Dorks Dilemma is a fun one player game that was released by Gremlin Graphics in 1985. You control "Dork", an alien who awakens after crashing his space ship on an alien planet inhabited by Zobwats. The Zobwats have dismantled your ship and have scattered the parts across 25 different rooms. As Dork, you must explore each room, destroying the Zobwats with your bombs and reconstruct your ship so that you can escape.
Each room is a small maze consisting of various walls, with a spaceship part located in the middle. In order to collect the ship part, you must destroy a set number of Zobwats using an infinite supply of bombs. It sounds simple, but when you drop a bomb you only have a few seconds to get as far from it as possible. If you're too close, you'll be killed too. Once the Zobwats have been destroyed, move on to the next room, and the spaceship part appears in a jigsaw on the right of the screen.
Once you have collected all 25 pieces, you have to rearrange the jigsaw pieces to properly display a picture of your ship taking off from the planet.
The finished jigsaw
You're free to enter/exit the rooms as you please and although the 25 rooms are always the same, they are re-arranged in to a different order with each game, adding a bit of variety. However, if you destroy some Zobwats and leave the room before destroying the required amount, you have to do it all over again when you re-enter the room.
One good way to kill the Zobwats is to let them come to you, then drop a bomb and run! (or roll)
Just let a bomb go off.
Each room has four respawning Zobwats that appear in each corner of the screen. They gradually follow you, moving closer and although they can touch you, you must be careful not to move in to them. It is possible for them to trap you in a corner or surround you, so be very careful, especially when planting a bomb. Once you drop a bomb, you have a few seconds to get away before it goes off. You then have to wait several seconds for another bomb to regenerate
Don't get trapped.
If you enter a room where the ship part has already been collected, you get this.
AND should you finish the game and escape the planet... You get to do it all over again from the beginning! The only difference is you have more Zobwats to destroy in each room, and they move faster too.
All that hard work, and all you get is this message when you finish the game.
The box - part of a double tape compilation.
The tape
The full box cover, featuring all four games - Dorks Dilemma, Petals of Doom, Xargon Wars and Tycoon Tex
What's frightening about this game is that it's nearly 30 years old - Talk about making me feel old.
