu
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The controls menu is where you may adjust the sound volume of Lazer Zone. Click the Up button to raise the volume, click the Down button to lower it. Lazer Zone remembers the system volume level you had set before starting the program, and resets it when you quit.
The controls menu also presents a list of Lazer Zone's functions, with push buttons labeled with their current assigned keys. To change a setting, click the button with the mouse, then press the new desired key. Any key may be used.
Warning: Multiple functions may be assigned to the same keys. This can have strange results.
Warning: Caps Lock is the pause button, and Escape is the "quit-game-in-progress" button; these cannot be changed. Mapping these keys to other functions will have undesirable effects.
Lazer Zone is normally a one player game, so the fire buttons for the two Antennae firing in their normal directions should be mapped to the same key. For two player games, usually each player takes one of the Antennae, so their fire buttons should be mapped to seperate keys.
To restore the default keyboard settings, press Default Keys.
When you are done selecting keys, press OK to exit the menu and save the current volume setting and keys configuration.
To exit the menu and not save any changes, press Cancel.
The default keys are as follows:
Up - i
Down - k
Left - j
Right - l
Fire Both Antennae - f
Bottom Antenna Diagonal Shot - d
Right Antenna Diagonal Shot - s
Electro - Space
Restart Hotkey - r
Quit current game - Escape (not configurable)
Pause game - Caps Lock (not configurable)
The High Score Table
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The High Score Table records the ten greatest acheivments in point scoring according to options set during the game. Initially after clicking Scores, you will be presented with the best scores for the current selected options.
Also displayed in this window is the score and level attained during the last game played. This is displayed as long as the options selected on this page are the same as the ones used during the last game played.
To view scores for different sets of options, click the option buttons at the top of the display. Clicking these options only changes the scores shown, not the options selected for game play.
Note that Extra Antennae are never available in the Original game, so that button is hidden when Original is selected.
Click OK to exit the scores display.
To reset the high scores, go to Lazer Zone's folder and rename or remove the document called "LZScores". When you restart Lazer Zone, it will create a new, blank high score table called "LZScores".
Unfortunately Un-Mac-Like options for expert users.
Lazer Zone comes with the current high score table from the development machine. You may delete it if you wish. Also, you could rename it something else, and keep it on hand to compare your progress to.
You may want to keep separate high score files for different players. To do so, just rename the file called "LZScores" something else. When you run Lazer Zone, it will create a new blank high score file. To put a file back into use, just rename it "LZScores".
You may also want to keep one file that contains just the best scores of everyone. You can merge two existing high score files into one. To do so, take the two files, and name them "LZMerge1" and "LZMerge2". Then select Merge Score Files from the Scores display. Lazer Zone will briefly remind you of these instructions. Then, if you hit okay, it creates one new file called "LZScores" and erases the two Merge files. This means several things:
1) An existing "LZScores" file will be erased.
2) "LZMerge1" and "LZMerge2" should be duplicates (not the originals) of existing high score files.
There is a very slight chance that Lazer Zone will delete one of two scores that tie. The chance is 1 in 100,000,000.
Config Files
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LZKeyConfig holds info about the current keymap settings. If you want to keep seperate keymap files, you could rename LZKeyConfig something else to keep it. To use it again, just name it LZKeyConfig. Lazer Zone just looks in its folder for a file called LZKeyConfig, and if it doesn't find it, it creates a new one.
