Psion robots game ----------------- Evil robots threaten your Psion 3a Version 1.26 Visit the WWW page at http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~arm/psion/robots.html or email arm@tardis.ed.ac.uk for more details. What is robots? --------------- This game puts you in an arena with a bunch of evil robots who want to kill you! They keep heading towards you, every time you make a move. The only way to escape is to take advantage of the fact that they are so intent on getting you they do not see each other. If they crash in to each other, they form a heap. You can then get other robots to crash into this heap too. Each dead robot is worth 10 points. When you have killed all the robots in one arena, you will be moved on to the next. Robots are represented by "+", dead robot piles by "*" and you are "@". The control keys are traditional, and based on the "vi" UNIX editor (so don't blame me: there's an aide memoire on screen, anyway): h move one square left l move one square right k move one square up j move one square down y move up and left u move up and right b move down and left n move down and right . do nothing for one turn t teleport: move to a random location. If you land beside a robot, you will be captured! w wait until they all die... or you do x quit this game NEW! version 1.26 lets you use the cursor keys to move. The movement is based upon the PC numeric keypad, so those of you using this at high speed on an emulator will be fine. It doesn't map to the 3a keyboard too well, though. Up, down, left and right are as you would expect. Rightwards diagonals are Page Up and Page Down, leftwards diagonals are Home (Up) and End (Down). Yes, it is horrible, but you can always use the other keys! If you use the wait command and survive, you get a bonus for each robot killed during the wait. But if the robots get to you first: nothing. Most commands warn you with a beep if you will be killed doing it. Only teleport and wait carry a risk. You may also keep performing an action until it is impossible to do so safely by holding down shift whilst pressing the key. This makes ">" (shift and ".") a safe equivalent of wait, but does not give those valuable bonus points. The game starts with a dialog box of options. The advanced option lets you choose between starting on level 5 or level 1. The other two options let you choose the level of graphic display given. The lower the level, the faster the game. If you are playing the game on a PC emulating a Psion there is no reason not to have these both set On. See also the UNIX man page for robots. Example situations + @ Move left: "l" --> *@ + + + + * @ Safe to wait + * @ Not safe to wait + + +@ + Must teleport Copyright, distribution, etc. ----------------------------- This program may be freely distributed provided that it is accompanied by this text file. The program and accompanying files are copyright 1995 Andrew R MacCormack. If you wish to support the author, receive a copy of the next upgrade to this program and register your high scores (which will be put on the WWW/Internet) then send a cheque or postal order for 5 Pounds Sterling to: Andrew MacCormack 2 South Road Redland Bristol BS6 6QP Please enclose a return address: postal and email (if applicable). If you wish to register high scores then send me a floppy disk (PC format) with the \OPD\ROBOTS.SCR file on it or email me with a UUEncoded version. I will email or send a floppy of the next version of robots when released. Future releases will be at cost: disk, postage, etc. So if you have an email address you will continue to get new releases (if you wish). To do list ---------- Preceding commands with a count Auto teleport User-defined keys Game options saved in a file 3D version! (I doubt it) Any suggestions I receive... Game and text file Copyright (c) Andrew MacCormack, 22 January 1996