Zodiac Commodore 64 game

Zodiac is a shooter video game released in 1984 for Commodore 64 and in 1985 for Commodore 16 by Anirog Software. The game takes place in a multi-screen maze infested with demons and was often considered an imitation of Shamus. The player controls a cowboy-hat-wearing character who must explore a multi-screen maze defined in the manual as the "corridors of time". The view is top-down, but the character is shown facing forward. Each screen can be connected to the others by openings on all four sides and can represent either a corridor with possible intersections or a full-screen room with thin dividing walls. The manual declares that there are almost 400 possible screens in total. The character can walk and shoot magic bullets in all directions. They can only shoot while moving, so in order to attack an enemy, they must advance towards it.

In each screen, the player encounters a group of enemies of three different types (Jessor, Jukul, and Jufo, similar to little monsters or undefined objects), all with the same behavior. They always chase the player's character, advancing slowly in small steps. Eliminated enemies are completely regenerated when the player exits and re-enters a screen. Contact with an enemy or any wall costs a life; at those times, the character disappears, and only the hat remains, floating down. Extra lives can be won by fighting.

The objective of the game is to collect the symbols of the zodiac signs that are found in some of the screens. Each sign is present in multiple screens, but duplicates are only useful for score. Once all 12 types of signs are collected, the player gains access to a final room without dividing walls. Here, all the signs gradually reappear, wandering around the screen and must be caught and brought to an area in the center of the room. The enemies are of a new type (Jemon, similar to monstrous faces), chase the character, and are indestructible.

Four game speeds can be set from the main menu.

Some magazines reported the presence of a bug, at least in the Commodore 64 version: it may happen that when changing screens, the player erroneously appears on the wall, losing a life.