Zig-Zag - at home with the Scarabaqs
I've always loved mazes , as a young child I could turn even the most boring shopping trip into a little maze inside my head. So it was natural that maze games would become a major passion of mine on the ZX Spectrum and as luck would have it, along with our new DK'Tronics keyboard had come a copy of Zig-Zag.
Even now playing this game smells of Christmas morning , the smell of that new DK'Tronics keyboard , that new plastic smell so full of potential and excitement. But this game is certainly not about Christmas , there will be no jingle bells here and you are well and truly safe from mistletoe.
Our job is to chase and shoot Scarabaqs, which look like headlamps with legs. They like dead ends and lurk waiting for a blast from your electron pulse interrogator. One blast gives you a code and two blasts makes them disappear, each code gained unlocks a new part of the map. The occasional hover droid will attempt to blast you as well.
Our job is to chase and shoot Scarabaqs, which look like headlamps with legs. They like dead ends and lurk waiting for a blast from your electron pulse interrogator. One blast gives you a code and two blasts makes them disappear, each code gained unlocks a new part of the map. The occasional hover droid will attempt to blast you as well.
I fell in love with this game straight away, it was easy to get the hang of, it was colourful and (in my head) it smelt of Christmas. In fact those pesky Scarabaqs began to look like Christmas ornaments, add to that your energy bank looks like a family bar of chocolate and the joyful red dashboard of your Vectrakker DKT Mk II prototype ..hmm...perhaps a brief jingle of sleigh-bells were in order!
But dear reader, let us leave thoughts of Christmas past in the...well...past and look at playing the game without all the festive trimmings. Is the game still wonderful without the memories of Christmas ? Well, yes, there is something very addictive about this game and I think it has to do with that little white map at the top of the screen. It was the first game I had played that showed your progress on the map as you played. Watching it draw those patterns fascinated me (yes, I was and still am easily amused!) The speed of the game was also impressive, you actually felt a sense of speed at chasing these little things round the maze and they weren't all easy to find.
It was a perfect game to play with friends (or in my case with my father as back seat driver, getting over excited .) This game could just eat up the hours, tricking you into thinking 'just one more go'. I'll just see what colour the next level is, just find one more little Scarabaq
It was a perfect game to play with friends (or in my case with my father as back seat driver, getting over excited .) This game could just eat up the hours, tricking you into thinking 'just one more go'. I'll just see what colour the next level is, just find one more little Scarabaq
The other reason I loved this game was all down to the ZX Spectrum's colour palette. This game showcased those colours off brilliantly , each level was a different colour and the cyan one has really stuck in my mind over the years. The two colours I always associate with the Spectrum are magenta and cyan . They were unique to my mind. I loved being able to draw something at school and colour it that mix of pink and red and then tell everyone that it was in fact magenta (yes, you are right , I didn't have that many friends at school!)
This is one of the games that sum up the magic of this particular era of Spectrum gaming. You have the colourful and also the quirky. But along with that you have a really addictive game that is easy to control and simple to understand. And then you add in the Scarabaqs, with that unique headlamp shape and that round green almost cross eyed appearance. It is perfection.
This is one of the games that sum up the magic of this particular era of Spectrum gaming. You have the colourful and also the quirky. But along with that you have a really addictive game that is easy to control and simple to understand. And then you add in the Scarabaqs, with that unique headlamp shape and that round green almost cross eyed appearance. It is perfection.
Going back to playing it now , many years later. It still has it's magic, it still makes me realise what a wonderful little machine the ZX Spectrum was and I still love those scampering Scarabaqs.