Robotron: 2084

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Robotron: 2084

Developer(s)	Vid Kidz
Publisher(s)	Williams Electronics
Designer(s)	Eugene Jarvis
Release date(s)	1982
Genre(s)	Multi-directional shooter
Mode(s)	Up to 2 players, alternating turns
Platform(s)	Arcade, Atari 7800, ZX Spectrum, Xbox 360, VIC 20, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Acorn Electron, BBC Micro, Atari ST, Sega Genesis, Super NES, Apple II, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit, Atari Lynx, Commodore 64, Mobile Phone
Input	2 joysticks
Arcade cabinet	Upright, cabaret, and cocktail
Arcade display	Horizontal orientation, Raster, standard resolution, size: 19 inch

Robotron: 2084 (often simply called "Robotron") is an arcade game created in 1982 by the company Vid Kidz (Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar) for Williams Electronics. It was unique at the time in that the controls were two 8-way joysticks (one for running, one for shooting) rather than the more typical single joystick and fire button.

Williams released Smash TV in 1990 with similar gameplay and two joysticks in the same way as in Robotron.

1 Overview
2 Enemies
3 Strategy
4 Legacy
5 History and trivia
6 Ports
7 See also
8 External links

[edit] Overview

Each level, or “wave” of Robotron consists of a small humanoid mutant ("the last hope of mankind"), representing the player, in the center of a swarm of enemy robots. The player uses the two joysticks to simultaneously move away from the enemies and dodge their shots, while firing back at them. Once all the destructible enemies are eliminated, the player progresses to the next wave, facing increasingly faster and more numerous enemies.

Scattered around the playfield are slow-moving “humanoids” to rescue, clones of the last human family consisting of Mommy, Daddy and Mikey. Touching each of these clones before they are killed by Hulks or Brains earns the player 1000 to 5000 points, progressively (in steps of 1000 points), which resets to 1000 points if the player dies or the “wave” changes. In Robotron, death is an eventual certainty, and extra lives are earned after reaching certain scoring thresholds, making rescuing humanoids an important objective.

[edit] Enemies

The enemies the player must face throughout the game are:

GRUNTs (Ground Roving Unit Network Terminators).
These simple-minded foes simply move towards the player. They do not shoot, but tend to appear in large numbers, and move progressively faster throughout each wave, making them dangerous on the whole. Wave 9 and every ten waves after have huge numbers of Grunts.

Hulks.
Boxy green robots that move randomly around the screen. They cannot be destroyed by any means, but do not intentionally chase the player either, and they can be pushed around slightly by firing at them. They do not need to be shot to complete a wave. Hulks kill any humanoids they make contact with.

Sphereoids [sic].
These round, red objects move quickly and produce Enforcers. Sphereoids are deadly to the touch, but their real danger lies in the several Enforcers they produce over time, so it is best to shoot them immediately. Eventually Sphereoids disappear on their own, after creating perhaps a half-dozen Enforcers.

Enforcers.
These yellow robots shoot rapid shots aimed the player. While not much of a threat individually, when enough are in the game field they are very hazardous. They also have a tendency to zoom across the screen, causing death upon collision with the player.

Brains.
These slow, blue enemies infest every fifth wave, which also contain large numbers of humanoids. Brains are almost harmless in themselves, but they turn humanoids into Progs, fast-moving agents of destruction that mercilessly home in on the player, and also fire large numbers of tenacious, unpredictable “cruise missiles,” which are difficult to escape.

Quarks.
These are weird, boxy, pulsing objects that produce Tanks in large numbers. Note: In an early version of the game, Quarks were referred to as "Cubeoids" in Attract mode. This was corrected in later production runs.

Tanks.
These red beasts fire quick, basketball-like bouncing shots at the player that are very hard to avoid. Due to game hardware limitations, Tanks will stop shooting if there are a total of 20 shots fired currently on the gamefield, without a single tank being destroyed. If a tank is destroyed, this counter will reset to zero.

[edit] Strategy

Humans. - Humans are the key to the game. Every 25,000 points, a player will receive a bonus life. Humans are worth the most points, so they will largely be responsible for bonus lives. Shooting a grunt will gain you 100 points, but collecting a human can gain a player 5000 points.

But not only do players need to collect humans, one must collect them in bulk. One human is worth 1000 points, but if a player gets another before dying, he will receive 2000 points. This is true up to 5000 points. Once a player has worked up to 5000, every human he gets on the level is worth 5000 points. When the level ends, the reward reverts back to 1000 for the first human.

The fact that humans are worth so much - and worth so much more in bulk - is the most important strategy point in Robotron. Succesful robotron games are a balance between aggressively collecting humans and knowing when to protect yourself. Humans are important but no one human is worth dying for.

Grunts. - These are the red robotrons that make up the bulk of the robotron force. They don't fire projectiles, so it's tempting to try and dodge them to get to people. For example, on the first wave, players should dodge the grunts and pick up the people. However, as time goes by on each level, the grunts accelerate and they will quickly exceed the player's speed.

Electrodes. - Electrodes are stationary and don't fire projectiles. Some may think that this means that one can simply ignore them, but players should fire at them whenever they aren't firing at something else. While electrodes are stationary, they restrict a players movement and therefore should be eliminated when possible.

Sphereoids. - Sphereoids are arguably the most dangerous enemy in the game. They appear on many waves and they spawn enforcers. The key to most levels is destroying the sphereoids before they spawn too many enforcers. Enforcers fire quick rounds and they fire many rounds.

Don't mess with enforcers, players should take them out quickly. Note that enforcers will sometimes camp in a corner and fire wildly at a player, when this happens, players should forget everything else and destroy the enforcer.

Quarks. - Quarks are similar to sphereoids, but they aren't as common and they spawn tanks instead of enforcers. Players will first see them on wave seven. Like sphereoids, they represent an impending threat and players must almost forget about everything else until they are destroyed.

Brains. - Brains turn people into progs and they fire snake-like cruise missile projectiles. Some people find the snake rounds to be the most dangerous projectiles in the game. This is probably true, but some will still target a sphereoid before a brain. Brains are dangerous, but they don't spawn many new attackers - each with their own projectiles.

There are only a few types of waves that rotate around. Obviously, the goal is to collect enough people that you are gaining more lives than the player is losing through each cycle of waves.

Wave 1 - Easy... get the people.

Wave 2 - Players who shoot the sphereoid will have an easy time.

Wave 3 - Get out of the middle and use any extra rounds to shoot at the sphereoids.

Wave 4 - Pretty much the same as wave 3.

Wave 5 - This is the key wave. Players want to get lots of people (the mother) on this level. Try to take out the sphereoids and the brains while picking up the people and avoiding the grunts. If you get killed, you want to have just grunts left with the remaining people. There are so many people available in this wave that it will make or break your game as the player cycles through the waves.

WRONG! WRONG!! WRONG!!! Do NOT take out the sphereoid on wave 5 nor every 20 waves thereafter (5, 25, 45, 65, 85...)!!! The grunts (eventually) pick up speed as the amount of time you spend on a wave increases. The enforcers which emerge from the sphereoids are much easier to "manage" as you are afforded the luxury of taking your time. Save one enforcer ship till the end and avoid it (and its guided mines) as you accumulate points. The brains will seek out Mikey before seeking out ANY of the Mommies. Locate Mikey right away and avoid picking up Mikey while shooting as many brains as you can. Protect Mikey from the brains. If you avoid picking up any Mommies early, and if you should lose your first man on this round, you will have more points available with fewer enemies on your second attempt. Using this advice and with a little luck, a decent player should be able to accumulate about 80,000 points on this wave. Of course, you lose 5,000 for every human whom you cannot "save." The later waves (25, 45, 65, 85...) feature more mommies, more potential points and (of course) more enemies...

Wave 6 - Another level where the player just wants to get to the side right away and target the spheriods.

Wave 7 - This level is fun... the quarks will spawn tanks if you don't get rid of them quickly, so forget about everything else - just worry about shooting the quarks. If the player happens to get some people, that's great, but players shouldn't let it distract then from getting those quarks. Once the tanks have spawned, they are difficult to deal with.

Wave 8 - Another wave where you must get the sphereoids.

Wave 9 - The infallible logic of the grunts dictates that they rush players. Get out of the centre quickly and then rotate around the edge while firing into the mass of grunts and any enforcers. The best way to do this is to quickly identify the area of the screen with the least objects (make this decision before you spawn) and fight through that area. Don't worry about anything but survival. If the player doesn't get out of the center with his first attempt, the grunts accelerate and this level gets very difficult.

Wave 10 - This one is crowded, but part of that crowd is vital human beings. Clear a path as you collect as many as possible.

Notes:

- Players move faster going diagonally than they can horizontally or vertically.

- Many lives are lost because people try to move before the full screen has been drawn. often a little move will get a player fragged because there was a quark or some other obstacle that hadn't yet fully appeared.

- The game rolls over (and so should rightly be considered beaten) when the level number exceeds 255, and the very first level is presented again. For a very good player, this takes more than 90 minutes.

- The game also rolled over when 10,000,000 points are accumulated, with a similar result to rolling the level counter over. Usually, this took a few minutes less, but provided little or no warning, unlike the 1-3 seconds of rest at the the transition over a very high level boundary. Few players have time to pay attention to the score, nor guess that it is in BCD, nor realize how close to the edge it is.

- The waves ending in '9' do get considerably harder, primarily by the attempt of the grunts to overwhelm the player. Here it is vital to identify the easiest way out, and be prepared for a tough fight. Having made it out, fire with abandon thereafter keeping a slight distance. Making it past level 69 or so suggests the player has mastered the skill.

[edit] Legacy

In 1984, Eugene Jarvis and the Vid Kidz followed up Robotron: 2084 with another arcade game, Blaster. Although the gameplay differs, it takes place in 2085, when the robotrons have eliminated the human race.

Like Tempest, it mixes brutal, high-speed gameplay and psychedelic graphics. While several ports were produced, including a version for the Nintendo 64, the original arcade game is considered by many to be the best version. A direct port of the game was included in Midway Arcade Treasures; a compilation of arcade games for the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles, released in 2003.

In July 2000, Midway licensed Robotron: 2084, along with other Midway games, to Macromedia Shockwave for use in an online applet to demonstrate the power of the Shockwave web content platform. The conversion was created by Digital Eclipse. It is currently freely available to be played within the Shockwave web applet.

In November of 2005, Microsoft started to offer Robotron: 2084 for download over their Xbox Live Arcade service as of the launch of the Xbox 360. Added benefits in this version include high-definition optimised graphics and two-player cooperative multi-player over Xbox Live. In cooperative mode, one player controls the movement and another player controls the firing. The roles are switched after each round. In addition, scores can be tracked through an online ranking system.

[edit] History and trivia

The original name for the game was "2084 - Robotron", but the name Robotron was more commonly used by virtually everyone involved, and the game was renamed shortly before production. This is why the cabinet side artwork simply has the number 2084 vertically.
The inspiration for the dual-joystick control (left to move, right to fire) came from an injury Jarvis sustained to his right hand in a car accident. The game "Berzerk" also played a role, for Jarvis envisioned being able to move and shoot without having to stop (Berzerk uses a single joystick, the player has to stop moving to aim and fire).
An original iteration of Robotron was a real-time version of a game called "Robots", originally written in BASIC, where the player would attempt to lure robots towards electrified barriers that would destroy them. Over time the ideas of firing back, multiple robot types, saving humans, etc. were added.
One of the game adjustments a game operator can make is "Fancy Attract Mode On/Off". This removed the rotating marquee from the attract mode title page. The adjustment was included in case the DMA hardware overheated and crashed the game during the attract mode. It fortunately turned out to be unnecessary, and was rarely if ever set.
Stephen Notley's Bob the Angry Flower comic strip for Mar 10, 2006 was named "Robotron 2083" referring to the arcade game - the implication being that the seeds of the robot revolution were planted a year beforehand by the title character.
Total production is estimated at 18,000 units. The upright cabinet style is common. Both the cabaret (or mini) and cocktail styles were produced in much lower numbers, one estimate citing only 500 cocktails produced.