Robotz DX

By: Derek Yu

On: July 22nd, 2010

James “Heavy Stylus” Monkman might be best known for RGCD, the downloadable disc magazine about retro games, but it looks as though he’s got a future in retro game development as well! Monkman’s Robotz DX is a reboot of an old Atari ST game called Robotz. Even though DX borrows a lot from the original game, including some of the graphics, it’s not a straight remake – many of the mechanics have been changed to make the game more fast-paced and less annoying, and the levels have been built from scratch to take advantage of these changes.

The game features 30 levels, and the goal for each level is to destroy all of the enemies within the time limit. There are two basic types of enemies: daleks, which come in various flavors and are protected by shield emitters, and swarmers, which produce mobile bombs at regular intervals. In each level, the placement of the enemies, shield emitters, and destructible walls is random, which makes replays more interesting but can be frustrating due to how much the randomization can affect the difficulty. Thankfully, the player very generously receives an extra man every 5,000 points, so with smart play it’s possible to build a comfortable buffer for those unlucky draws.

I don’t know much about the original Robotz, but I’m enjoying Monkman’s reboot quite a bit.

TIGdb: Entry for Robotz DX