Robbo

#januszpelc genius of his time

For new to this game, it is basically a Sokoban style game (pushing blocks puzzle) with added mechanics and complexity, like a limited ammo weapon which can destroy obstacles directly or detonate bombs, there are turrets and magnets which you need to avoid or make use of. Generally you need to think what to push, where to move, and what to shoot, in order to gather all screws on the map and leave to the next one. It is a really fun game, it used to be quite big (although regional) and universally praised back in the day. The issue was - it took 2h to load the game from the tape! Imagine waiting for 2h before being able to play, and that is 2h if there was no loading error along the way (which was common, and you had to start from the beginning...). No saving, no passwords, hence once the game loaded we usually left it running over night or two :P I have to say the game holds up well, the only criticism could be toward controls, but honestly they are ok. Nowhere console level, but certainly not as bad as they can be in some 8bit home computer games, and importantly they don't make you rage. Movement might feel a bit choppy or not super responsive, but think of it as moving on a grid one square field at the time, and it suddenly makes a bit more sense. Xbox/xinput controller is mapped by default in GoG release, and it actually makes the game more responsive - on keyboard you need to hold arrow for a bit to register (a quick tap wont), but dpad is faster, and surprisingly I think analogs are the most responsive. To fire the gun you need fire + direction (shift on keyboard, X on Xbox controller). Again, such firing while not unheard of, is not the most intuitive nowadays, but you can hold fire and then push in direction you want to shot which - and that suddenly makes sense why it is that way, and takes some feeling of awkwardness out of it. Oh and it is F2 to start on the title screen, while ESC is used to reset the level if you get yourself stuck. Just be ready you might need to leave your computer on for a few days ;)

I remember playing this on my Atari 65XE. It took me an my cousins quite a lot of tie to figure out how to sollve the levels. I even remember having redrawn a level on a sheet of paper, with movable tiles of obstacles and all, so I could bring it to school anf figure it out together with my schoolmates. Now I walk the early levels through almost entirely from my memory (You couldn't save the game state, you had to redo all the levels from the beginning each time you played, or leave it loaded through the night) It does struggle with the input, and it was always like that (imagine the frustration on a joystick when you had to cut the corners to race against the laser or a baddie :D ) I guess it waits for a game "tick" to register. As for quitting the game.... well you couldn't realy quit it any other way than resetting the console back in the days :D so just use Alt+F4. It used to have a cheat code - typing the author's name "JANUSZ PELC" on the main screen would set your starting lives to 80, but it doesn't seem to work here. I will definitely show this to my kids :D

Things you need to know: * Once you have ammunition you can press and hold CONTROL, then press up/down/left/right to fire in that direction * You can make savestates via the emulator's menu (move the mouse in the top left corner) Fun little puzzle game. The key presses don't always register so it's a bit fiddly, but you can get used to it. Up to level 30 or so it all seems very fair. The last 20 levels often require a exploring/trial-and-error before figuring them out. The controls and the later levels would have made you game-over a lot back in the days. It's against modern game design, but now with save-states it isn't much of an issue. I finished the game in 7 hours and enjoyed every minute of it.