Co & Co

...In the year of our Lord 1639, the magic sword 'Excalibur' once the property of King Arthur, (Round Table, Camelot, Merlin) was broken in two pieces by the evil 'Graf Schwarzeherzen', during one of his sentimental (?) journeys... He hid the two pieces in a labyrinth on a mystical island in the Aegean Sea...There is a legend claiming that the twelve signs of the Zodiac can be found here! The (Broken) sword and these Signs of the Zodiac inter-react in such a terrible way that an enormous colony of Vampire Bats has come to existence! These Vampire Bats have a preference for Human flesh!! Until recently it was still possible to keep the Vampire Bat population at an acceptable level, by using artificial methods to decimate them... However, the situation has got out of hand lately, due to their ability to build up immunity to poisons at a rate faster than that new poisons could be concocted... There is only one thing left that can be done now to eliminate this threat, and that is to enter the labyrinth, and to place the Zodiac Signs on the Wheel of Fortune, to turn the Wheel and to find the hidden part of 'Excalibur'.

Co & Co is a two-player co-op platformer set in a Lode Runner-type labyrinth. The object of the game is to find the twelve pieces of the Zodiac and the hidden part of the magic sword 'Excalibur'. In each room you may encounter disappearing ladders, bits of rope, missing bars, Vampire Bats, tractor beams, moving walls, exploding walls, time locks, two-way doors, self-thinking doors and countdown clocks.

To exit each room the players have to place both of their men in front of one of the 'Arrow' icons. To obtain a Zodiac piece or the hidden part of 'Excalibur', that can be found in the room where you are now, both players need to be in front of the 'Skull' icon and press the 'Fire' button of the joystick. The "Question Mark" icon teleports you to a random location. Sometimes a part of the room is inaccessible because the ladders, ropes or bars are not finished. To finish them you must first stand in front of the 'Rope' or 'Bar' or 'Ladder' icon, then push the joystick down and press the 'Fire' button at the same time. Then you walk to the relevant object, climb on it until you are on the other side and it gets build up. You keep doing this until it is long enough to access the other part of the room.

The timer at the top of the screen indicates how many time you have left. This only counts for the particular room that you are in. There are also the countdown clocks in certain rooms that ends the game if run down.