ROBOT RASCALS intro for Commodore 64 (EA, 1986). Happy birthday to designer Dani Bunten!
6Happy birthday to the late, great game designer Dani Bunten, born February 19, 1949. She designed some of my favorite games that were published by EA in the 80s. She largely focused on designing multiplayer games, such as the famous M.U.L.E., and the game whose intro you see here - a relatively obscure, hybrid card game/computer game that sold poorly (but I’ve personally had a ton of fun with) called Robot Rascals. It’s generally believed that it sold poorly because it was a multiplayer-ONLY game, i.e. there’s no single player mode.
Dani also designed an early real-time strategy game called Command HQ, that perhaps inspired subsequent RTS games such as Dune II and Command and Conquer. Additionally she was before her time with a modem-to-modem game called Modem War, a 1988 game which you played with a friend over a dialup modem, before that was a common thing.
A great quote from her: "No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had spent more time alone with my computer.'"
Robot Rascals is an innovative design, in which the real-life, physical cards you are dealt (a hand of four) indicate which of the 20 in-game items you must find, that are strewn across the landscape. Your robot's scanner is invaluable as it allows you to scan for any particular item in "hot or cold" fashion, and your robot will point you in the right direction: north, southwest, etc.
Five of the items are green and provide your robot with bonuses; an equal number are red and trigger penalties, and the remaining 10 are neutral. You can play it straightforward and seek only the four items in your hand, or perhaps look for any good items first to obtain bonuses, or try to beat the other players to the items you suspect they're seeking. You can mess with each other and steal objects, and put up shields to thwart the other players from stealing from you. Your robot can break down in rough terrain, which you can repair by hobbling over to designated "home" areas, or you may get lucky and receive a "faith healing broadcast" that repairs you. Teleporters enable your robot to zip around the map faster, but they cost some energy to use, and each turn you have a limit number of energy.
"Luck" cards mix things up and may alter your hand from turn to turn, perhaps instructing you to draw a new Item card, to steal a card from another player, or to "Pass the Trash" by dumping a card you don't want to another player. (Don't worry, you'll receive someone else's garbage as well!)
You can also attempt to win by ignoring your hand entirely, and instead finding any three red (bad) items. This strategy gives you plenty of flexibility as it doesn't matter what's in your hand, but good luck, as carrying multiple red items will seriously cripple your poor robot!
I couldn’t squeeze the entire intro into this short - it gets fun as each row the 10 robots steps forward and does a little dance. :) Underrated game.
#c64 #retrogaming #DaniBunten #robotrascals #commodore #cardgame #videogame #ea #electronicarts #scavengerhunt
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