Styx (Windmill game)

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Styx
Styx cover.jpg
Developer(s)Windmill Software
Publisher(s)Windmill Software
Platform(s)IBM XT, IBM PC
Release1983
Genre(s)Puzzle
Mode(s)Single-player

Styx was is a video game released by Windmill Software in 1983 as a copy-protected, bootable 5.25" floppy disk for the IBM PC/XT. It is a clone of the 1981 arcade game Qix.

Gameplay[]

Screenshot

There are three significant differences from Qix: the caterpillar (that can grow in size in later rounds), the introduction of diagonal movement, and the X1/X5/X10 multiplier that would color a claimed area corresponding to the color of the multiplier (also awarding that many points).

Development[]

Styx uses the same game engine as two other Windmill Software games, The Exterminator and Moonbugs, and these were some of the few programs to make use of the 16-color quasi-graphics CGA mode (normally the CGA could only use 4 or 2 color graphics). However, it was possible to play on a monochrome monitor as long as the graphics card also supported color graphics (e.g. a Genoa Color Graphics Card).

Styx, The Exterminator, and Moonbugs set CGA 320x200x4 mode on the title screen by directly manipulating the video registers; this causes them to display a screen full of garbage on later video cards. The in-game graphics also will only occupy half the screen due to technical differences between CGA and EGA/VGA, however the games can be patched to work correctly on VGA.

Legacy[]

In September 2004 the source code of the game became available "for historical interest" (with other Windmill Software games such as Digger).[1][2] Also, there is a reverse engineered variant from Andrew Jenner, called Styx Remastered.[3]


References[]

  1. ^ styxsrc_orig.zip
  2. ^ whatsnew.html on Digger.org
  3. ^ download on digger.org

External links[]

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