THE SPECTRUM GAMES DATABASE GYRON PUBLISHER Firebird (British Telecom Software) AUTHORS P. Mochan, R.J.M. Pinto, D.M.N. Prior and M. Wighton (Torus) YEAR 1985 DESCRIPTION A 3D first-person perspective maze game. Strong tactical/puzzle solving element. CONTROLS Use SYMBOL SHIFT-SPACE to define keys and BREAK to start the game. There is no pause function and no save game facility. If you die, you have to start again. The keys default as the usual cursor keys (5, 6, 7, 8 and 0). INSTRUCTIONS There are two parts to Gyron: The Atrium and the Necropolis. The Atrium is a training area to learn the game skills, and has a fairly linear path from the start to the end of the maze. The Necropolis is a much more complex maze with a non-linear arrangement. The objective is to reach the "Place of Wisdom" which is a small cul-de-sac located in a very obscure corner of the maze. It is impossible to reach it without deactivating the towers which guard it, and this is achieved by penetrating all the other zones of the maze and shooting various towers. It is not an easy task to determine the effects of your explorations, and the overall puzzle is a very tough objective. The snapshot file "gyron_in.zip" has a trainer for Gyron which gives full instructions for the controls of the game. Red indicators at the sides indicate position of side passages, green squares at the side represent the position of the craft. The green square must overlap the red bar by two squares before you can turn into the passage. The green square along the bottom indicates the crafts position from left to right in a passage. The colour of the spinning icosahedron indicats which zone you are in in the maze. The radar indicator shows walls, balls and towers. Towers can only shoot you in the direction they are facing, and cannot get you if you hug the wall of the trench directly below them. They can only be shot from the rear, and shooting them can have varied effects. Balls cannot be influenced in any way, and contact is instantly fatal. They move in fixed patterns with strict timing, and these can be quite complex. Some of the hardest obstacles in the maze involve sneaking past several balls moving in complex combinations of patterns. CHEATS Tower shots move at a fixed (but rapid) speed. Once you hear the shot sound, back off quick round a corner, and you might just escape the shot if the tower is distant enough. There is a POKE to disable the towers, but it totally defeats the point of the game. URL Since there are three seperate parts to the program, there are three different URL's: Trainer: ftp.dcc.uchile.cl:pub/OS/sinclair/snapshots/g/gyron_in.zip Atrium: ftp.dcc.uchile.cl:pub/OS/sinclair/snapshots/a/atrium.zip Necropolis: ftp.dcc.uchile.cl:pub/OS/sinclair/snapshots/n/necropol.zip INLAY CARD TEXT These docs come from the Firebird Gold Edition, probably from 1984/5 since the competition closing date was November 1985. THE SORCERER-SCIENTIST Many eons ago, when men lived in fear of their gods and made human sacrifices to them, one man - a sorcerer and scientist - decided to change that order. He sought to become Quetzalcoatl, God of the Wind, bearer of civilisation and creator of the calendar. He worked tirelessly in his quest for mastery of the Laws of Physics and the Spirit Forces that a God must possess. But his mortal life was too short to complete the task and he vowed to store his wisdom - until he could return in a future life to reclaim it - by entombing it with him. To do that, he created the Gyron . . . THE GYRON Inside the Gyron are two intricate Labyrinths, one within the other; each contains all of Space and Time. The outer Labyrinth, the Atrium, and the inner, called the Necropolis, are cosmic calendar clocks. Space is contained in the 12 parts of the Zodiac, represented by 12 zones, while Time exists in the configuration of an interactive defence system - the Celestial Spheres and the Towers of Silence. Seekers may choose to enter the Atrium first, a less dangerous place in which to test the reflexes - it's entered through the Calendarstone, the face of the Sundisc. Another Sundisc (the Atrium's 12th zone) inside the Atrium Labyrinth is the entrance to the Necropolis. The solutions to finding the inner entrance and the PLACE OF WISDOM depend on the layout of the Labyrinths, the configuration of the Towers and the Spheres' time-cycles. The CELESTIAL SPHERES roll in predetermined motions around the Labyrinths: in the Necropolis Labyrinth the combined cycles of the 55 spheres there repeat once in every 15 billion years - the lifespan of the Universe. Contact with the Spheres is fatal. The TOWERS OF SILENCE radiate a destructive energy field in one of the four alignments of the Labyrinth. They can be attacked by laser from behind: but they interact with each other. An attack on a Tower may cause it to turn, vanish, reappear elsewhere, or to re-orientate another Tower. A blind spot to an energy field exists against the trench wall below the Tower. THE MISSION Your objective is to enter the Gyron and locate the hidden PLACE OF WISDOM . To accomplish this, you have full control of a craft called the HEDROID. This has: * full multi-channel sensory ability * precise manoeuvrability in left, forward and right directions * ability to reverse through a 180 degrees flip instantaneously * a targetable high-energy laser The control and instrumentation of the HEDROID are described below. You may embark on this mission by entering the Atrium (side 1 of the cassette), and searching for the inner entrance to the Necropolis, or by entering the Necropolis directly (side 2 of the cassette). The Atrium Labyrinth is easier, and recommended for practice. LOADING 1 ) Connect the EAR socket of your Spectrum to the EAR socket of your tape recorder 2) Choose which version of GYRON you wish to play, insert the cassette accordingly in the tape recorder, and rewind to the beginning. 3) Type LOAD""CODE and press ENTER on your Spectrum. (CODE is accessed by pressing I in extended mode) 4) Press PLAY/LOAD on your recorder. After loading, the screen displays the HEDROID entering a Labyrinth through the Sundisc. The game then enters the demo mode. CONTROL The HEDROID has four directional controls and FIRE. The mission is commenced as follows: KEMPSTON JOYSTICK; press FIRE to start. ALL OTHER JOYSTICKS OR KEYBOARD CONTROL: Keys are initially set to Cursor control with O to fire. A Cursor Joystick will work without redefining Keys - press CAPS SHIFT and BREAK (just BREAK on Spectrum + ) to start each play. Redefine Keys or Joystick control by pressing CAPS SHIFT and SYMBOL SHIFT (EXTEND MODE on Spectrum + ) while the game is in demonstration mode. A FIRE symbol will appear on the screen - press the FIRE button or the chosen key. As the up, down, left and right arrows appear, select control by using the Joystick or pressing the required keys. Press CAPS SHIFT and BREAK (just BREAK on Spectrum + ) to start each play. MOVEMENT is effected by the four directional controls. Forward movement is inertial, i.e. when the HEDROID is moved forward, it will continue in this direction until the reverse control is applied. When the HEDROID is stationary, the reverse control will flip it through 180 degrees. FIRING is continuous while FIRE is pressed. Targetting is with respective directional keys. The laser has uninterrupted power. The game will continue to play until the HEDROID can no longer operate, and no lines remain on the Viability Indicator. INSTRUMENTATION THE MAIN SCREEN displays the forward view of the HEDROID in 3-dimensional perspective. THE RADAR SCAN displays an area of the Labyrinth centred on the HEDROID, orientated to its forward view. It reveals the motions of Spheres and the orientation of Towers. THE VIABILITY INDICATOR has a number of lines, which are proportional to the survival capacity of the HEDROID. This is reduced by damage, incurred when the HEDROID impacts against a trench wall. POSITION INDICATORS THE SIDE-PASSAGE INDICATORS correspond to side- openings in the trench. When the green POSITION INDICATORS lie at least two squares within the red bands, it is possible to turn the HEDROID into a side passage. THE TIMER is synchronised to the motion of the Spheres. THE ZONE INDICATOR displays one of twelve colours which correspond to each of the twelve Zones of the Labyrinth. THE LATERAL INDICATORS shows the HEDROID position across the eight-track width of a Labyrinth trench. GENERAL FACTS The Atrium is a pleasant, linear game which is easily solved and provides a good grounding in the game mechanics. Necropolis is really, really hard: not least because it is not at all obvious which zones you should go to first, and what effects shooting the towers has on other areas of the map (the radar map only covers a 5x5 square area). Some towers are obvious, others cannot be altered, others flip round and kill you. The Place of Wisdom is not at all easily accessed. NOTES When the game was released, a prize of a brand new Porsche was offered to whoever solved the game first. (When you enter the Place of Wisdom, the game prints a verification code which was your entry for the competition). In the event, about 60 or so people solved it, and they ran a play-off in Spain using a specially designed Gyron maze (the Arena). The winner solved the Arena in 15 minutes flat. It is possible to walk between balls which have a single space between them, but requires good timing. It is also possible to walk very closely behind a ball if you stick to the left or right side. Since balls block tower fire as long as a single pixel of the ball remains in front of you, you can use this to sneak up on towers without being shot. The game is almost totally silent apart from the tower shot sound. If you've spent the last hour patiently negotiating the maze to creep cautiously into a new area, that sound is one of the most horrible things you will ever hear..... Richard Pinto, one of the authors, went on to work for the Assembly Line, and was one of the chief architects of "Cybercon III" for the Amiga. The influence of Gyron, IMHO, can clearly be seen in this game, which is a vast 3D polygon complex filled with robots moving in patterns.....