THE SPECTRUM GAME DATABASE SHADOWFIRE PUBLISHER Beyond AUTHOR Denton Designs YEAR 1984 CATEGORY Strategy DESCRIPTION ShadowFire is an adventure strategy game. CONTROLS You can select controls at the begining from a variety of joysticks and the keyboard. They keys are:- First row - Fire Second Row - Up Third Row - Down Fourth row - Alternate left/right INSTRUCTIONS Rescue Governor Kryxix from deep within Zoff V - General Zoff's spaceship - you have 100 minnutes before Zoff completes his interrogation of Kryxix, and discovers a cunning device, the exact purpose of which I forget, but very important nevertheless, inside his skull. The game is played using icons, which are selected by moving the cross-hairs around the lower half of the screen CHEATS [from Crash, June 1986] SHADOWFIRE - The solution ------------------------- Before setting off on your mission make sure you equip your characters properly - the booklet gives a lot of hints on how to do this. Now beam down to the fighter bay (red) and take all members except Sevrina. Syylk and Maul. Move the characters that you have beamed down S twice, then SE and E. At about this point you should be attacked by two to three aliens. Once they have been destroyed get Manto to beam down Sevrina. Go to Sevrina's object screen and get her to pick the lock which is to the south. Once the lock is picked, using Manto beam Sevrina back to the ship. Now move your three characters S twice, which will take them to a junction with exits leading E, W, N and SW. Take the E route. You should now be attacked by a trooper from NE. Kill him and move NE twice. Moving E from here should take you to just outside a locked door which has a trooper behind - here Sevrina's talents are needed so beam her down to pick the lock. When this is done beam down the other members of the Enigma team to fight the trooper. Once all your characters are beyond the door you will be attacked by two more enemies and these have to be massacred before advancing E. Advance three of the characters that still have a good amount of strength E to attack a Marshal. Send another reasonably fit character W then N once. This will take him into the Robot Armoury. From here take the Rocket launcher - if it is too heavy then wait a while for your character's strength to build up. By now the Marshal should be dead, if he isn't then attack him with a few more characters until he's really dead. By now all your team should be standing outside a locked door which leads SE. Give the rocket launcher to Maul. If he is too weak then drop it by him. Wait for 5 to 10 minutes for your characters' strength to build up, or for however long you think appropriate. Get Sevrina to pick the lock and advance every character through the door making sure they are all well-armed. In this room you will be heavily attacked so before entering, make sure your strength is up. If you survive the onslaught you will realise you are in a room called 'Zoff Security' which has four exits. Get Sevrina to unlock them all. Using Zark, go through the SE exit. You are now in a room that contains General Zoff, Ambassador Kryxix and the self-destruct card. Zoff will try to flee so you must be quick to capture him. Go to Kryxix with Zark and you should get the report that you've found Kryxix and that he follows Zark. Kryxix will only follow Zark because Zark is the translator. Get Kryxix onto the same location as Manto and beam him aboard Enigma - you have now rescued Kryxix. Also in the Fighter Bay is Zoff's second in command, Sky Fortress Captain Churl, he is located in his quarters near the bridge. A time delay device can be found near Churl and if used properly can help capture Zoff. The reason for not beaming all the characters down at the beginning of the game is it is quicker to move the three characters with more agility than to bother moving all six when some of them are really only any use in a fight. To capture General Zoff position Manto outside his quarters and drop the transporter beamer. Pick the lock and send someone into Zoff's quarters. Move a character into the same location as Zoff. Zoff will then try to escape. As soon as he moves onto the same location as Manto, beam him aboard the Enigma. A similar method can be used to capture the enemy soldiers - this saves energy. The other half of the destruct code can be found on the Bridge but it is unlikely that you will need it because to complete the game you must capture the Zoff 5. This can be done by capturing or killing everyone on board. With a bit of practice at these strategies it shouldn't take long to complete the game. General tips are: * Always rest after a good bout of fighting. * Only beam down Maul when you are in a tricky situation because he is too slow to keep up with the others. * Throughout the game you will constantly be arming and rearming because your strength goes down. My strategy for this is to go into battle with a heavy weapon and switch to a lighter one as soon as the character shows signs of flagging. It is best to use some games just for mapping and exploring levels (or you can use the Shadowfire Tuner if you own a copy) because many rooms seem to serve no specific purpose. Not so much a cheat, but a useful tip. Manto can be used to capture gaurds, thus saving having to fight them, and waste energy. If Manto is on the same square as guards, they appear in the teleport option, and you can then teleport them up to the Enigma scoutcraft. This is in fact how you must capture Zoff. Zoff *cannot* be killed - he moves too fast, even with the time-dilator. SEQUELS/PREQUELS Shadowfire was followed up by the sequel Enigma Force. There is also another program called a Shadowfire Tuner, which allows the program to be editted. INLAY CARD TEXT SCORES RECEIVED It received 5/5 and an SU classic. Game of the Month in Your Sinclair, and subjected to a 'Hacking Away!' special, which included a jolly useful map. URL GENERAL FACTS The names of the Enigma Force are Sevrina, Syylk, Maul, Manto, Zark and Torik. Released as a joint venture - Shadowfire had the Spectrum version on one side, and the C=64 version on the other. This was a cunning way of effectively doubling sales figures in the dedicated charts, as C=64 owners would also be buying the Spectrum version, boosting its position, and vice versa. Released with a large booklet describing how to play the game, which was largely useless, as the game is simply so easy to play, and yet difficult to the correct degree as well. The booklet gave detailed psychological reports of all the characters which were pointless, as they had no relevence to the game, and were not featured, with the sole exception of being informed that Sevrina could pick locks, which can be useful. In the booklet there is mention of Zoff's pet - an invisible alien that would attack the Enigma Force - that had been unleashed and was roaming the ship. In an interview with a Spectrum magazine (Crash, IIRC) Denton Designs revealed that this had been, of course, a bug - the Enigma force would suddenly find themselves under attack for no reason, and so a quick explanation had been added to the booklet text. Then, scant hours before the master tape was sent off, a single byte error was found in the Code that was causing the attack, but by then the booklet had already been printed. NOTES One of the programming team of Denton Design was called Kenny Everitt!