Quite some time ago, I got an email from Dusan Strakl and Simon Luce, asking about making a port of Petscii Robots to the Oric. Honestly, I’d never even heard of the Oric before. I sent them the source code, and then I didn’t hear from them for a while. Then one day they sent me a 95% finished version of the game. After looking up a little information on how the Oric’s architecture works, I was very impressed!

Unfortunately, the Oric version is presented mostly in black and white. And this has to do with how the color attributes work on the system. It makes it nearly impossible to have each tile be its own color. Also the graphics had to be converted to 6×8 pixel characters instead of the usual 8×8. But it doesn’t affect the appearance too much.

The thing is, even though the graphics are maybe a little underwhelming compared to most of the other systems, the important thing is the game is quick and responsive. And the graphics are good enough that you can tell what everything is. So, that means it is totally enjoyable to play. I’ve really enjoyed beta-testing this version of the game, honestly!

Map View

One unexpected surprise is how nice the map view looks. Sure, it’s also in black and white. But they managed to use 4 pixels to represent one tile, so you can get a pretty good idea of what you are looking at.

And the best part? IT’S FREE! Yep, I had decided that since I didn’t have to put any money or work into developing this version, I saw no need to charge anything for it. And since Simon and Dusan also didn’t want anything, we decided to make this a free gift to the Oric community, small though it is! Download it here: Oric Robots (Full Version)