Z RemakeVersion 1.0.0 · free
Z, rebuilt in Godot 4
A fan remake of Z, the real-time strategy game that The Bitmap Brothers released in 1996. It plays the original missions with the original graphics, sound and voices, in the original game screen.
Fedora RPM · Checksums and release notes · You need to own Z
- 20campaign missions, in the original order
- 62skirmish maps from Z and the Zod Engine
- 2–8players on generated maps
- 5planets: desert, volcanic, arctic, jungle, city
- LANmultiplayer, or join by IP address
How Z plays
Z has no resources to collect. You take ground, and the ground gives you the army.
Hold zones to build faster
Each map is divided into zones, and each zone has a flag. Send a robot to a flag to take the zone. Each zone you hold makes your factories build faster and raises your unit limit.
Factories never stop
Give a factory a unit type, and it builds that type again and again until you give it a different one. Each unit type has its own build time. There is no money.
Empty vehicles are free to take
Tanks, jeeps and guns stand empty across the map. Any robot can climb in and drive. A sniper can shoot the driver out of an enemy tank, and then the tank goes to whoever gets to it first.
Lose your fort, lose the game
Each side has one fort, with up to four guns on its towers. When a fort falls, its side is out: everything it owns is destroyed, and its zones go neutral.
Robots
- Grunt
- Psycho
- Sniper
- Tough
- Pyro
- Laser
Vehicles
- Jeep
- Light tank
- Medium tank
- Heavy tank
- APC
- Missile launcher
- Crane
Guns
- Gatling
- Gun
- Howitzer
- Missile cannon
Missions, maps and a map generator
The 20 campaign missions come from your copy of Z and play in their original order. Skirmish mode has the 57 maps of the Zod Engine and 5 more skirmish maps.
The map generator makes a new map for 2 to 8 players on any of the five planets. It learns from the original maps, and you see the map before you play it. A generated map has:
- rivers, or lava on the volcanic planet, with bridges
- patches of scrub, rock, dirt and ash
- cliffs drawn with each planet's own art
- zones of different sizes, with the forts spaced evenly round the edge
Screenshots
Each planet has its own tiles, scenery and minimap colors. Select a picture to see it at full size.
New in 1.0
The full list is in the release notes.
- No moneyAs in the original, zones control how fast you build and how many units you can have. Earlier versions had a money system that Z never had.
- Generated mapsThe generator now uses what the original maps use: rivers and bridges, patches of ground, cliffs, and zones of different sizes.
- BridgesBridges show as whole, damaged or destroyed. Before 1.0, every bridge looked half destroyed.
- SavesA save now keeps destroyed forts, blown bridges, the robots inside an APC and the vehicle in a repair bay.
Controls
Each key is the letter on the screen button that it presses.
| Move the camera | Arrow keys, the screen edge, a middle-mouse drag, or the radar |
| Zoom | Mouse wheel |
| Select | Drag a box. Double-click selects every unit of that type on the screen. |
| Give an order | Right-click |
| Add an order to the queue | Ctrl + right-click |
| Make a control group | Ctrl + 1–9. Press the number to select the group, and again to move the camera to it. |
| R V | Select all robots, or all vehicles and guns |
| Ctrl + A | Select the whole army |
| B G | Next factory, or next control group |
| D Z | Defend, or attack on the move (on and off) |
| S H | Stop, or hold this position |
| X | Get out of the vehicle |
| T | Smart idle |
| A | Go to the last alert |
The title screen has How To Play, with the seven tutorial pages from the original release.
Install
Each download is one file. There is no installer.
Windows
Download the .exe and run it.
macOS
Unzip the file. The app is not signed, so for the first start, right-click the app and select Open.
Linux
Make the file executable with chmod +x, then run it.
On Fedora, you can install the RPM with sudo dnf install.
Needs Windows 10 or later, macOS 11 or later (Intel or Apple silicon), or 64-bit Linux, and a graphics card with OpenGL 3.3.
You need to own Z
Z belongs to The Bitmap Brothers. The graphics, sound, music, voices and missions in these builds are © The Bitmap Brothers. This is an unofficial fan project for people who own the game, and it is not for sale.
The source code does not include any of the original files. To build the game yourself, the converters in the repository read your own copy of Z.
The source code
The code is open under the MIT license. The repository has the converters that read the original game files, the research notes and 57 automated test lanes. The Zod Engine, an open-source reimplementation of Z, is the reference for how the game works.