Robby

Name: Robby
Author: Alawar Entertainment
License: Freeware
Website: http://www.alawar.com/

This is the second in a five part series of programming logic games. This week's game is Robby. The goal is to program your robot to collect all of the items and then make your way to the exit. You program the robot by setting the cartridge configuration in the upper right hand corner. The state of the robot consists of the direction which it just moved and which walls are present at its current location. There are 32 possible states. In the cartridge, you program for each state the direction which the robot moves next. Once you hit "start", you cannot change the program.




The cartridge is broken into four regions (red, orange, blue, and green) corresponding to the direction which the robot just moved. Within each region there are eight arrows. One for each of the eight possible wall configurations. Clicking on arrow rotates it 90 degrees and changes the direction that the robot will move if in that state.

Sounds simple enough, eh? There are two twists. The first is the breakable walls. There is one in the screen shot in the upper left corner. These count as walls when next to one and computing the robot's current state. However, if you move into a breakable wall, it disappears and you move into that space. So, it is sometimes necessary to program your robot to move into walls.

The second twist is ammo. On some levels, your robot can pick up ammo. Once collected, you can hit "fire" while the robot is moving to destroy a breakable wall directly ahead. This is necessary to change the state of a square before the robot gets there. I am not a fan of the ammo. It goes against the idea of a programming game, as you have to manually fire them as the robot moves.

There are 7 tutorial levels and 50 game levels. This is one right hard game. In fact, there are two levels which I have not been able to beat (cheat: by editing resume.ini, you can skip a level). Anyone looking for a challenge should try this one.

I do have a couple of complaints. One is that the exit is not revealed until all the items are collected. So, you often have to reprogram your robot to get to the exit and start over. Another complaint is that it is sometimes difficult to tell in which square the robot is located. It would be nice if a grid was displayed. Finally, the pacing of the levels is not very good. Some of the most difficult levels come early and some of the later levels are relatively easy.

Within the game, Robby claims to be shareware, but the html help file states that it is now freeware. The game is no longer available at Alawar's site. So, I have uploaded the install file to FileFactory. Sorry for the ads and what not.