XenZarg

The game

You start as a Fleet Commander of the Xenon Space Academy, flying to the planet Radon to defend it from the Zorgon Battle Star. Destroy the Battle Star and Zorgon's Revenge follows straight on: the Zorgons have captured Princess Roz, and you must win four magic stones, bridge the chasm around Zorgon's castle and rescue her. Rescue her and Xenon 1 begins again, a little harder.

Controls

Game controllers work on the Mac and Windows: the left stick or d-pad moves, A fires or jumps, B refuels and Start pauses.

Xenon 1

Five levels, played in order. You have three bases (lives), and you earn another every 10,000 points.

Level 1: the Bird-Aards

Four Bird-Aards wheel round in a hypnotic formation, dropping bombs and sometimes diving at you. Each is worth 150 points. Only one laser bolt can be on the screen at a time, so make every shot count.

Level 2: the Large Aards

Hit a Large Aard and it clones. One clone keeps wandering, and the other dives at you and explodes when it reaches the ground. The radiation from the explosion is fatal, so move well away from where the diver is heading, or shoot it on the way down.

Level 3: the meteorites

Your laser is no use here. Steer through the storm. Each meteorite that passes scores 10.

Level 4: planet Radon

You fight on foot. A Zorgon saucer drops Paratrons: shoot them before they land, because landed Paratrons march underground towards you with their spears raised. Kill 10 to 30 Paratrons to finish, depending on the skill level. Watch out for the raider rocket's bombs too.

Level 5: the Zorgon Battle Star

Hit the moving nuclear reactor under the Battle Star. First burn a gap through the cyan force field (it slowly repairs itself) and get past the guards. The faster you destroy the Battle Star, the bigger the bonus, from 10,000 down to 1,000.

Fuel and refuelling

Your fuel burns steadily and is shown across the top of the screen. When it's in the yellow or red, you can disengage and refuel. Steer up through the lightning barriers to the mothership's flashing service bay and line up under it to dock. Fuel keeps burning on the way up, and running out costs a base.

Tip: keep your finger on the screen (or hold Space) to hover while you wait for a gap in the lightning to line up.

Zorgon's Revenge

Choose one of four doors. Each hides a mission, and the order is shuffled every game. Winning a mission gives you its bonus (which counts down while you play) and takes you to the bridge, where the magic stone is laid as the next section. When all four sections are laid, you enter Zorgon's castle. Losing a life sends you back to the doors to try that mission again.

The spider's cavern

1. Walk to the edge of the river and jump to catch the swinging rod when it's near you. Ride it across and jump off onto the far bank.
2. Board the lift (jump onto it as it comes up from the bottom) and step off left onto the ledge.
3. Jump straight up just under the button above the ledge. This frees the monster from its cage and sends the lift back down, so hurry.
4. Ride the lift down, catch the rod back across the river, and walk home to where you started.

Avoid the spider, the stones dropped by the flying creature, and the monster.

The Quadnogs

Each Quadnog fires shots at head height, alternating white and red, and green shots at your ankles.

• White shot: jump into it and it bounces back and kills the Quadnog.
• Red shot: fatal, so don't jump into it.
• Green shot: jump over it.

Kill the floor Quadnog, ride the lift to the middle level, and get past the laser beams by walking through each one just after it switches off. Jump to touch the switch at the far left: the beams go off for good. Then ride the lift to the top, deal with the second Quadnog and walk home to the left.

Deep space

Your ship stays at the left of the screen and moves only up and down. Fire beams at the aliens (150 points each) and avoid their shots and the spinning cubes. After ten kills the mothership appears: hit it before it escapes to win the stone.

The great bird

Stand where the bird swoops low and jump to grab it as it passes. It carries you up to the left, and a flashing bridge appears. Let go (tap or jump) to drop onto the bridge, walk across to the right, and catch the bird again when it comes round higher. When the top bridge appears, drop onto it and walk right to the stone. Watch out for falling stones.

The bridge

Walk right as far as you can and jump straight up to hit the crane's button. The crane lowers your stone into the gap. Keep moving so that the birds' stones don't hit you.

Zorgon's castle

Jump up under the armed ledge (its pointer flashes) to fire that ledge's cannon. The armed side swaps after every shot. Only hits from the left cannon count: three of them crumble Zorgon's platform and he falls. Keep hopping, because the ants on the floor sting upwards.

Menu, skill and scores

• Skill level runs from 1 to 9, and higher is harder. It sets how aggressive the enemies are and how many Paratrons you must kill. Change it from the menu (S on a computer). Each completed cycle of both games makes things harder still.
• Volume cycles between Medium, Low, Off and High from the menu (V on a computer).
• Instructions for both games and the controls are in the menu (I on a computer), and the Zorgon's Revenge instructions also appear when it starts.
• Hall of Fame: if your score makes the top ten, you can enter a name of up to five characters. On a phone or tablet, tilt to change the letter, tap to accept it, and choose < to finish early. On a computer, just type it, or use Z/X and Space.

Questions

Privacy

XenZarg doesn't collect, store or send any personal data, and never connects to the internet. Your high scores and settings stay on your device. On phones and tablets, the motion sensors are read only while you play, to steer, and the readings are never stored.

Contact