There's an old adage in the worlds of computer programming, art criticism, and llama wrangling, represented by the acronym GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out. The computer program will always follow the instructions given by the programmer; if the programmer gives bad instructions, it's not the program's fault, but the programmer's. Each Walkabot is designed to follow your instructions in this programming platformer by Nick Yonge of Krang Games. You can only give the Walkabots two instructions at any given time, so it shouldn't be too hard to guide them home, right?
Ri-i-i-ight?
Beneath the playing area, you'll find two slot machine-like reels of commands to give the Walkabots. The left reel contains commands for basic horizontal movements (walk, run, idle, etc.), and the right reel contains instructions for what happens when a Walkabot reaches the edge of a platform (run off it, jump, turn around, etc.). Click on any command as it scrolls past, and it becomes the operating command. However, all of your Walkabots will follow whatever commands you have in place, so you've got to keep an eye on their path to the goal, as well as watch out for your next command to come up on the reels. It's easy to program the Walkabots, but can you program so they do what you want them to? (If not, blame the programmer.)
The problem with this game is that the garbage was put in long before I got here..specifically, those roulette things. This game would be enjoyable if I could just pick the commands when I needed them instead of having to wait for the right one to come along. By about the second or third level after dash is introduced it gets to be just frustrating.
Seconding what xindaris said.
Totally breaks from the programming puzzle genre. Most people who enjoy this genre like thinking puzzles that aren't about twitchy management of 20 things and clicking at opportune times. People that generally like luck/reflex-influenced game-play generally don't like thinking puzzles.
I'm giving it a 4/5 for trying something new.
I would sure enjoy this game without this unbearable roulette.
I agree, the roulette wheel is a horrible mechanic. not only do you have to figure out which actions to take, but your ability to do so is entirely dependent on the roulette wheel even offering you the option in the first place. Then the actions are also time-sensitive, so as you progress the sensitivity to doing things quickly increases, while you have more actions in the wheel, meaning the chance that you can even perform a the needed action is decreasing as you progress, compounded with needing to do more complex actions in narrowing time windows as you progress. This doesn't make it challenging, it makes it frustrating. With a sane control scheme this could be an interesting game, but it doesn't have that.
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