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!