I didn’t even know that Lucasfilm Games‘ classic 8-bit fantasy exploration game, The Eidolon, was available for the ZX Spectrum until recently. It was ported to the Spectrum by P.A.W. Software and first published by Activision in 1986. And this is my first time playing it.

The name “The Eidolon” is actually the craft that you’re piloting. A Victorian H.G. Wells-style contraption with various dials and gauges. You found The Eidolon inside what appeared to be an abandoned laboratory and accidentally activated it while sat inside. And now: here you are. Stuck inside a series of mysterious caves, filled with sleeping monsters, and an even scarier-looking sleeping dragon…

Your craft can fire four different-coloured ‘fireballs’ (red, yellow, green and blue) out the front, and can also absorb yellow, green and blue external fireballs, to increase its own energy reserves (by pointing at the fireball, waiting for the diamond-shaped indicator, and then pressing Space to absorb it). What your craft cannot do is absorb red fireballs. Ever. They’re always deadly and will remove a good chunk of your craft’s energy reserves if one hits you. There is a solution to the red fireball problem, though. You simply fire a yellow fireball at a red fireball and it will turn the red fireball into a yellow fireball, which you can then absorb. Bingo! So turning red fireballs into yellow fireballs is the key. Yellow fireballs are the best because they replenish a good chunk of lost energy when collected.

To progress through The Eidolon successfully, you have to move fast. Time isn’t on your side and you need to conserve energy to survive. So learning how to collect yellow fireballs is crucial. Then you need to figure out how acquire the three coloured gems that are being protected by the cave guardians. It’s usually just as easy as firing a few red fireballs at the guardians when they wake up, although some do take more thought (or different-coloured fireballs) to defeat.

The iconic Eidolon dragons still look impressive, although the colour clash when they start spitting multi-coloured fireballs at you is messy. Beating the dragons means knowing which colour fireball to shoot at them (if you can’t work it out: look it up on t’internet).

The Eidolon on the Spectrum is a respectable attempt to bring an interesting and unusual game over from another system, and it plays well enough. The only real downside is the lack of colour. And the fact that The Eidolon won’t be for everyone. It is worth working out what to do, though, and seeing how far you can get.

If you’re going to play this game, though – unless you have a specific reason to want to play it on a Spectrum – I’d recommend playing either the Commodore 64 version, or the original Atari 8-Bit version instead, because they’re more colourful and atmospheric. I’d also recommend using some maps.

More: The Eidolon on Wikipedia
More: The Eidolon on World of Spectrum