Z Wiki
Register
Advertisement


Z is a real-time strategy game by The Bitmap Brothers, originally released for DOS in 1996.

Gameplay[]

The player commands an army of robots in order to destroy the enemy forces. Battles are fought on mostly symmetrical maps divided into multiple sectors. Players start with a limited number of units by their fort, and must use them to capture new territory and hardware, taking control of factories to produce more units.

There are six types of robots with varying armament and intelligence, who can perform their actions autonomously, seven types of vehicles and four types of stationary defensive guns. The robot operating a vehicle or artillery can get shot out, allowing capture of the unit.

Victory is achieved either by destroying all enemy units on the battlefield, which instantly ends the game, moving a unit into the enemy fort, or attacking the fort until it is destroyed.

In the original game's single-player campaign, the player must defeat a computer-controlled opponent on 20 increasingly difficult levels. The multi-player mode (only available in earlier PC releases) features 16 maps for up to four players.

Controls
Mouse 1 Select
Mouse 2 (hold) Drag view
SPACE / Mouse 3 De-select unit/re-select previous unit
A Select & group all units on screen
SHIFT + Mouse 1 Group/ungroup unit
DEL Ungroup selected units
F1 Cycle through robots
F2 Cycle through vehicles
F3 Cycle through buildings
F4 Cycle through guns
F5 Cycle through units under attack
ENTER Center view on Fort
P Pause
S Save game
L Load game

Story[]

During an interplanetary war between two factions of red and blue robots, a duo of red robots, Brad and Allan, are on a mission with a supply ship to deliver troops and weapons to sector Z. While resting in space, they are contacted by Commander Zod about an overdue delivery bound for the Desert planet. Brad and Allan resume their mission and take the ship over to the Desert (before that, they crash into the game's title logo and knock it into the opening credits). Under the leadership of Zod and another unseen commander, the red army overtakes several territories and blue bases on the planet.

After conquering the remaining Volcanic, Arctic, Jungle and City planets, Zod throws a party for all the soldiers, which includes drinking lots of Rocket Fuel. The next morning, Zod takes Brad and Allan for a ride on the supply ship. Allan becomes disgruntled with Zod's reckless flying, and decides to pull a prank on him; he shakes a can of Rocket Fuel and throws it over to Zod, who opens it. The ship blows up, sending Brad and Allan flying, while what seemingly remains of Zod is his hat floating in deep space. To be continued...

Releases[]

Z (DOS)[]

The original DOS version of Z features 20 single-player levels. There are two display modes, SVGA (high resolution) and VGA (low resolution).

In the US release (sporting an alternate red logo on the box art), some levels have been swapped or edited. For example, the player begins some missions with different units.

Z and Z Expansion Kit[]

A Windows 95 port of Z, commonly referred to as Z95. It uses high screen resolution by default, and adds 15 new single-player levels and a level editor.[1] There are some changes to the game mechanics, such as health bars that are displayed above units, and unit build times have been shortened. The statistics of some units have been changed to alter the game balance. There are also options for changing the difficulty and game speed.

Unlike the DOS version, Z95 saw a very limited release, making physical copies of the game extremely rare.

Z (PlayStation & Saturn)[]

Console ports for the Sony PlayStation and SEGA Saturn were done by Krisalis Software, and were released exclusively in Europe. They feature the same amount of levels as the DOS original, and support a mouse controller. Multi-player and game saving are unavailable, most likely due to development time constraints.

The graphics have been simplified with some sprites having been removed due to console memory limitations. The PlayStation version features remastered sound effects, and uses the alternate unit statistics from Z95, including shorter build times, making the game faster and more difficult.

Z: The Game[]

A mobile remake of Z for IOS was released in 2011, and later for Android in 2013. It is based on the DOS version of the game, and features a new interface, higher screen resolution and options to change the language and difficulty. It was later ported to computers and released on Steam and GoG in 2014. The PC version is a nearly identical port of the mobile version, lacking key features such as hotkeys or multi-player mode.

Behind the scenes[]

  • High resolution renders are available as part of the game's press kit:
Advertisement