Game 468: Paradroid

Apparently, I like robots. The Robot Odyssey was my 1984 GOTY. Berzerk and Robotron are two of my earliest Good ratings. Rebelstar Raiders is one of only two UK-developed titles on my ivory deck. Paradroid is shaping up to be an easy third.

 

Billed as "the ultimate brain drain" and promising a blend of arcade and strategy, Paradroid is like Berzerk but puzzlier. You operate a remote-controlled "influencer device" (this is what I am calling an iPhone tripod from now on), and your goal is to destroy every clanker gone rogue on the 20 decks of the space freighter Paradroid.

Your primary weapon is a pair of laser beams, but this won't be enough. You are the most fragile droid on the ship, and although not all of them are armed, the upper echelon are and will swat you like a fly.

And you only get one life.

Each droid is shown with a three-digit serial number; you, the weakest, are designated 001. The strongest, the command cyborg, 999. The first digit directly corresponds to the droid's class and overall power level; the rest are not inherently meaningful, but you can expect, for instance, that all 615 droids are identical in power and ability, and a 614 will be similarly powerful but differ in abilities to some extent. Incidentally, you can forget about tangling with a 600 series or higher at your entry power level.

Each deck on the Paradroid also generally only contains droids of one or two classes.

To get far, you'll need to use your secondary weapon - a hacking device, which when activated, initiates a minigame when you collide with a victim droid that you wish to commandeer. 

This might look complicated, but Robot Odyssey this ain't. In fact, you don't have enough time to really think things over; you have only a few seconds to try to "flip" the control circuit to your color. And thankfully, you have every advantage. For a start, you decide which side you want - left or right, which in turn decides your color; yellow or purple. One side is often more advantageous than the other, and if you can pick it, then you have a good chance at hijacking a robot who is several levels above you. But if they're about equal, then going after a significantly stronger one is risky.

So how do you determine, in just a few seconds, which side is better? By the number of "dead" pins on each side. No wire connected? Dead pin. Color inverting diode connected? Dead pin. You might not have enough time to count them, but you only need to reckon which one has fewer. Pick the side with fewer dead pins, and you're already off to a great start.

After picking a side, you play by sending pulses down the wires on your side to flip the circuit's segments to your color, while the enemy does the same, and this is your other advantage; the enemy AI seems to be completely random. Stronger robots get more pulses (and in fact might not even have time to use them all) but if you picked the better side and use yours efficiently (don't overthink it but don't waste them either), you'll probably win! Which is good because failure means game over.

Beating a +3 droid on a roughly even board. The droid makes mostly bad moves.

Success destroys the victim robot and causes your influencer device to assume its power, abilities, and serial number. Even better, this power also comes with increased hacking prowess; take over the 247 vending machine bot, and you're in a much better position to hijack the 571 helmsbot, who can probably last long enough to infect the 711 battle droid with yourself, and so forth.

So, is the optimal strategy to work your way up to the 999 and then unload hell on the Paradroid? Not quite. If, while in control of another droid, you should take too many hits or lose a hacking minigame, you revert back to the 001, and if you didn't leave any weaker bots alive, you're screwed. On top of that, a hacked droid will eventually recover, at which point you automatically terminate the host and revert to the 001. The more powerful the droid, the more quickly this happens. 

The 999 droid is found on the bridge and if you can hijack its circuits, is unstoppable... for about 30 seconds.

 

But it has another, not-so-secret ability; access a terminal, and you can view the specs on ALL of the droids in the game, of which there are 24.

Some of these bots seem familiar!

So I took notes on all of them.

Entry	Serial	Class	Height (m)	Weight (kg)	Drive	Brain	Arms	Sensors
1	001	Influence	1	27			Lasers
2	123	Disposal	1.37	85	Tracks			Infrared
3	139	Disposal	1.22	61	Antigrav
4	247	Servant	1.56	78	Antigrav	Neutronic
5	249	Servant	1.63	83	Tripedal	Neutronic
6	296	Servant	1.2	47	Tracks	Neutronic
7	302	Messenger	1.07	23	Antigrav
8	329	Messenger	1.07	31	Wheels
9	420	Maintenance	1.41	57	Tracks	Neutronic
10	476	Maintenance	1.32	42	Antigrav	Neutronic	Lasers	Infrared
11	492	Maintenance	1.48	51	Antigrav	Neutronic
12	516	Crew	1.57	74	Bipedal	Neutronic
13	571	Crew	1.76	62	Bipedal	Neutronic
14	598	Crew	1.72	93	Bipedal	Neutronic
15	614	Sentinel	1.93	121	Bipedal	Neutronic	Rifle	Subsonic
16	615	Sentinel	1.2	29	Antigrav	Neutronic	Lasers	Infrared
17	629	Sentinel	1.09	59	Tracks	Neutronic	Lasers	Subsonic
18	711	Battle	1.93	102	Bipedal	Neutronic	Disruptor	Radar, Ultrasonic
19	742	Battle	1.87	140	Bipedal	Neutronic	Disruptor	Radar
20	751	Battle	1.93	227	Bipedal	Neutronic	Lasers
21	821	Security	1	28	Antigrav	Neutronic	Lasers	Radar, Infrared
22	834	Security	1.1	34	Antigrav	Neutronic	Lasers	Radar
23	883	Security	1.62	79	Wheels	Neutronic	Exterminator	Radar
24	999	Command	1.87	162	Antigrav	Primode	Lasers	Radar, Infrared, Subsonic

I'm not sure what most of these specs actually mean yet, but I do know that a droid's lack of a weapon doesn't mean you lack one after possessing it; it just means they won't shoot you, and you keep your weak 001-grade lasers after you take them. I also know from experience that the Battledroid's disruptors are a screen-clearing weapon that doesn't damage other battle droids or higher, so avoid until you have something immune!

Clearing the Paradroid is going to take some planning ahead, and thankfully, the game provides a map of sorts. Mapping out the droids will be my responsibility.