Techniques

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Color-Turning

Color-turning puzzles a big temptation for beginning puzzle makers. The principle is simple: the robot steps forward, and depending on the color of the current tile, it turns left, right, or continues facing in the same direction.

You can make the robot follow all kinds of different paths, but needless to say, these puzzles have gotten old by now. Here are some of the oldest color-turning puzzles:


Here is an example of what a color-turning RoboZZle program looks like:
F1:Move forwardOn red turn leftOn green turn rightExecute F1

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Dizzying

This basic technique could be called "dizzying". The robot counts steps moving forward until it reaches a tile of a particular color. Then, the robot counts down to zero, and turns once for each forward step previously taken. For example, if the robot took seven steps forward before reaching a marked tile, it will turn seven times (left or right - depends on the puzzle). The process is repeated, and the robot begins stepping forward and counting steps again.

There are many dizzying puzzles and players have been complaining about another puzzle of the kind once again. Here are a few examples:


Often you can recognize dizzying puzzles by tiles with a different color after a series of 3 tiles with the same color, within one line. Three tiles plus one tile makes 4 tiles, and the algorithm will cause the cursor to turn around 360 degrees, and then go straight ahead.

Solution to a dizzying puzzle looks as follows:

F1:Execute F2Execute F1
F2:Move forwardOn blue execute F1Turn left

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Wall-hugging

Wall-hugging (or "crawling") is an algorithm where the robot follows tiles of a particular color.

Surprisingly, there is a simple four-command solution that looks like this:
F1:Move forwardTurn leftOn red turn leftExecute F1

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Wiggling