Zeux series

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The Zeux series is a series of five games made by Alexis Janson, creator of MegaZeux. Labrynth of Zeux, the first game in the series, was a DOS game that preceded MegaZeux itself. Its sequels were all created in MZX (hence the name of the GCS, MegaZeux).

Caverns of Zeux was packed in with every version of MegaZeux up to 2.51. The remaining three episodes originally came with the registered version of MZX, making the Zeux series one of the few MZX games to be released as shareware. In early 1998, the episodes were placed on Cheesypoof, yenrab's game archive, with Alexis Janson's permission, and became freeware from that point on. This preceded MZX itself becoming open source by several months.

The first Zeux game, Labrynth of Zeux, did not become freeware until much later (around 2003).

Labrynth of Zeux

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Zeux II: Caverns of Zeux

Zeux II: Caverns of Zeux
Caverns.png
Author Alexis Janson
Company Software Visions
Release Date December 4th, 1994
Genre Adventure
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Plot

Caverns' intro recaps the ultimate result of Labrynth of Zeux, as Vince reaches the chamber where the Silver Staff of Zeux is held. He takes the staff and exits through a tunnel ahead. As Vince journeys through the tunnel, the staff suddenly shoots out several beams of light, caving in the passageway behind Vince and trapping him in the Caverns of Zeux. As Vince looks at his reflection in a nearby pool of water, he sees that he has been transformed into a dwarf, perhaps due to the enchantment of the area around him.

Stopping at the nearby dwarven village of Ruidia, Vince learns that he may be able to escape the caverns if he can create a bridge with the magical power of five Rainbow Gems and journey over a chasm that blocks his progress. Armed with the power of the Silver Staff, Vince manages to procure all five of the gems from the neighboring caverns, meanwhile defeating a demon that has been terrorizing Ruidia with its ability to create earthquakes.

Vince crosses the newly created rainbow bridge to find a large, solitary chamber in the caverns. It is in this chamber that he first encounters the spirit Echin, who informs him that, in order to open the portal that will allow an exit from the caverns, he must defeat seven guardians who claim different areas of the caverns as their home, the first of which was the demon Vince had slain earlier.

As Vince journeys deeper into the caverns to defeat the remaining six guardians, he comes across several strange artifacts, including spell books, pendants, and crystals which change his form. After having defeated the final guardian, Vince returns to Echin, only to find that he has been tricked, and defeating the seven guardians had actually unsealed the portal back to Echin's home dimension. Vince is transported to the dimension along with Echin, but his Silver Staff is left behind.

After maneuvering, defenseless, through these caverns, Vince finds Ryiden, a town full of skeletons, and meets a sorceror with the ability to channel the power of the aura crystals Vince obtained from the guardians and change him into any form that the crystals permit.

Now able to communicate with the skeletons in Ryiden, Vince learns that there are chambers that can teleport people between the dimensions of the caverns, and that Echin's chambers can only be opened with the power of seven pendants, of which Vince already has three in his possession.

Using his different forms and new spells to his advantage, Vince journeys to previously inaccessible areas of the caverns to gather the remaining four, and battles Echin to the death in his caverns. With his last breath, Echin reveals that the entire journey Vince just went through was all a complex holographic game, and Vince soon awakens in a prison cell, with no idea where he is or who his captors are...


Zeux III: Chronos Stasis

Zeux III: Chronos Stasis
Chronos stasis.png
Author Alexis Janson
Company Software Visions
Release Date 1995
Genre Adventure
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Plot

The game begins with Vince in his prison cell, where he and the rest of the inmates are all scheduled to be executed the following day. He finds several paperclips in his desk which could be used to pick the lock, but his plans to use them are canceled when a mysterious man breaks his cell door open and assists Vince in killing the guards patrolling the prison area.

The man, named Tony, informs Vince that aside from the two of them, everyone in the facility they are in is actually a robot, and that only a few actual human beings are still alive in the world, as the robots have taken control. Armed with only his wits and a plasma gun, Vince is instructed to destroy all 134 robots in the facility (though there are actually 137, not counting the prison guards) before he attempts to escape.

After successfully clearing out the facility, Vince leaves in a hovercraft and heads towards the center of the city, an area harboring the last remaining pockets of human existence, as well as the heart of the robots' empire...


Zeux IV: Forest of Ruin

Zeux IV: Forest of Ruin
Forest of ruin.png
Author Alexis Janson
Company Software Visions
Release Date 1995
Genre Adventure
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Plot

With only five miles left until he reaches the robots' central core building, Vince's hovercraft stalls and explodes, with his gun inside, leaving him to finish his journey on foot.

Vince stops at Larx, the first of the three human-inhabited towns in this wasteland. Here, he learns that he is actually in a parallel dimension to his own world. He was unknowingly transported there after finding the Silver Staff of Zeux, which contained part of the power necessary to travel between dimensions. Vince was found by the robots and used as a guinea pig for their holographic equipment, but he was not expected to actually win their game, so he was imprisoned and scheduled for execution. Meanwhile, the robots took possession of the Silver Staff and hid it in the central core building. Should the robots manage to get their hands on the remaining three staves, they would be able to enter and conquer Vince's home world.

Searching through the town, Vince manages to locate and arm himself with the Ice Staff, the "first" of the four staves.

TO BE CONTINUED


Zeux V: Catacombs of Zeux

Zeux V: Catacombs of Zeux
Catacombs of zeux.png
Author Alexis Janson
Company Software Visions
Release Date 1995
Genre Adventure
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Plot