Daleks

Daleks is a video game in the strategy genre originally released in 1985. It is currently playable on DOS, Atari ST, Mac.

Following in the footsteps of the early UNIX game Robots (and perhaps hence the even older BASIC game Chase?), this game puts the player in charge of a small protagonist, often said to be The Doctor, occupying a position on a top-down grid that is otherwise littered, not with mines, but with those killer cyborgs that are his personal nemesis, the Daleks. They don't have long-range weapons, but if they touch him, he'll find himself ex-terminating!

Fortunately for him, contact with them is as lethal to them as it is to him. Every time he takes a step, they all move one square closer to him; the Doctor's cunning strategy is to maneuver so that their paths cross and the Daleks collide for good, leaving a pile of debris dangerous to both him and subsequent Daleks - a strategy not always possible in the tight confines of a grid. Fortunately for the good Doctor, where this game surpasses its predecessors is that he also has his trusty Sonic Screwdriver on hand, the offensive use of which destroys all Daleks within a threatening radius of one square around. In addition, it allows you to teleport out of harm's way to a random location on the map - hopefully one behind a pile of Dalek debris, and not one within a single step of a Dalek currently on the map. In many versions, both the use of the Sonic Screwdriver and Teleport are limited. If the Doctor survives this attack, he is taken to a new gridded map, usually one populated with even more Daleks.

Other features particular to some versions and absent from others include the use of graphical tiles versus a mere roguelike text mode. Other features particular to some versions and absent from others include the use of graphical tiles versus the mere text-mode character representation of roguelike, and occasionally a conversion will use sound effects (universally unlicensed) taken from canonical Doctor Who sources; most commonly these games will also offer a Last Battle command, to be used, like the 'drop' in Tetris, when the player is so confident in the safety of their location that they are willing to stand still and grant the Daleks as many moves as necessary to reach the Doctor or be turned to scrap by an unforeseen collision. Successful use of the Last Stand often results in a score bonus; failed use of it, of course, results in the Doctor's death. (Don't worry, there's a good chance he'll regenerate in a new incarnation, though not in this game.)

Some versions feature directional control via the keyboard (where sometimes the player has access to diagonal movement like the Daleks, and sometimes not), while others feature the Doctor with a halo of directional arrows around him, to move him one step in the appropriate direction if you click on an arrow. Usually, he also has the option to stand still and spend a turn.

It is possible that we have multiple downloads available when different versions exist.