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..... 

