Star Wars: Droid Works

by LucasArts

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00002SV6E
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: May 30, 1997
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,394 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

From Children's Software Revue® -- "Subscribe Now!"

It's about time somebody took the latest, coolest videogame technology and made it into something that children can learn from. You start in the Droid Workshop, where you combine up to 88 robotic parts, each with unique characteristics. For example, you can make your droid very strong and heavy, but there's a tradeoff- it will need more batteries. Once you've made your droid, you can take it for a test drive on one of 13 different missions. For example, in Fire When Ready, kids must adjust a giant catapult while accounting for mass and trajectory to hurl their droid across a vast canyon. If the droid is too heavy, it's back to the workshop for some lighter parts. This is no easy mission. It can take up to an hour of playing with batteries, weights and explorations before you experience any degree of success. The scope of this initial challenge frustrated some testers. We agree that there should be an easier early puzzle, or at least a better hint system for when the going gets tough. Parents, be prepared to do some coaching. They certainly didn't cut any corners in the art department when they designed this program. The rich 3D graphics and fully orchestrated musical scores capture the appeal of the Star Wars movie. The compelling graphics, like those in videogames, are based on LucasArts' Jedi Knight animation engine- the kind used in those amazing flight simulations. Watch out though, as you'll need no less than 81 MB of hard disk space. We were able to make the program run just fine on a two-year-old Pentium 200 with 32 MB of RAM. It ran even better on a first generation iMac.
Teaches: science, energy, simple machines, light, magnetism, programming
Age Range: 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 Copyright © 2000 Children's Software Revue

Manufacturer Description

Rebel spies have learned that the evil Empire has built a secret droid factory somewhere on the planet Tatooine, where Imperial engineers are building an army of assassin droids. Unless they can be stopped, these dangerous machines will terrorize the galaxy. As a member of the Rebel Alliance, your mission is to build droids to infiltrate this operation and reprogram the assassin droids. Beware! There are over 25 million droid combinations. You must choose wisely. Star Wars DroidWorks is a unique combination of construction set and adventure game that enables you to learn and apply scientific principles. Deep within the Jawa Droid Workshop on Tatooine, you must design and build droids with unique attributes to complete a series of missions. Immediately deploy your customized droids and explore texture-rich 3-D environments that are embedded with scientific puzzles to solve. Each mission completed brings a higher ranking and moves you one step closer to the Empire's assassin droid factory.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A five-star game!, November 25, 2000

By 

Bryan Sebrell (Salem, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Star Wars: Droid Works (CD-ROM)

Star Wars Droidworks has been one of the most addictive games I have ever played. The plot goes like this: The Empire has started the prodution of assassin droids. Assassin droid are tough droids armed with huge blasters and a taste for torture. However, they are dim-witted. Your job is to build a droid to reprogram the assassins into harmless droids. Before doing this, you must build droids to complete eight training missions three times to prove you're worthy and to be rewarded with droid parts. These missions are also to teach you about the science concepts used in the missions. Once all are completed, you get access to the four secret missions. In three of them, you must collect the three Information Crystals, one in each mission. In these three missions, assassin droids are lurking, so you must be careful. After that, you must activate them in the Data Information Facility to get the Data Disk, as well as the location of the Hidden Droid Factory that is producing the assassins. With the Data Disk, you must enter the Hidden Droid Factory, and insert it into the reprogramming slot to reprogram the assassins into harmless dancing droids.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Edutainment at its Best, April 5, 2000

By 

Jim McRae (Pickerington OHIO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Star Wars: Droid Works (CD-ROM)

Even though the box says this is for children aged 10 and up, my two boys (6 and 8) learned independently and on their own to build droids and solve the puzzles. They showed me how to do it and now I am eagerly awaiting my turn. They haven't gotten all of the way through it yet but from what I have seen, this would be a perfect precursor to some of the Lego Mindstorm products available. The educational value is a lot better than a lot of software target for kids in this age group. It was hard to find in the computer stores, so Amazon may be your best source. Note to LucasArts - PLEASE MAKE A SEQUEL!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thinking and fun for boys and girls, November 17, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Star Wars: Droid Works (CD-ROM)

Our 8 year old son is the one who wanted it, but we all play with it. The child is the designer of "droids" that he sends on missions. Each droid must meet special mission criteria specifided by the program, but there is plenty of room for innovation, and if the mission fails, well, he can re-design and try again. When he successfully completes a mission, he is rewarded with more and better parts to include in his future droids. As he propgresses, the missions get harder. Unknowingly he is learning about physics, how machines works and about material properties while improving his problem solving skills.

It is fun to be a droid designer and to see one's creations put to work. Kids like it, and we, parents, like it for the creative thinking and learning. So, let them fight over the computer!