Dyna Star, the forgotten Spectrum game

Created 5 May 2024 9:37 PM

The thing about Dyna Star is that it opens with what should be one of the most iconic ZX Spectrum moments ever.

The biggest standard in 2D videogames is that you move right. It's not an absolute... there are top-down games where you can move in any direction, or vertical-scrolling shooters where you only move up, or single-screen games where you don't really move anywhere... but I think it's safe to say that, if you counted up every moment of every 2D game that involved movement off the screen in some way and counted up how much of it was in which direction, right would be the clear winner. So when, after starting Dyna Star and finding that you can walk right off the first screen, and being faced with the option to go down or right again, I think it's safe to say most players would quickly go right. Down could be a death pit, after all; that's the second-biggest standard in 2D videogames.

So you go right, and then right again, and right for just the third time since you started the game, and a chuffing great floating brain with one eye and some tentacles floats right for you. Maybe you get a lucky shot in its eye, pushing it backwards for a moment, but you barely have time to get another shot off before it's back on you. It reaches you in a scant couple of seconds, and you die.

This should be the Spectrum's Mario Bros 1-1, or Mega Man X opening stage. You're 10 seconds into the game, and now your brain is having a full-on conversation with itself.

• OK, that thing is way too strong for me, wtf.
• But my bullets did hit it, I'm clearly meant to fight it. So...
• I'm going to have to get better weapons. This game must have some kind of weapon improvement system.
• I haven't see any upgrades, and clearly can't go right, so I guess I have to go back and down.
• And, hey, if the route splits there, it probably continues to split; this game is going to be about exploration.

You've just started, and the game has already taught you what a big chunk of it is going to be about; exploring the world to get stronger, so you can come back and beat the big bad brain.

If you look the game up online, you won't see screenshots of that brain. They just aren't there; apparently, too few people ever played this to care. (There are exactly 2 vids of this on Youtube, and both are less than 5 minutes long.) What information is online is spread about the internet; actually finding what you need to understand what you're meant to do is it's own scavenger hunt. But that's why I'm here, so, buckle up kiddos, as I put together everything you will ever need to know to play, and maybe even beat, this game.

First, let's talk mechanics. Your avatar can run, jump, shoot, and cycle through an inventory with 4 slots. Objects just have to be in your inventory to be used. You'll very quickly come across some Jet Boots that let you fly, and you will need them. If you ever accidentally put them down and then fall somewhere you can't reach them (like, for example, the second screen of the game), don't worry; press J and B together to summon them to you.

Your grand aim in this game is to assemble 4 colour-coded molecules (each in 4 parts), and take them to their related Destruction Units. Feed all the molecules for a given Destruction Unit into it, and it gets activated. Activate all 4 and return to your ship to win.

That's not going to be what you start off doing, though, because there are locked doors of various types all over the place. To use a given door, you need to carry the related key item, and any space taken up carrying a key is one less for carrying molecules.

One of the items you can pick up on the way not only lets you open doors, but its also necessary to activate the Destruction Units, and to use the Matter Transformation Unit back at base, both critical late-game actions.

On top of that, one of the molecule pieces is lying behind the big brain... And, sure enough, getting past it means finding the various weapon upgrades strewn around the map, as (at least as far as I know) only the final weapon can actually hurt it (and still requires several precise blasts to the eye). That weapon can also blast away a few barricades (looking rather like oversized bullets) that are otherwise deadly to the touch.

You're going to want to keep moving fast in this game, for a few reasons. First, enemies keep spawning constantly, are basically impossible to reliably avoid, and you only have limited health, lives, and ammo to deal with them; it's generally best to try and rush through the screens before things can even spawn. Second, stay too long in one place, and an invincible grim-reaper type enemy spawns in and flies right for you. (Annoyingly, if one does spawn on a given screen, it'll stay there for quite some time, ready to get you when you come back to that room.)

Putting all that together, the best early strategy is to ignore the molecules entirely; remember where they are, but otherwise, focus on finding the key items and unlocking all the doors in the world. Once everything is opened, you no longer need the keys (apart from that one that last one I mentioned), freeing up your inventory for getting the molecule parts where they need to be. By the time you've reached that part, you should also have all the weapon upgrades necessary to take down the doom brain.

All you really need now is a map. And hey, if you go to World Of Spectrum, it does have a nice map made of screenshots. The problem is, it's laid out presumably as it's stored in the game, and so formatted into a rectangular grid... Which is pretty bad for actually navigating this world, with all it's wrap-around geometry. Never fear though, because I've solved that as well:

It turns out that, for all the twistiness of the map, there's actually only one place in the whole game where you can leave the central shaft on one side, and work your way across to re-enter it from the other: That's the "A" mark on the map. Everything else is functionally it's own little walled-off area.

I hope this is enough to let someone out there finally play, and win, this game. It is hard as nails, frankly unfairly difficult, but at least the internet now actually contains some record of what you're supposed to do. And, look; if you happen to nip over to World Of Spectrum and find their Pokes file, well, we can keep that between you and me.

Oh, and, if you do beat it, for the love of god, send me a screenshot or video or whatever of the ending; for some reason, my version just gives a glitchy screen and a Game Over, but it's pretty clear that it's meant to show something else, and I would love to see what.