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The Development of Robotron

arcadeblogger.com

21–26 of 26 posts

Re: The Development of Robotron

#21

An office where I once worked had an arcade cabinet and we developed a little rivalry to see who could reach 1,000,000 points in Robotron first. I never quite made it -- topped out around 900,000 or so. The game required an intense kind of zen focus, and every time I got close to the goal I could feel that concentration slip ever so slightly, just enough for the game's later screens to sap my remaining lives.

Yep, zen-like. I never played this one in the arcades because it ate my quarters: only gave me 30 seconds of fun for each one. When I built a full-size MAME machine with dual joysticks, Robotron quickly became my go to. I pushed my games out from that 30 seconds to maybe 3 minutes. But what a three minutes! I always feel a kind of release after — like flipping a table or something.

> like flipping a table or something

There's actually an arcade game [0][1] with a plastic table controller where one has to flip the table to cause maximum damage. It's pretty hilarious, though obviously very different from Robotron.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cho_Chabudai_Gaeshi [1] https://youtu.be/O8cTdFqwdwc

Re: The Development of Robotron

#22
I love how arcade games were a kind Cambrian explosion in terms of user controls. We had configurations with dual joysticks (Robotron, Battlezone), single stick and buttons (Defender), trackball and buttons (Missile Command), spinner and buttons (Tempest), all buttons (Asteroids) and probably a few more that I don't remember. My only complaint is that makes it really hard to build a cabinet with all of those combinations in the present day.

Re: The Development of Robotron

#23
Robotron started the twin stick shooter genre. Games like Geometry Wars, Smash TV, and Nex Machina (which is superb btw) all owe their existence to Robotron.

What I find really interesting is that Robotron holds up against these newer games very well. That doesn't happen too often.

Re: The Development of Robotron

#25
post #6

"It was based in Dresden and employed 68,000 people (1989)." Wonder if more people think about Robotron-the game vs. Robotron-the company (and all their products).

I certainly did, but that's not surprising given that I live in Dresden.

Re: The Development of Robotron

#26
post #16
post #6

"It was based in Dresden and employed 68,000 people (1989)." Wonder if more people think about Robotron-the game vs. Robotron-the company (and all their products).

I just openened the link to read about the company :)

Me too I didn't know there was a game with the same name. My father worked at Robotron which still exists but is a very different company nowadays.
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