Portugues
Robots
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About the game
Robots comes from the games that were handed out with BSD Unix, the Berkeley version of Unix, in the early 1980s. Ken Arnold, who also wrote the curses screen library that those games and Rogue used, is credited with it, and it belongs to the long family of chase games where the trick is to use your enemies against each other. It runs on any text terminal, and it ended up on nearly every Unix and Linux system, which is why a lot of programmers know it by heart.
You are an @ in a field with a few robots (the plus signs) who chase you. You have no weapon. They are not very bright, though: they simply move one step towards you every turn, and when two robots bump into each other, or into a pile of junk (the asterisks) left by an earlier collision, they are destroyed. Your job is to move so that they get in each other's way, and to get through when you can. If a robot touches you, you are scrap. When the last one is gone you move to the next field, with more robots, and so on until they get you. Each robot is worth ten points.
You do have one defensive move: a teleporter that drops you at a random spot. It can save you, but it can also drop you next to a robot, and a few robots on the board are scarier than a lot of empty space. The best players learn when to stand still, when to run, and when to use the w command to wait for the robots to wipe themselves out for a bonus, at the risk of a mistake.
Playing it here
This is the robots game of the bsd-games 2.17 collection, compiled for the browser from its source code; the rules are the original ones. The screen is the game's own text screen, and there is no sound. When the game is over it shows the list of the best scores, which stay in this browser, and asks if you want another game (y or n). The game is in English and needs a keyboard (touch screens get on-screen keys).
Controls
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| h j k l or arrow keys | move left, down, up, right |
| y u b n | move diagonally |
| . or space | do nothing for a turn |
| H J K L Y U B N | run as far as you can in that direction |
| > | do nothing for as long as possible |
| t | teleport to a random spot |
| w | wait until you die or all the robots do (with a bonus) |
| q | quit |
| Ctrl+L | redraw the screen |
A number before a command repeats it that many times.
Tips
Let them come. Robots just step towards you, so stand still with a pile of junk between you and them and let them run into it.
Keep your distance from groups. A close crowd is dangerous, but a loose one will bump into itself.
Teleport when cornered, not as a first move: each use can leave you next to a robot.
The w command is a gamble. It gives a bonus for every robot that dies after
you decide to wait, but there is no safety net.
FAQ
Can I walk into a robot by mistake? No: the game stops you short of being eaten, except when you use the wait command.
How many scores are kept? The list holds the best 22 games, and at most five of them per player.