Robots 2 - 50 years later
Posted: January 6th, 2026, 6:34 am
Back in the late 1980s I was using Unix systems via a green-screen text-only 80x24 character terminal.
Despite this visual limitation there were a bunch of character-based games that I really enjoyed. The one that most fondly sticks in my memory was robots (also known as chase, daleks and some other names - see here for more history).
What I liked about robots is probably what I liked about Cellular Automata. The player and evil robots are on a grid of cells. It's turn based so each time you move the robots move. The robots all use exactly the same rule to move (head towards the player) - although unlike most CAs they share a global state (the location of the player) rather than a local rule.
Over the holiday season I thought a short break from LifeViewer-related activities might be fun so instead I've implemented an enhanced version of that original robots game. I might make it mobile friendly at some stage but in the mean time find a desktop computer and give it a go. If you can get past level 20 you're doing very well!
Good luck and may all your evil robots turn in to scrapheaps: Play here.
Despite this visual limitation there were a bunch of character-based games that I really enjoyed. The one that most fondly sticks in my memory was robots (also known as chase, daleks and some other names - see here for more history).
What I liked about robots is probably what I liked about Cellular Automata. The player and evil robots are on a grid of cells. It's turn based so each time you move the robots move. The robots all use exactly the same rule to move (head towards the player) - although unlike most CAs they share a global state (the location of the player) rather than a local rule.
Over the holiday season I thought a short break from LifeViewer-related activities might be fun so instead I've implemented an enhanced version of that original robots game. I might make it mobile friendly at some stage but in the mean time find a desktop computer and give it a go. If you can get past level 20 you're doing very well!
Good luck and may all your evil robots turn in to scrapheaps: Play here.
