Posted By
Csabo
on 2025-08-11
17:30:18
|  Re: Zodiac Deluxe
Intro
Zodiac Deluxe is here, let's see what's new! (Don't want to read? You can listen.)
As far a graphical updates, there are too many things to list. Thanks to KiCHY's design, I think the game looks much better. Certainly a lot more colorful! Let's focus on the gameplay changes.
Gameplay
Each room has a fixed number of enemies, this number increases as you get closer to the Time Vaults. Once an enemy is killed, it doesn't regenerate, so it's possible to clear out rooms completely.
The player respawn mechanism has been rewritten. In the original, if a player dies in a room with a Zodiac sign in it, they respawn in an empty room - no Zodiac, no enemies. However, when you leave and re-enter, both will be there. To me, this made the game's world feel "fake", inconsistent. Now, when the player dies, they respawn at the point where they entered, but the number of enemies in the room and the Zodiac sign remains.
The map size has been reduced from 20x20 to 12x12 rooms. I think you'll find that even at this size the map is quite large. I've also edited some room layouts and made new room types. There's also a brand new map function, which can be accessed by pressing HELP, this will help navigate the maze. In addition, the room colors are also fixed, which to me makes the game's world more consistent, and it can help with navigation as well.
There's also fewer Zodiac signs, specifically, there's exactly 12 of them, one each. Since there's less of them to find, I feel like finding one is a bigger deal, so I also introduced a new game mechanic: powerups. There are 4 power ups you can gain by picking up the Zodiacs: extra life, frozen demons, lightning shot, and invulnerability.
As I mentioned previously, the original game had a "Cubic Gate" mechanic, which was not very clearly defined, and never mentioned on the cover either. I removed this completely, but I wanted to leave the gate itself in the game. The Cubic Gate appears in the penultimate room, and will only open once all Zodiac signs are collected.
In the Time Vaults, you can no longer shoot. Shooting the undestroyable demons here was a very easy way to rack up score, and I didn't think this made sense, so I removed this. Otherwise the scoring was completely overhauled too.
The Deluxe version has a little end sequence, which I won't spoil here.
Once you win the game, the game will restart, and you can have another go, but the difficulty increases. Maybe some players will enjoy the extra challenge. It's not possible to play indefinitely, eventually the enemies will be too fast to avoid.
Extras
There's an intro, which explains the game's backstory, such as it is.
There's also new music throughout, which can be toggled with the M key.
You can quit from the game by holding ESC for a few seconds.
Some bugs from the original were fixed, such as Joystick fire from port 1 not working. The Deluxe version also has SNES controller support.
I also made CRT and TAP versions of the game.
Thanks
Thanks to Rüdiger for inspiring me to work on this project.
Huge thanks to KiCHY whose work never fails to amaze me.
Thanks to all the people who helped with testing: BSZ, Gaia, gerliczer, George, SukkoPera.
I hope you will enjoy this game!
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