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Meebzork 5-18-83
This is the early 'shooting' version of Meebzork. This is
presumed to be the final version that was play tested before being
redesigned as the 'Adventure' version.
The title screen presents you with several options including
difficulty, level, option, and demo mode. Difficulty
(Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced), affects the number of lives
you start out with and the overall difficulty of the game.
Option lets you select Auto fire mode or Manual fire (Auto
fire is recommended). Demo puts the game into a short
demonstration mode, which shows the basics of how the game is
played. And Difficulty is the wave number you want to start
out on (1-16). As you start the game you'll notice a status
bar at the bottom of the screen. This status bar at the
bottom of the screen displays the amount of energy you have left,
the number of lives remaining, the number of Shield Units (SU) you
currently have, and the amount of time you've been playing.
You are the Meebzork. A yellowish creature whose mission
is to prevent the flying Gorgons from eroding away the life of
your planet with their deadly poison. However this isn't
just any planet, it's divided up into 64 rotating bands which
contain the planet's life essence. Each band starts out a
lush green color, but every time a Gorgons poison shot hits the
planet the band will change color from green to brown to blue to
red and finally to black. Each color represents the health
of the planet, which worsens as it absorbs more Gorgon poison.
To heal the planet, Meebzork can use one of his (its?)
shield units to return a band to a healthier state. However
when a band changes to black that band is considered dead and
cannot be healed. To make matters worse, Meebzork can fall
into the holes created by black bands and must use his flying
ability to escape.
However Meebzork isn't defenseless.
Meebzork is capable of shooting energy pulses which can
actually absorb the life energy of the Gorgons (killing them in
the process). This energy can be use to power Meebzork's
flying ability which allows him to move quickly around the
planet and escape black holes. The flying power is also
useful for getting out of the way of the "The Ball"(tm).
The Ball hangs out in the background slowly pacing back
forth, just waiting for the right time to strike. When The
Ball is ready to strike you will hear a brief warning sound,
this is your chance to get the hell out of the way. The Ball
will then burst forward from the background and fly at Meebzork,
and if it hits him he'll loose a life. The problem is
there's a glitch in this prototype which causes The Ball to take
away one life for every second it touches you instead of just
one life period. This tends to make games very short
unless you're quick (and get the hell out of the way).
Each wave contains 20 Gorgons. Once
you've destroyed all 20, the wave ends and Meebzork must face
another even deadlier group of Gorgons. The end of wave
bonus is determined by multiplying the number of waves
completed times the number of lives remaining times 100.
For every three waves Meebzork completes he'll get one
new life, and every four waves all the planet's bands are
restored to green. Meebzork also gains one shield unit
for every five Gorgons he destroys.
While this version of Meebzork isn't a bad
game, it isn't a great game either. The main problem is
that the game gets old fast and the difficulty grows too
quickly. The Ball is an interesting antagonist, but
doesn't add enough variety to the game. Basically once
you've seen the first level, you've seen all the levels (they
just get a little faster). The playtesters must have had
the same thoughts since Meebzork was completely redesigned in
an attempt to give it more long-term playability...
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