Date added: 2011-03-03
Description: When you start the game, you'll be greeted with the Main Menu. From there, you'll decide if you want to get learning (Levels), thinking (Challenges), or just building to your heart's content (Sandbox). At the top-left corner of the Main Menu, you'll find the Load Replay, Load Bot, and Sandbox buttons. Each of these, of course, will begin their respective modes, but before we get into those, let's talk a bit more about the foundations of the game!
If it's your first time playing, you'll probably want to play around in the Levels first, as they'll effectively teach you how to build robots and make use of the game's physics engine. You'll learn the basics and mechanics of the game through playing all eight levels; choose any level you like; there is no penalty for going out of order! Levels can be selected from the table of buttons at the top-right part of the Main Menu.
Once you're familiar with how the game works and how robots can be built, you'll probably want to flex your brain a bit and customize your own robot in one of the nine Challenges, each of which is listed in the large table on the lower-half of the screen, along with the difficulty levels you'll get to choose from for each task. Each Challenge has a specific objective that must be reached, and you'll only have a certain number of Credits to build your robot with in order to meet those goals. As you might expect, each of the nine Challenges has three difficulty levels to choose from, with the harder levels adding difficulty by limiting how much material you can use in the construction of your robot.
Instructions: Alright, you've built, revised, re-built, re-designed, and otherwise regard your robot as ready for fun. Time to get on with the other significant aspect of Incrobots: the game play! After you're finished with the Robot Building Screen, hit the "Play!" button and your robot will be sent to the field. At this point, every thing you do with your bot will be recorded by the software. (But don't worry, we won't be spying on you! Promise!) At this point you'll have some new options appear at the top of the screen for you to play around with. First, you'll want to get familiar with the "Zoom" buttons, as they'll allow you to zoom in or out of the action in real-time as you're controlling your robot (very handy for getting a feel for the level and its objectives). Any changes you make to your Zoom level will be kept as part of the replay, along with any other changes that are made to where the camera's perspective is set. (Don't forget that you can alter the screen's position on the level by clicking and dragging at any time!)
The "Pause" button will allow you to stop and take a break, or plan your next course of action with your robot. This can be quite useful if you want to take advantage of the ability to pan or zoom without losing control of your robot, or stop and think without losing time from the Timer during Challenges. When you're done, just hit "Resume" to continue.
If you like, you can use this opportunity to Comment (on the game's forums), or take your robot's replay and share it with the world by Linking to, or Embedding your replay in your own website or blog!
If you're done playing around in the level for any reason, simply hit either the "Stop Simulation" or "Save Replay" buttons. Finishing a Challenge or introductory Level will open up some new options to you: Viewing a Replay of what you've just done, Saving a Replay, or Submitting your Score to the worldwide high score List.
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