
Zenji instructions and help file

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Help Zenji to stabilise the Power station before he melts down!

ZENJI
(c) Matt Hubbard

THE GAME

Direct Zenji through the microcircuits of the Delta-B reactor to
provide a continous circuit, but don't run out of time or the
proteo-convertor power source will inevitably atomise you.

LOADING

COMMODORE 64 OWNERS:

1. Connect the cassette unit to you Commodore according to the User
Manual.
2. Place the rewound cassette into the cassette unit, and press PLAY.
3. Press RUN/STOP and SHIFT simultaneously on your Commodore.

COMMODORE 128 OWNERS:

1. Switch OFF your Commodore 128, and switch it back on whilst holding
down the COMMODORE key.
2. Now follow the instructions for Commodore 64 owners above.

NOTE: Full loading instructions can be found in your Commmodore Manual.

PLAYING THE GAME

Zenji can be played using a joystick:

The object of the game is to turn all the corridors yellow. This is
achieved by moving Zenji to a chamber and rotating the pathways so
that the source can use it to transfer power. Press the 'Fire' button
while moving the Joystick left or right. The Timer will continually
count down at the bottom of the screen. If it reaches zero and the
circuit has not been completed, you will have spent too long in
proximity to the reactor and will vaporise.  You start your work with
1 Head and 4 on reserve.

SCORING

The less time you take, the more points you will score. Whenever
contact is made with a numbered square you will receive a bonus of 100
times the number. A bonus life is awarded every alternate increase of
10,000 points (ie, 10,000, 30,000, 50,000 etc).


WARNING: Copyright subsists in all Firebird Software, documentation
and artwork. All rights reserved. No part of this sofware may be
copied, transmitted in any form, or by any means, hired or lent
without the express permission of the publisher.

If this program is faulty, or fails to load, please return it to the
address below CLEARLY MARKED 'RETURNS' and it will be replaced free of
charge. This offer does not affect your statutory customer rights.

Firebird Software, First Floor, 64-76 New Oxford Street, London WC1A
1PS

Firebird and the Firebird logo are registered trademarks of British
Telecommunications plc

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End Zenji instructions.
Begin Zenji help file.

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Zenji

Contents

 General Description   [ 1.0 ]
 How To Play           [ 2.0 ]
 Scoring               [ 3.0 ]
 Hints                 [ 4.0 ]
 Game History          [ 5.0 ]
 Troubleshooting       [ 6.0 ]



[ 1.0 ] General Description

(A Lecture from Rokan, Master of Zenji, 739 A.D.)

Let us call the "Many" the "Elements." Then let us see that in the
vast blackness, beyond the beyond, the Elements assemble around the
Source. Some are connected, some are not. Those united with the Source
are green with energy, while the disconnected ones are an empty grey.
The Seeker must connect the Many to the One, thus turning all the
Elements green with the power of the Source. In that instant, Zenji
occurs.



[ 2.0 ] How to Play

Basics

How to Start

Press F1 to start each game. The object is to connect all maze
elements, creating an unbroken green path to their pulsating source.
Avoid Desires and Illusions, and don't run out of time.

{diagram - Reserve Faces, Game Number, Flames of Desire, You, Bonus
Square, Score, Timer}

There are 8 variations: Levels 1, 3, 5, and 7 are for one player; 2, 4,
6, and 8 are for two players. The higher the level, the greater the
challenge. Press F3 to select game levels.

You are represented by the rotating head. It follows your joystick's
movements. To spin an element, bring your head to its center. Now,
hold down the joystick button, and move the control stick left or
right.

You begin with one active life and four on reserve. The game ends when
you have lived out all of your lives.



Keyboard

Function Key Description F1 Start new game. F3 Advance Level.

Press F1 to start each game. There are 8 variations: Levels 1, 3, 5,
and 7 are for one player; 2, 4, 6, and 8 are for two players. The
higher the level, the greater the challenge. Press F3 to select game
levels.



Joystick

The joystick will move your character up, down, left, and right. To
turn a maze element, move to its center, hold down the joystick button
and move left to rotate the piece counterclockwise, or right to rotate
the piece clockwise.



[ 3.0 ] Scoring

Points are awarded whenever complete connection (Zenji) is achieved.
The less time you've taken, the more points you'll get. Whenever
contact is made with a numbered square, you'll receive a bonus of 100
points X the number. A bonus life will be awarded with every other
increase of 10,000 points (i.e. 10,000, 30,000, 50,000, etc.).

Caution! If you do not make contact with a numbered square before it's
counter reaches zero, the maze piece on that square will disappear.
This may make the maze more difficult to complete.

Enter your initials beside your final score by moving the joystick
left or right. When desired initial appears, press the joystick button.



[ 4.0 ] Hints

Matt Hubbard, Designer and Programmer

"Zenji creates a unique interaction between player and game. It is a
new kind of experience, whose strategy lies not in sharpshooting or
elaborate game plans, but in sensing the right move and trusting your
intuition."

"The idea is to get one area of the maze 'solved', and then move on
from there." Try to 'divide and conquer', working on separate areas of
the puzzle individually. Then, to finish the maze, you need only hook
one area to it's neighbor, and watch the entire section become green
with energy.

"Try forcing the enemies up into an area separate from the rest of the
puzzle, then rotate a piece to cut them off, so that they can't reach
you. Then, you're free to finish the rest of the puzzle more quickly,
without having to waste time dodging enemies. Finally, make a bridge
to the last unconnected area where the enemies are trapped to finish
the maze."

"The object of Zenji is to connect all Elements to the Source. But, in
playing the game, it becomes clear that the approach required is a
kind of 'letting go', rather than planning ahead, wherein connections
simply happen. Players can 'feel' their way through the maze and use
tactics that combine intuition with technical skill. Enjoy."



[ 5.0 ] Game History

Matt Hubbard, Designer and Programmer

"I had just finished 'Dolphin' [Ed. Note: 'Dolphin' is an Atari 2600
game that is available now on the Activision Atari Action Pack, Volume
II], and I decided that I wanted to work a bigger system, like the
Atari 400 or 800 [the platform Zenji was originally released on]. I
was always a puzzle fan, and at the time, maze games were very popular.
But I wanted to make a game that was different than simply cleaning up
mazes."

The idea came to him that it would be really cool if the player could
change the maze. Thus, Zenji was born.

"Some of the people who had seen the game as it was being developed
wanted the player to have some kind of shooting capability." The
decision not to have shooting ended up being one of logistics rather
than preferences. According to Matt, "The problem was that joysticks
at the time had only one button. So how can you use the joystick to
turn the maze pieces AND shoot? There's just no easy way to do it."

Asked about the title, Matt recalled: "Originally, I wanted to call it
'Rotating Heads', which is a song by a group called 'English Beat'.
That name got 'vetoed' by the Activision higher-ups, so the marketing
department was left with the problem of selling a nameless game. Then,
during one closed-door brainstorming session which I wasn't present at,
one of the marketing people mentioned that the game was a very 'Zen-
like' experience - there was no plan, and it was very chaotic." They
finally settled on 'Zenji', which Matt tells us "is the same as a
saint in the Christian religion, a deceased Zen master." It turns out
Matt was not a fan of the name. His argument: "It's not Zen, it's
operations research!"

During the game's development, people were trying to come up with a
'story' behind it. "There didn't seem to be any reason for you to be
in the middle of this maze trying to reconnect all the pieces. It was
cool, but there wasn't any realistic point to it all. One thought was
that you were a waiter and as you turned things around, tables would
appear. That didn't really fly, so after the waiter idea we just got
sick of trying to give it a sense of place and purpose. I said 'I'm
going to make this a completely abstract game. If anyone can stick a
realistic theme on it, I'll do it!"

One of the high points in a game developer's career is having the
opportunity to see people enjoying their game. Matt recalls one of his
favorite anecdotes: "At the summer CES shows [Consumer Electronics
Show], we always had a hospitality booth set up in which people could
play Activision's newest releases. One day, as I was leaving the hotel,
I saw somebody playing Zenji at the booth. I went out and had an
evening, and 5 hours later when I returned, the same person was
sitting there. I asked him, 'Have you been playing all that time?' The
person replied 'All what time?', and looked at his watch. When he
realized the amount of time he had spent at the game his jaw dropped
as he said 'This game just took away 5 hours of my life....'"

The difference between designing games now and then was that it wasn't
marketing-driven. "People were allowed to put things out and see if it
worked. Nowadays, [a game designer's] job is to repeat hits. At the
time, there weren't as many sequels, so we did whatever was new and
discovered what the hits were as we went."

"As must be obvious, Zenji is completely programmer done. I did the
art, music, everything." This was usually the case. The programmer had
complete control over (and complete responsibility for!) every aspect
of the game. "I do write music, so that wasn't completely out of my
league, but the important thing was that gameplay was king."

Matt is currently working on a product for Virgin to be released this
year on the Sony Playstation.



[ 6.0 ] Troubleshooting

How to Start

Press F3 to select game. Odd numbered games are one player and even
numbered games are two player. Press F1 to start.
