Lunar Lockout™

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Pre-Flight Training

Shut Down Those Onboard Computers Before They Shut You Done For Keeps!

You're outside the Lunar Mothership in your Spacepod Xanadu—locked out by a computer mutiny. With the aid of your loyal Helper-Bots, you must maneuver your Spacepod to the Emergency Entry Port at the center of the Mothership's Landing Grid. You might be accompanied by some spaces pals in their Spacepods Ynot and Zulu. If so, they must maneuver to the Emergency Entry Port too.

Most of your systems have been shut down. You still control the forward, reverse and side-to-side jet thrusters of your Spacepod and your Helper-Bots. There's only one problem—once your start a move, it can't be stopped unless blocked by another Bot or by your Pod. Without a block, you or a Bot could be hopelessly lost in space.

Set up the correct "blocks" and you'll reach the Emergency Entry Port, reenter the Mothership, shut down those rogue computers and save the Lunar Mission. Good Luck!

The Lunar Mission Team

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  The Spacepod Xanadu. That's you!
  . . . . . . . . . . . . .   The Spacepod Ynot. One of your space pals.
  . . . .   The Spacepod Zulu. Another pal.
  . . . .  The Helper-Bots

The Rules

1. Spacepods and Helper-Bots travel between the grid lines, and can only move forward, reverse and side-to-side. No diagonal movement is allowed.

2. You can only move a Pod or Bot on the grid if its movement can be blocked by a Bot or a Pod. Without this block, the Pod or Bot will jet off the landing Grid into space—forever! (Use your imagination!)

3. A move is complete when you land on the grid square next to the blocking Pod or Bot (it acts like your brakes).

4. The Spacepods must jet over the Emergency Entry Port if you have not set up the correct blocks.

Have a look at the following sample:

Lunar Lockout - Sample Problem Animation Lunar Lockout - 1st Move Animation Lunar Lockout - Solution Animation

The solution code for this challenge is written: X-DRU 1-DR X-D, which means, Pod X jets down, right and up, then Bot 1 jets down and right, and finally, Pod X jets down to the Emergency Entry Port.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Thinkfun for allowing this online version of Lunar Lockout to appear on Puzzle World. Thinkfun does not produce, and has no plans to produce, Lunar Lockout in the solitaire board configuration. Problem development for the solitaire board was done by John Rausch. Significantly more problems (120) are provided for the solitaire board because of its noncommercial status.

Thanks to Hiroshi Yamamoto for the original design, Nob Yoshigaharafor refinement and Goro Tanaka, Mine Uematsu and Harry Nelson of the NOBrain Corp. for programming and problem development.

Thanks to Bob Kirkland for developing the Java applet. He has several other nice puzzles at mazeworks.com.

Lunar Lockout is a trademark of Thinkfun. Lunar Lockout Pre-Flight Training is ©2000 by Thinkfun.