THE GATES OF ZENDOCON

The droids of your old nemesis, the evil spider Zendocon, captured you. Zendocon itself sentenced you to wander its web of deadly universes. Zendocon's universes are connected by a web of transporter gates and alien bases.

Zendocon orders its droids to transport you to an alien base on the first of the 51 interconnected universes and to give you a starship. You must survive dangerous universes inhabited by hostile aliens while searching for transporter gates. When you find a transporter gate, fly through the gate into another universe.

You will find allies in Zendocon's universes. Aliens held as slaves by Zendocon's minions will help you if you can free them. They will follow your ship, aiding you with strange weapons unlike you have ever encountered!

Will you survive Zendocon's challenge? You must survive! Your reward for success is the chance for sweet revenge - a duel to the death with the evil spider itself!

Getting Started

The Gates of Zendocon is a single player game.
Note: To press a key, press and release quickly. To hold down a key, hold the key down for at least one second.
Follow the steps listed below to start the game:
1. With your system switched off, insert the game card as described in the Lynx Owner's Manual.
Warning: Do not touch the game card connector pins. Do not expose the contacts to static or extreme heat. Do not bend, crush, or attempt to clean the game card.
2. Press ON. The Gates of Zendocon title screen appears.
3. If desired, you can select a specific universe in which to start. Press OPTION 1. Four letters display along the bottom of the screen. Move the joypad left or right to move between the four letters. When you've selected a specific letter, move the joypad up or down to show the letters of the alphabet. Once you have selected all four letters, select the level of difficulty.
Note: If you do not select a specific universe, you will start in the first universe.
4. Next, select the difficulty of play. Press A for easy or B for hard. In easy play, the game action is slower and your spacecraft is better protected against attack. However, you do not accumulate points as quickly as you do at the hard level of play.
5. The game begins after you select the difficulty level. The elevator takes you to your ship. Press right on the joypad to fly your ship from the first alien base.
6. To enhance play, the following optional game controls allow you to modify the display, control music output, pause, and restart the game.

Playing the Game

The object of the game is to survive Zendocon's deadly universes (levels) and find and destroy Zendocon.
You begin the game on a landing platform in an alien base. Press right on the joypad to fly your ship out of the base and into space. Destroy all enemy aliens you encounter. Hits from alien fire cause the following damage to your ship: After your ship explodes you return (with one less life) to the landing platform of the last base you visited. You receive a new, fully-equiped ship.

You begin the game with five lives. The number of lives remaining appears on the lower left side of each alien base. You acquire additional lives at some bases. The game is over when you receive a third hit with no lives remaining.

There is at least one transporter gate in each universe. Some universes have multiple gates that lead to different universes. Since you cannot go back through the gate you entered, you must fly forward to find the next gate.

Each transporter gate leads to an alien base. Alien bases serve as the entrances to new universes. The name of each universe appears on the bottom of that universe's alien base. Each universe contains one alien base.

When you enter a new base your spaceship hovers over the upper landing platform. If you have lost your shield or laser, you can land on the upper platform to get a new, completely armed ship.

Be careful. If you land on the platform when the force field appears, your ship explodes and destroys you and all alien followers. (See Movement and Combat for a description of friendly aliens.)

If you land successfully, you descend the platform elevator to the new sip waiting on the lower platform. Your alien allies will follow your new ship.

If you do not need a new ship, you can press the joypad to the right to pass through the base.

Note: If you return to the base because aliens in space have completely destroyed your ship, you will not have the option of landing on the upper platform. You automatically board the ship on the lower platform.

Movement and Combat

Press the joypad to move your ship in the direction you wish to fly.

Ship's Weapons

Your spacecraft is armed with two weapons and one shield/weapon.

Friendly Alien Weapons

In addition to your ship's weapons and shield, you can acquire alien allies and their weapons when you rescue these aliens from enslavement.
Flying Eyeball(purple, looks like an eyeball) hovers below your craft and shoots fireballs horizontally.
Death Arising(red, points upward) shoots a laser beam straight up.
Cosmic Destroyer(Orange, looks like a *) seeks out and crashes into enemy aliens.
Sonic Dart (green, looks like >-o )(the most powerful weapon) emits deadly sonar waves.
Rescue the aliens from Zendocon and they will aid you. To rescue these aliens. shoot whatever is enslaving them. You must also touch Death Arising and the Sonic Dart with your spacecraft to complete the rescue.
Enemy fire can destroy your alien followers.
Press B to activate the weapons of your enemy allies. To fire the Sonic Dart, hold down B.

Strategy

On the first level, the first transporter gate leads to easy levels, the second transporter leads to more difficult levels.
Some aliens can only be destroyed by a specific weapon.
Pulsing alien Sucker Beasts are extremely dangerous.
Fly through the Jaws of Death.
Snakes squeal when injured.
Shoot out the Static Blob's red eye, and shoot Crawling Eyes more than once.
Bubbles can push you into trouble.
Shoot the last alien in the eye.

Scoring

You earn 1 to 495 points when you destroy aliens, depending on the type of alien.
You receive 100 points when you reach a new alien base in the easy levels or 10,000 points when you reach a new alien base in the hard levels.