Dirty Rotten Bounders

Dirty Rotten Bounders is a tile-based game in which you move a smiley-faced character across boards, change tile colours and flip your opponents’ tiles. You must complete 15 boards in each of three difficulty levels—Easy, Ok and Ouch—in order. You can start at any level, though beginning with an easier one can help you build up extra lives for the harder levels.

Flip the tiles

Each board has nine rows and nine columns of two-colour tiles. When you land on a tile of your colour, nothing happens and you score no points. Landing on a tile of the other colour changes it to yours and awards points. If that change encloses tiles of the other colour between tiles of yours, the enclosed tiles flip to your colour as well. You score increasingly more points for each tile flipped, and lines can be flipped horizontally, vertically or diagonally.

Teleports and chasers

Some tiles have teleport symbols that send you to another tile at random. At higher difficulty levels, there are fewer teleports; some may disappear when used and reappear later.

Each board has chasers held in a cage beside the board. They enter through a hole in the cage, with only a limited number allowed on the board at once. They try to collide with you, costing you a life and restarting the board if they succeed. At first they move fairly randomly, but over time they hunt you more actively. As they move, they also flip your tiles to the other colour, using the same flipping rules as you, but instantly.

Clear each board

To finish a board, you must kill all its chasers by flipping the tile beneath each one. Once enough chasers have been killed, the final adversary, the destroyer, is released from the cage. It jumps across the board and destroys each tile it lands on, shrinking the board. You must kill the remaining chasers before the destroyer consumes the board; you cannot kill the destroyer, and colliding with it costs a life.

Pick-ups and hazards

Killing a chaser can generate a pick-up or hazard. To collect a beneficial pick-up, jump onto its tile. The common pick-ups include:

• Heart: adds a life. You start with five lives, and the game ends if you lose them all. A heart can appear when you flip a chaser after reaching 10,000 points, and another can appear for every additional 10,000 points.
• Shield: protects you from the four original chasers for about 10 seconds; colliding with one kills it. The duration accumulates if you collect another shield. It does not protect you from the destroyer or other hazards.
• Super-speed: doubles your movement speed for about 10 seconds. Its duration also accumulates, and it can be especially effective with a shield, though the increased speed makes precise movement harder.

One type of chaser sometimes pauses to breathe flames. Getting caught in the flames costs a life. Occasionally, flipping a line of tiles causes one tile to shatter into a hole that moves randomly around the board; you cannot jump onto it. Other pick-ups and hazards depend on the board. On the initial Robotica board, an oil slick makes you slide onto another tile without landing on the slick, while a saw moves randomly up and down or side to side and costs a life if you collide with it.

Finish the levels

After completing all 15 boards in a level, you move on to the next one. Completing the final board in Ouch finishes the game, and each remaining life is multiplied by 10,000 and added to your score.