Draconus is an Action-Adventure Platform Game developed and published by Zeppelin Games in 1988. It was released for the Atari 8-bit family, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum.
The player assumes the role of the hero, Frognum, whose task it is to reclaim his kingdom from the Tyrant Beast. The game style is principally a platformer which finds the player running and jumping through various screens, numbering around a hundred. Many of the rooms include enemies, which generally follow fixed paths but may also swarm and chase the player. The player starts the game with two weapons: fire breath which is limited but may be replenished by collecting items, and a punch which is unlimited. Once destroyed, enemies do not respawn except in the C64 version, where they can respawn if a room that was only partly cleared is revisited. The main task is to find four special abilities and then face the final battle.
Frognum is troping to reclaim the examples of:
- A Winner Is You: Beating the game rewards you with an image of Frognum sitting on a throne and the following text:Congratulations! You have defeated the Tyrant Beast and reclaimed your throne and kingdom.
- Attack Its Weak Point: In the final boss fight only the beast's head is vulnearable.
- Blob Monster: One of the enemies are vague round blobby things, which wiggle, change shape and even split into multiple pieces and merge repeatedly.
- Breath Weapon: One of the few Frognum's attacks involves breathing fire. The range is very limited though.
- Damage Reduction: The Demon Shield of Grom, warrior of Hell will reduce all energy loss and allow you to survive falls from greater heights.
- Excuse Plot: The Tyrant Beast has usurped your kingdom. You must get it back.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: One of the death animations is Frognum snaping in half and the upper half of his body falling on the floor while the legs remain standing upright.
- Platform-Activated Ability: The morph slabs enable Frognum to morph into Draconewt and back. Though you need to possess the morph artifact beforehand.
- Respawning Enemies: In the C64 version, sometimes the enemies in a room respawned upon the room being revisited.
- Rodents of Unusual Size: One of the enemies is a rat lookalike which is the size of a wild boar.
- See-Thru Specs: See True Sight entry below.
- Stationary Boss: The final boss takes up half of the room and therefore cannot move anywhere.
- True Sight: The Eye of Serekosnote artifact enables you to see through illusions.
- Voluntary Shapeshifter: After acquiring the morph artifact, the slabs over water enable Frognum to morph into Draconewt - an underwater being.
- Xenofiction: Frognum is definitely not human and there's also no trace of any humans in the game. Only two types of enemies vaguely resemble some Earthly creatures.
