Addictive video game by
Andrew Braybrook released in
1985 for the
Commodore 64.
You see, the droid
crew of a
galactic space freighter have turned against their
masters so your goal is to
clear all the
droids from all
20 decks of the
freighter. An
Influence Device has been
beamed aboard the freighter to
help you out. You can use it to
destroy droids by
shooting them,
ramming them or temporarily taking control of their circuitry (transferring) to redirect its
energy and
armaments against its own kind. The third method is by far the most useful and
fun, and its
mastery is
critical to your
success in
Paradroid.
There are
24 different
droid types in
9 different droid classes. Each has its own
3-digit
serial number. The higher a droid's
class, the more
powerful it is, but also the harder it is to gain and keep
control of it.
The
transferring process is
hard to explain, but it involves choosing the
best side of the
circuit board (
one with Autopulsers and
Splitters is
good), and then trying to make at least
7 of the opposing droid's
rectangles change to your
colour by firing pulsers across clear
paths to center rectangles of the opposing
droid's processor's colour. The droid's
processor will be trying to do the same to you, and likely has more pulsers, so be
careful.
Remember to
watch out for
Terminators, Joiners and Color Switchers.
Deadlock occurs if you only change
6 of the processor's colours to your own colour. This is a
tie, and you get to
try again. Hm. I guess you have to see it to know what I'm talking about.
Interesting note:The Influence
Device that you begin with has serial number
001. The
rad-ass
font used in
Paradroid makes the little droid look like it has a
face. It looks similar to
this:
_
/~~~~\
{}{} ||
\____/ These are the droids you will encounter during the game:Paradroid Unit type 001
Paradroid Unit type 123
Paradroid Unit type 139
Paradroid Unit type 247
Paradroid Unit type 249
Paradroid Unit type 296
Paradroid Unit type 302
Paradroid Unit type 329
Paradroid Unit type 420
Paradroid Unit type 476
Paradroid Unit type 493
Paradroid Unit type 516
Paradroid Unit type 571
Paradroid Unit type 598
Paradroid Unit type 614
Paradroid Unit type 615
Paradroid Unit type 629
Paradroid Unit type 711
Paradroid Unit type 742
Paradroid Unit type 751
Paradroid Unit type 821
Paradroid Unit type 834
Paradroid Unit type 883
Paradroid Unit type 999
There used to be ascii images and useful information about these droids, but the editors decided that e2 is better without it.
Clones:
xriso recently informed me of a Paradroid
clone called
Nighthawk that was created for "the Unix/Linux
X-Windows GUI". More information about it can be found here:
http://jsno.downunder.net.au/proj_linux/nighthawk.html