Darren Yang
Huandari Lopez
Kyle Buzsaki
Kyle Huynh
zDefense is an 8-bit tower defense game for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k. It was developed for the Winter 2017's CSE 190 8-bit demo programming taught by professor Hovav Shacham.
Open zdefense.tap in your ZX Spectrum emulator of choice. zDefense was developed using the fuse emulator for OS X and Windows.
Use WASD to control the menus and cursor. Press enter to select the level from the level select screen. Once in the game, move the cursor to the yellow build tiles and press one of the 3 tower build buttons (1, 2, or 3) to build a tower. The input keys are all displayed in magenta in the status pane at the bottom third of the screen.
Once you have built a tower, it will automatically attack enemies that walk next to it. You can sell an already built tower by pressing G while the cursor is over it to get a portion of the money spent back. You can upgrade a tower by pressing R, which will double the damage it deals with each attack. The "laser" tower attacks a single enemy at a time and does 1 damage to it. The "flame" tower will attack all of the enemies on one side of it and deal 1 damage to them. The "dark" tower will do 1/8th of an enemy's current health in damage, rounded down. This won't be much early in the game (it will actually do 0 damage to the weaker enemies), but it becomes increasingly important as the enemies get stronger).
While you are waiting for enemies to move through the path, move the cursor around to pick up the "powerup items" that spawn in the various lakes around the map. Some of these will boost your health or money. Others represent special "power charges" that you can use by pressing 6, 7, or 8. The "bomb" powerup can be placed on the enemy path and will instantly kill any enemy that steps on it. The "zap" powerup can be used at any time and will deal a flat 1 damage to all enemies currently on the path. The "slow" powerup will cut enemy movement speed in half, giving your towers additional time to deal damage to them.
If an enemy is killed, you will be awarded a small amount of money for killing it. Use this extra cash to buy more towers to defend against the more difficult waves to come. If an enemy reaches the end of the path, it will deal 1 damage to you and subtract a point from your life total. If your life hits 00, you will lose the game.
If you successfully defeat all of the enemies in a wave, the next wave will start. Once you have beaten all of the waves, the game's "level" will go up, all enemies will increase in strength, and the waves will begin again. Try to see how long you can last!