Breaking's Bad

> "*Welcome to the junk yard! I have to mention that for insurance reasons it's not allowed to take trap parts from here home... We don't want anybody to get hurt, do we...?*"
> ― The Announcer
>
>

**Breaking's Bad** is the 13th level of RoboTraps, located in the junk yard of Death Trap Inc. It is the first level of the Destruction Department, introduced with the Destruction Department Update. The main challenge lies with the fact that the player can not directly affect the main robots, but instead can spawn neutral robots to affect them after a delay, making it important to think ahead. The level also introduces buttons.

## Level design

The main robots spawn in the middle of the room, which has several electric fences spanning across it and immobilizing grapple plates at the floor. A grey robot can be found to walk at the side of this area, switching on and off the fences. At the wall opposing the player office, there is a button which will make a red tube shoot out a grey robot on activation. This robot will then walk a few steps, step on a switch to toggle the grapple plates, and then fall down a ledge to its death in a garbage shredder.

The only way to control the grapple plates, and therefore the only way to get the robots past the electric fences, is to spawn additional grey robots to activate and deactivate the grapple plates - always with a short delay after the button actication due to the walking distance of the spawned robots.

A second part of the level takes place at the left wall of the area, where the robots will get by teleport. At the end of this area, the robots will be teleportet to a third area at the wall opposing the player, with Dennis going a slightly longer path where he will have to be lead past some additional electric fences.

### New game mechanics

Buttons, a third interactable element after doors and levers. They re-appear in level 14 and level 16.

## Solution

**Skully the Skull says: SPOILER WARNING!**
This section contains the solution to a level. Don't read it if you want to solve it by yourself!(Of course you can still claim that you did, which is what every self-respecting employee of Death Trap Incorporated would do...)

The main trick behind this level is to learn when to press the Button that makes the grey robots appear so that they will reach the blue switch in time to keep the main robots from walking into their doom. As a rule of thumb, if the button is pressed while the grey robot walking up and down is about 1 to 2 tiles away from hitting the switch, the main robots will be released just as the electricity gets switched off. If the button is pressed again at the moment when Dennis (the first main robot in line) is at the point where the electricity would run through, the grapple plate will be activated just so that all robots are save.

Knowing this, it should be possible to lead all five robots to the area near the arrow. Note how at least one robot will keep walking here. If you did not react too late when releasing them however, they should make it to the arrow (past the electricity) before it switches on. As soon as you can, activate the Button again to make the other robots follow suit - otherwise the robots you let go will land on the teleporter and get killed, as no grapple plate holds them back.

Wait until all five robots have been teleported to the platforms to your left. Release them even earlier this time, about the time when the grey robot is halfway walking back to the switch. You can count the grilles (they are normal tile size) to help you estimate when. Make sure to press the button again one more time so Dennis will be immobilized once he gets seperated from the others. You will have to free him one last time so he can pass the remaining electric fences. The best moment for him to start going is when the electricity is shortly before going off again, so make sure to release him early enough, similar to the timing from when all robots where on the left.

## Trivia

* This is the fourth level to use breaking blocks, but only the second to do so for mechanical reasons.
* The level name is a pun on the TV show "Breaking bad".

### Junk

Being set at the junk yard, several broken objects can be found in this level, many of which are little easter eggs:

* A crank and a handle, two interaction elements included in a gesture-based initial prototype of RoboTraps
* A copy of Alice, stuck heals-up at the lower right of the area, with her hat separated
* A copy of Bob, slightly to the left lower area
* A copy of Clark, pretty much in the middle
* A copy of Dennis, hanging at the magnet of the crane
* A copy of Ernest, to the very left of the area
* A copy of Xerxes, hanging heals-up at a grille to the very left
* A copy of Yves, lying in front of the goal
* A copy of Zero, stuck heals-up in the very middle of the main robots' path

The broken robots may imply that even though one never sees more than one copy of each main robot at a time, after their destruction they are indeed replaced, not revived.

## Music

Danse of questionable tuning by Kevin MacLeod