Zenix was one of the most ambitious 128K Coco 3 games done, at least until the same author came out with The Crystal City a year later. Originally sold through some smaller games companies under his in house name of Gosub Software, it eventually got sold through Glen Dahlgren's Sundog Systems, the last premiere Coco games company (although several independents have done very good games since as well). Loosely based on the arcade game Galaga, it throws in a few twists of it's own: there is no way to get two ships docked together, but you can hit certain aliens and then catch them, which will give you extra, temporary weapons. There are thirty waves of aliens in all, and it has bonus rounds similiar to Galaga, but it also has big boss monsters (at least a blue demon and a huge dragonfly that I know of), as well as special things that happen to you on later levels (for example, the entire screen shakes back and forth violently when you get hit in later levels). Unlike most arcade games of this type, there is actually a goal and end to the game; you have to destroy the alien's home planet. The game manages to be lightning fast (and 60 frames per second) while doing several multi-voice music soundtracks (and explosion/firing sounds mixed in on top of that) all at the same time, which is quite a programming feat for a 1.78 Mhz CPU with no dedicated sound hardware. One could also move their ship up and down to a limited extent, as well as left and right.
Title: Zenix
Author: Jeremy Spiller and Mike Newell
Publisher: Gosub Software (Eversoft Games), and later Sundog Systems
Released: 1989
Requires: Color Computer 3, 128K RAM, disk ONLY, joystick.
Download ZENIXANDCRYSTALCITY.ZIP from Jeremy Spiller's Coco games website. This contains three DSK images; 1 for Zenix and 2 for Crystal City. For Zenix, type LOADM"ZENIX" to run. To start the game, either hit the joystick button, or a number key corresponding to the level you want to start at (1=Level 4, 2=Level 8, 3=Level 12, 4=Level 16).