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One Man and His Droid was a game published by Mastertronic in 1985 for use on the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum home computer systems. The name of the game was taken from the BBC television show One Man and His Dog. The object of the game is to use a droid to collect Ramboids, the male form of alien sheep. You must move these Ramboids into teleporters to win the game.
Objective
You've been sent off to the planet Anromadus to round up members of a species of alien animal named ramboids and teleport them to market. Despite the name, ramboids are not Sylvester Stallone look-alikes, but are the Anromadian equivalent of male sheep -- hence the name ramboids. Technologically things have moved on quite a bit since the days when a shepherd's only friend was his dog. The modern shepherd has traded in Shep and got himself a droid, a multi-functioning device specially designed for the job. Capable of four different modes of operation, the droid is used to guide the ramboids into the teleport chamber.
Game Play
When you start the game you are given the option of inputting a password in order to resume a game you were playing earlier, otherwise you start at the beginning. There are passwords for each of the twenty different ramboid-filled caverns, and as you progress through each cavern, the computer releases the corresponding password to you.
At the start of a game the screen is split up into several different windows. Largest and centrally placed is the main window which looks into a cavern, displaying a view of your droid placed centrally amongst the scenery. Your first task is to guide the droid to the start position.
Ramboids are dim. They move very predictably, and always reverse their direction of movement if their way is blocked. Once you know this and watch the set patterns of movement, herding them is relatively simple -- but they are delicate creatures which only live for about twenty minutes. You are working against the clock all the time. Should you fail to get at least four ramboids in the teleport in the right order within the time, it's back to the first screen.
Sequels
A follow-up, called One Man and his Droid II, was written for the ZX Spectrum in 1991 but wasn't commercially published. It was eventually released on the internet in 2001 by it's programmer, Clive Brooker.
Links
Commodore 64 Screenshots of the game
Scan of a ZX Spectrum review of the game from Crash magazine.
Clive Brooker's website for One Man And His Droid II - includes download and information about the game.
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