established homebrew community. Super Fighter Team founder Brandon Cobb wanted to work on a project for the Lynx that showcased the system's technical capabilities and after being impressed with an early build of the project, contacted PenguiNet for a production and publishing arrangement. Zaku was created over a six-year period using an official Lynx development kit, consisting of an Amiga 2000, as well as Microsoft's Paint and Notepad programs for pixel art and coding respectively, among other tools. Celimli stated that the team at PenguiNet finalized the gameplay mechanics and general plot before completing the first and last stages. Environments and enemies were first designed as hand-drawn sketches before being transposed to pixel graphics. Celimli also stated that Air Zonk played an important role during development due to being a favorite of him and wanting the project to resemble it. Zaku was first showcased to the public as a playable demo at the 2007 Retro-Gaming Connexion convention in Congis-sur-Thérouanne, France. The finished game was published on 24 October 2009 by Super Fighter Team. The title was the first new release for the Atari Lynx whose game cartridge has an authentic "curved lip" plastic shell, reminiscent of officially licensed Lynx titles. It shipped with a packaging mimicking those of licensed Lynx releases. A second print run was launched in May 2012, while a third print run occurred in August 2016. Reception Zaku received positive reception from reviewers since its initial release. Heiko Poppen of German website neXGam noted the game's comical plot, controls, graphics and music as positive points but criticized various design aspects. Travis Fahs of gaming website The Next Level praised the presentation and gameplay but criticized the repetitive boss patterns. Olivier Blaszczyk of Pockett Videogames praised the presentation, visuals, audio and gameplay but noted the short length to be the title's only negative point. ReVival magazine's Kiwi and Cyril Denis gave it a 9 out of 10 score. Retro Gamer score Zaku with an overall 75% score. Zaku has sold over 1,000 copies as of 2018, according to Super Fighter Team's Brandon Cobb. References External links at PenguiNet at Super Fighter Team 2009 video games Atari Lynx games Atari Lynx-only games Homebrew software Science fiction video games Scrolling shooters Side-scrolling video games Single-player video games Video games developed in France Video games featuring female protagonists Video games set in the 1980s Video games set in the 20th century