Paradroid

Paradroid
European cover art
Developer(s)	Graftgold
Publisher(s)	Hewson Consultants, Jester Interactive Publishing
Designer(s)	Andrew Braybrook
Platform(s)	Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, Acorn Archimedes, C64 Direct-to-TV, Virtual Console, iOS (ZX Spectrum Elite Collection)
Release	1985
Genre(s)	Shoot 'em up / Puzzle
Mode(s)	Single-player

Paradroid is a Commodore 64 computer game written by Andrew Braybrook and published by Hewson Consultants in 1985. It is a shoot 'em up with puzzle elements and was critically appraised at release. The objective is to clear a fleet of spaceships of hostile robots by destroying them or taking them over via a mini-game. It was later remade as Paradroid 90 for the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST home computers and as Paradroid 2000 for the Acorn Archimedes. There exist several fan-made remakes for modern PCs. In 2004 the Commodore 64 version was re-released as a built-in game on the C64 Direct-to-TV, and in 2008 for the Wii Virtual Console in Europe.

Enemy forces have hijacked a space fleet by turning its robot consignment against the crew; your job is to neutralize all the robots, thereby rescuing the humans. You control a prototype influence device that allows you to control the hostile robots.

The game is set on a spaceship viewed from a top-down perspective. The ship consists of numerous rooms and levels, each one populated by hostile robots or "droids". The player, in control of a special droid called the "Influence Device", must destroy all the other droids on the ship. Each droid (including the player) is represented as a circle around a three-digit number. The numbers roughly correspond to the droid's "power" or "level", in that higher-numbered droids are tougher to destroy.

The Influence Device is numbered "001". The primary way in which the Influence Device destroys other droids is by "linking" with them, effectively taking them over. When the player takes over another droid, the previously controlled droid is destroyed.