Zarathrusta

The gameplay of Zarathrusta is similar to that in the original game Thrust, where the player controls a small spaceship that is constantly subject to gravity and the craft's inertia. The player has to rotate the spaceship, fire its weapons and thrust its engines to carefully navigate the planet's cavernous landscapes, retrieve the Klystron pod and escape to the orbiting mothership.

The Empire has various defence mechanisms on the surface of the planets. Some of them shoot at the player's spaceship or try to divert its course, whereas some merely block the spaceship's path. The player's craft is armed with a plasma bolt cannon which can be used to destroy some of these defence mechanisms. There's also a powerful laser scanning device which can be helpful against groups of enemies or obstacles.

The Resistance's struggle against the Empire is gaining a certain amount of success. The rebels have captured several star-cruisers and are about to launch a major offensive against the Empire, but operating these formidable ships requires a lot of energy and the Resistance lacks the necessary power sources. Several pilots have been commissioned by the Resistance to enter the Imperial bases and retrieve the "Klystron pods", an essential power source for the star-cruisers.

Zarathrusta was created by Peter Verswyvelen and Erlend Robaye, who respectively programmed the game and created its graphics. In the December 1990 issue of The One, Hewson Consultants, Zarathrusta's publisher, stated that the pair were inspired by Jeremy Smith's 1986 video game Thrust. Robaye was a big fan of the Commodore 64 game and wanted to create a 16-bit version of it, with more levels, enhanced graphics and improved features. Robaye was very enthusiastic about the project and spent his nights after coming home from high school creating the game's graphics. Verswyvelen was convinced to start writing code for the game upon seeing Robaye's work.

Development for the game lasted 18 months and its code was written entirely in 68000 assembly. Verswyvelen had designed a level editor which allowed them to create, test and refine the game's levels in an efficient manner. As Robaye recalls, "we had a lot of fun putting levels together for each other". In the end, "I made 26 and of course Peter being Peter needed one more and made 27".

ACE editor Jim Douglas praised the game's difficulty curve noting that "the difficulty of the early levels is pitched quite low, allowing the player enough time to get the grips with the control method, rather than being blasted out of the air every five seconds". He also highlighted the game's replayable nature stating that "Zarathrusta is the sort of game that you can keep coming back to – in small doses – for quite a while. Once you get to the grips with the ship control, and learnt how to negotiate the passages, it's good fun". He gave it a score of 700 out of 1000 arguing that "despite the enhanced graphics, Zarathrusta doesn't really denote much of a step forward" and "if you already possess Oids, Thrust or a similar game, it's unlikely Zarathrusta will hold many surprises".

Writing for Amiga Format, Maff Evans described the gameplay as "easy to pick up and compelling for a while". He compared the game to Thrust noting that "there has been a lot of work done on producing some nice colorful graphics and effects, but the same feel has been retained". On top of the enhanced presentation, "the extra enemies and weapons add a nice new twist", making it "a more involving blast". He gave the game a score of 71%, arguing that "one of the main points of the original was its budget price. Now five years have passed and charging a full rate for what is, in effect, a revamped budget game seems a little over the top".