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Power Down 13kB
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About the game
The robots of a factory have caught a virus from the newspapers and gone out of control. The only one that is immune is a good old orange TV robot, and it is yours, in a way: you never steer it live. Instead you have a control panel with five slots, and for each slot you pick one command. Then you press Execute and watch the five steps play out, one after another, with no way to stop them.
That is where the puzzle starts. The robot can turn a quarter turn left or right, drive one square forward or backward, fire its short-range shocker or "power down" to recharge. The charge is the green number on the panel: a shock costs 2, every laser hit costs 1, and a power down gives back 2. A robot with no charge left cannot do anything but recharge. The floor works against you too: conveyor belts carry whatever stands on them (some of them also turn it), pits send a robot back to where it started, and the laser towers around the edges fire after every step. The two rogue robots keep moving as well, and not always where you would like them.
To win, you have to drain both of them. The shocker reaches only the square right in front of the robot, so you have to get next to a rogue robot, face it and fire, while keeping enough charge for the shot. Plan five steps, run them, see what the belts and lasers did to your plan and plan the next five. The idea comes from the board game Robo Rally, and the whole game, graphics and sound effects included, fits in less than 13 kilobytes.
Playing it here
Click Play, then click the screen once to accept the mission. The game needs a mouse (or a touch screen) and has a single board. It makes no requests outside this site and does not save anything: a reload starts over.
Controls
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Click a command button | choose that command for the slot (one per slot) |
| left / right | turn the robot a quarter turn |
| FW / BW | drive one square forward or backward |
| FIRE | shock the robot on the square in front (costs 2 charge) |
| Power Down | do nothing and recharge 2 |
| Execute | run the five steps |
| Reset | put every slot back to Power Down |
Tips
Keep an eye on the charge. Moving is free, but the shot costs 2 and the lasers take 1 at a time, so recharge before you go hunting.
Mind the belts. A conveyor moves whatever stands on it, and a belt with a turn also rotates the robot, so a robot parked on one will not be where it was.
Stay out of the laser lines. The towers fire after every step and each hit drains one point of charge.
Do not fall in a pit. A pit sends the robot back to its starting square and throws away the steps still waiting.
Let the others come to you. The rogue robots wander, so sometimes the best plan is to turn towards a belt or a gap and wait for one to step into your line.
FAQ
Is there more than one board? No. The author made this one for a 13 kB challenge in a game jam, so it is a single, short board.
Can I stop a plan halfway? No, the five steps run to the end once you press Execute. That is why you plan them carefully.
Does it work on a phone? The buttons work with a finger, but the board is wide and looks best in landscape.
Credits and licence
Power Down was made by Christoph Schansky (DerBenniBanni) for Gamedev.js Jam 2024 and is released under the MIT licence. Its sound effects are generated with SoundBox, whose player code by Marcus Geelnard is under the zlib licence. The original game also has a background music track, which we removed from this version. The licence texts and the source code of this version, with that one change, are linked from this page.