The Hardest Computer Game of All Time - Robot Odyssey - Part 1

Robot Odyssey, 1984

Today I'd like to share something else besides photos. I like things that are challenging, brain-stimulating, activities that sometimes cause frustration to many people. This time it is a computer game called "Robot Odyssey". 

The game was released in 1984 on Apple II, TRS-80 Color Computer, and DOS. A colleague at work told me that he heard of a game that was so hard that a kid who didn't know how to play it, somehow managed to beat the game, and grew up to be an engineer. Well, being an engineer myself, the idea of a challenging game sounded intriguing to me. I thought to myself, "how hard could a computer game be?" and took it upon myself to try it out.

Thus began the most frustrating gaming experience I've had the pleasure (or displeasure) to go through...

Acquiring the game was quite easy, since it is so old the game can be downloaded from the web with a simple search. To run the game, I also needed to download an emulator that simulates the environment of a DOS system so I can run the game on modern systems. That part was also easy. 

Next came the first challenge. The game has protection built-in and a certain function won't work, making the game basically unplayable. First I tried finding cracks for the game, the ones I downloaded didn't work. After several Google searches, I learned that the main executable file needs to be edited to "crack" the game. So using an online hex editor, I was able to make the game work properly. 

Main menu screen

Now that I can actually continue on with playing the game, I went through all the tutorial lessons under "Odyssey Training". As I was going through the tutorials, I started to understand why this game may just be really hard after all...

So the game is an adventure game in which three programmable robots are used to navigate through the levels and help you. Sounds easy? Think again!

Inside of one of the robots

The robots can be programmed by going inside them and wiring up various sensors, thrusters, logic gates (AND, OR, NOT), and flip-flops. Basically these gates are the basis of all electronics today and are the building blocks of integrated circuits. This game is essentially a logic game for the hardcore nerd! 

So this is also where the interesting part of the game comes in; it is a very creative game in that the player must use the knowledge of the basic components to program the robots to do certain tasks in order to beat the game. There are no fixed solutions and each player coming in to the game will attack the puzzles very differently.

The first level starts...

Ok, so the game starts straightforwardly, telling me to go right to head to "Robotropolis". On the next screen I meet the three robots, moving about in seemingly random patterns.

Meet the three robots: Sparky, Scanner, and Checkers.

Thinking there isn't much to do here, I move on to the next area. Here I am blocked by what looks to be a dead end with a key slot. Hmm where is the key to open this door?

The first puzzle?

Now stuck, I head back to the other room to look for a key that I know I didn't see on the way here. After thinking for a while, I went in each of the robots and voila, found the key in one of them.

Finally found the key, but what's with all the complicated wiring in here?

Continuing on past the locked door, I stuffed two robots inside one robot, and grabbed the one robot to continue on. Essentially this is how you carry multiple items in the game, you use the robots as a backpack that can also store other robots. After wandering through some mazes I came to this room:

Hmm how do I get the item in the middle when the sentry guard keeps me from going past him?

It appears that the item in the middle is useful and that I should obtain it. Soon I realized that the sentry prevents me from going past him. So there is no way I am going to get that item by myself. It looks like I may have to program one robot to go in, grab the item, and then come back to me...

That's where I decided to end my play session and let my brain recover. I'll tackle this beast another day.