Pit Droids™ Are Coming!

George Lucas has said that the Pit Droids™ were his favorite Episode I characters. With their Keystone cops-like antics, the little mechanical jesters are admittedly hard to resist. And now they are about to step into the limelight with their own game.

Looming over Tatooine in a transport ship is the largest shipment of these Pit Droids™ that Watto, the Toydarian junk dealer, has ever purchased.Watto was hoping to sell the Droids™ for various uses on Tatooine. Unfortunately, it turns out that these pit droids are only good at one thing -- fixing Podracers. Waiting idly in their ship, the pit droids have already caused more damage than even Watto's star mechanic, Anakin Skywalker, could possibly repair. Desperate, Watto begs the player's assistance in moving these mindless mechanicals from their transport ship to the Podrace Arena where their energies can be put to good use.

PIT DROID™ PANDEMONIUM
Players have to direct the pit droids through eight locations on Tatooine as they wind their way from the Transport Ship through Watto's Shop and Junkyard, the sweltering deserts of Hutt Flats, the mazes of the Mos Espa marketplace, and ultimately to the Podrace Arena. Each time a new location is reached, the player is rewarded with a high-resolution movie showcasing the earnest, but hapless pit droids in all of their hilarious glory.

As C-3PO's guided tour indicates, the game is simple to learn: use an inventory of arrows to guide the Pit Droids™ from their launcher to their goals. As the levels get tougher, Pit Droids™ gain attributes, acquiring colors and tools which are affected by specific tiles. Multiple goals add to the fun and challenge of over 300 puzzles and three difficulty settings, and a high score list lets players compare their results with each other.

The game also includes a Puzzle Maker feature, allowing players to create their own Pit Droids™ puzzles to play and exchange with others. Puzzle builders can stage their creations in any of the featured Tatooine locations, and utilize any of the pieces and tiles found in the game to create their own mind-twisters. Easy to use, Puzzle Maker enables players to build a puzzle in a flash and test it out on the spot. The resulting puzzle files are around 30K, making them easy to e-mail to friends. www.starwars.com will host an online puzzle exchange area where puzzles can be uploaded and downloaded.

The graphics are detailed and beautiful, with three zoom-in levels that let you go from a puzzle overview to the bolts on the Pit Droids™. Over a dozen original music tracks synch up with zany sound effects as the Droids™ march through puzzles, creating a rhythmic, constantly evolving soundtrack that accompanies the little Droids'™ progression towards victory -- or the scrap yard.

Pit Droids™, from Lucas Learning, comes on one hybrid CD-ROM which works both on Windows 95/98 and Macintosh.

Also, keep an eye on www.starwars.com for Pit Droids™ updates, contests, and more!