💻 The Hardest Computer Game of All Time - Robot Odyssey - Final Part

This is it guys, the final chapter of my play through of Robot Odyssey, arguably the hardest computer game of all time. Now that I've finished it, I can definitely say that it is the hardest game I've ever played, and I've played many games in the puzzle genre!

If you're new to this series, you should take a read here and start from the very beginning. It is a long journey through many challenging puzzles that you don't want to miss if you're into this sort of thing.

The hints for the last level, the Skyways:

Level 5 hints.

From the hints I could already tell this level will be a pain, since it mentions timing as critical for many locks. I came across a Skyway traffic section as mentioned in the hints, and while walking through the traffic, got hit by an object and it brought me back to the starting area. Ouch.

Getting hit by traffic sets you back.

Carefully, I got past the traffic and onto the next area:

Gotta be careful this time.

Then I came to a simple maze guarded by a sentry, I programmed the robot to navigate the maze as I rode inside of it, changing the circuit as required:

Navigating through the maze.

At the end of the maze was another Skyways traffic area, knowing not to get hit this time, I came to a room directing me to Robotropolis' Disk-O-Tek. They really love their disco in the 80's! I entered the Disk-O-Tek and it seemed like a loop that kept going forever and I had no real control inside.

Seemingly drifting helplessly inside the Disk-O-Tek.

I almost gave up inside the Disk-O-Tek as it just seemed to spin forever, until I noticed an item in a corner near the center. I reloaded my save and programmed the robot to grab things to try and grab the item. Eventually I was able to obtain the item. This first puzzle was pretty frustrating since it involved more mechanical skill than logic to solve, which is deviating from its premises.

Got the item after several spins inside the disk drive.

The item turned out to be a key that opened a lock near the entrance to the Disk-O-Tek, and it lead to a room with locks that are wired for sound. Looking back at the hints, it says that the Disk-O-Tek key is actually a sound pattern, and that I need to repeat the pattern once. Upon observing the key, I noticed it is composed of ones and zeros, so the code must be binary. I took a one to mean sound-on and a zero to mean sound-off. Reading the pattern from left to right and repeating it once I get: 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0. I wired a simple circuit feeding that pattern into the antenna, which beeps when a powered line is sent to it.

Solving the sound pattern puzzle.

After this puzzle was more Skyway traffic dodging, then I came to a room guarded by a sentry with hot wires inside the room. On-screen text hints tells me that the hot wires drain my robot's energy. So I must program the robot to not touch the hot wires and travel down into the next room to hit a button which will temporarily disable the sentry. 

Observing the hot wire room and the deactivating switch below.

I wired up the robot and watched it go disable the guard sentry, when it did, a timer started a countdown which meant I had to get past the hot wire room before the time ran out.

Hot wire room in action.

The solution actually required me to use integrated chips in my wiring:

Wiring solution for the hot wires puzzle.

Then I came to an invisible maze, after some frustrating brute force, I came out of it. This is another one of the annoying puzzles that have nothing to do with the game's core mechanics.

Finding my way out of the invisible maze.

Next, I came upon a room with four buttons that I must push in a certain order, one after another. The order was easy since it was given right in the room. The trick was getting the robots to hit the robots one after another sequentially.

Solving the 4-button sequence puzzle.

I ended up using delay chips inside the robots to have different delay times set, so they would move at different times. Then it was just a matter of placing the robots correctly and adjusting the timing until it worked.

Below the 4-button room, was a 4x4 grid with each box marked with either an arrow or X's. Referring to the hints for the level, it says that the arrows mark the path which the robot must take, and that it also must ride alone. This means that I will have to program a circuit for it to essentially navigate the grid by itself. I came up with a solution involving delay chips again. Using different delay timings to trigger different sections of the journey. I used this room as a practice area and after a few trial and error runs I ran a successful test run.

Successful test run through the "map" room.

I then proceeded to position the robot just above the doorway that leads to the actual puzzle room below when I press on the button. I had to try a few times to get the starting position correctly in order to solve it.

The actual run through the grid.

Upon successfully completing the puzzle and hitting the switch, a timer starts counting down, indicating that I need to get inside asap.

The blue grid solution I came up with was pretty complex. It used chips that I designed myself in the game's innovation lab.

Blue grid navigation circuit.

Finally, I came to the last puzzle in the entire game, it consists of 9 buttons, 8 of which must be pressed by the robots in the right order. The last button must be pressed by the player. I was initially thrown off by the seemingly complexity of this puzzle, but it turned out that the solution was actually quite simple, as each robot can cover 2 buttons with an easy, pre-programmed path. The trick was just setting their initial positions as to hit the buttons in the right sequential timing. 

When it was all done, a portal appeared which lead me to the end game screen with a congratulations that I beat the game.

 

Finally, the long awaited end!

The game ended with a simple animation, and tried to congratulate me as being one the few, true Robot Masters. A text also told me to send in my name and address to register in the Robot Masters' Club. Hmm I wonder if I can still find the guys who made the game and send them this screenshot :D And how many people actually finished the game and sent in their info back in the day? Who's on the Robot Masters's Club list? I guess I'll never know...

That's it folks, the hardest computer game of all time. It was actually quite a fun experience, the puzzles are satisfying to solve, apart from the brute-force or annoying puzzles. It's hard to find games with such originality and creativity nowadays, so this is definitely a gem in my books. 

Thanks @getonthetrain for sticking with me throughout this series, your support has helped kept it going!