Robots 1970

A turn-based game in which you must escape from robots who try to kill you.

The game was first developed by Allan R. Black in November, 1984. In May 1985, it was posted to the Usenet newsgroup net.sources.games. It was then developed for the Unix-based operating system Berkeley Software Distribution by Ken Arnold.

The basic concept has been part of games stretching into the 1970s, as is among the earliest of the "standards" for microcomputer platforms.

-- Gameplay --

Robots is played on a two-dimensional rectangular grid. The objective of the game is to escape from a number of robots, which have been programmed with only a single objective: to kill the player. The game is turn-based. Like in the original game the player character starts at a randomly selected location. The robots start at randomly selected locations on the grid. Every time the player character moves a square in any direction (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally), each robot moves one square closer to him, in whichever direction is the shortest way.

If the player character collides with a robot, he dies and the game ends. However, the robots are also fatal to each other - when two robots collide, they both die, leaving behind a scrap heap. These scrap heaps are also fatal to robots and the player.

The player can also teleport into a randomly selected location in cases where escape is otherwise impossible. A teleportation counts as a move. However, because the location is randomly selected, it is possible that the player teleports right into the path of a robot. Also there is a "safe teleport" feature which the player may use a limited number of times.

When all robots on a level are dead, the player moves onto another level, with more robots. Traditionally, the number of robots increases by ten each level.