Metal Saviour Bia

Blast off in your state-of-the-art fighter and be our Metal Saviour in this tribute to 80s and 90s mecha anime, ASCII-style!

Play through 5 levels of sci-fi action*  as you pilot the transforming fighter Bia (named after the Greek personification of force and raw power) in a last-ditch attempt to turn the tide in a war that humanity is losing. 

Deploy all of your mecha's transforming modes* at different points in your mission to succeed and make it home to tell the tale!

• Use a unique first-person perspective engine* to blast your way through waves of enemy mechs
• Turn on a dime, dodge enemy flak and suppress air(space?) defenses*
• Square off against the alien overmind to save humanity in a final confrontation*!

For the smoothest experience, I recommend downloading the game files and running them through Zeta (see 'Playing the game offline' below). Online, the game plays smoother in Firefox than Chrome.

*as can best be rendered in ZZT

Photosensitivity warning: This game contains a number of animations with flashing effects. Players sensitive to these are warned. Most can be bypassed by moving through passages ( ≡ symbols on coloured backgrounds) where possible.

INSTRUCTIONS

Move with the arrow keys. You can shoot using either Shift+the direction you want to fire, or with the spacebar. Interact with objects by touching them. 

More specific instructions are provided within the game. You pass between stages by entering passages (the white ≡ symbols on coloured backgrounds).

If the game runs slowly, try increasing the speed on the title screen or try playing it at a different time. Alternatively, the game files can be downloaded and played offline (instructions below).

Playing the game offline

The download contains the ZZT world you're playing now, MSBIAv12.ZZT, as well as an older version of the game, MSBIA.ZZT. These will require ZZT or the Reconstruction of ZZT to run in Zeta. ZZT can be found on the Museum of ZZT at  https://museumofzzt.com/, while Zeta and the Reconstruction are available at https://zeta.asie.pl/. Unzip  the download into a folder containing these to play.

While  the game can be played with ZZT in DOSBox, it hasn't been extensively tested in it. You may need to set the number of cycles to max in DOSBox and/or increase the game speed (accessible from the title screen) to get it to run smoothly.

About the game

I first discovered the anime that inspired this game (and which I still enjoy)  in the mid-90s. As a result, this game attempts to follow a ZZT aesthetic that belongs to that time. Back then, tools to extend ZZT's graphical palette were beginning to be available among the ZZT community.  It was not uncommon to see game worlds start out being drawn with the colours accessible from ZZT's built-in editor, and later on get a (subjective) graphical boost as the authors discovered they could do more.

The original version of this game was written between 8/12/2020 and 29/12/2020; the updated version was made between 04/01/2021 and 30/1/2021.