From: d91tan@Student.DoCS.UU.SE (Torbj|rn Andersson)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Robots help! (33 points) - SPOILER!
Date: 15 Aug 95 19:06:50
Organization: CS, University of Uppsala, Sweden

blasius@gmd.de (Volker Blasius) wrote:

> As far as I figured out: stay where you are or direct the robots by moving
> around until the first one is about to reach you, then teleport. Dead robots
> will leave trash heaps behind; hind behind them and let the robots run into
> the heaps

Correct. And the robots will always try to minimize the distance
between themselves and you so their movement is very predictable: If
the robot's X or Y coordinate is different from yours, it is adjusted
one step towards you, ie

              Robot --> +                        ...+
                       .                      ...
                      .                    ...
   You --> @..........                 @...

 A robot follows this path...         ... not this one.

A robot is destroyed if it moves into another robot or a junk heap,
and a destroyed robot turns into a junk heap.

Once you are in a position where you know you can wait safely, you
can hit 'W' to wait until either all robots on the level are dead,
or until you are. If you survive, each robot destroyed during the
waiting is worth 11 points, instead of 10, but if you get killed you
won't get any points for said robots. (Another undocumented feature
is that you can turn off the sound - annoying beeps - with the 'S'
key.)

Note that since the game won't allow you take make dangerous moves,
the only time you can die is when waiting or when teleporting (which
still won't put you on top of robots or junk heaps, but which might
put you right next to a robot).

If you are on a Unix system, you may be able to find the game I
used for reference in /usr/games/robots. I have also seen a very
similar game called "Daleks" for the Macintosh.

I admit it's a rather silly, not to mention unfair, game. Still, it
can be quite fun, and simple enough to implement, as I really just
wanted to play around with Inform.

Torbj|rn Andersson