computer science

Kiki the nano bot

Kiki the nano bot is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Kiki the nano bot rather than just read about it. In short: kiki the nano bot is an open-source puzzle video game designed by Thorsten Kohnhorst and first released in 2005. It is a mixture of the games Sokoban and Kula World.

Key takeaways

Kiki the nano bot belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Kiki the nano bot to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Kiki the nano bot from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

kiki the nano bot is an open-source puzzle video game designed by Thorsten Kohnhorst and first released in 2005. It is a mixture of the games Sokoban and Kula World. It is available for Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X.

Plot The game's protagonist is a nano bot called Kiki. Kiki is the only bot left sane from a "parasitic capacity" that affected the nano world where he lived, leaving all the nano bots produced in that world "lazy stupid little robots/which shoot each other/and destroy the nano world". Kiki's task is to "repair the maker" of the nano bots.

Gameplay

In each level, certain task must be performed, so the exit gate can be activated, then, if kiki moves through the activated exit gate, it will be 'beamed' to the next level. Gravity works towards the surface you were last touching and kiki can walk around the walls and on all sides of any block. The game has 50 levels, which can be viewed by selecting "Statistics", in the main menu, in which the progress of the user appears.

Development kiki the nano bot took four months of development to complete. It was designed by Thorsten Kohnhorst, who began work with such a tight deadline because he was participating in the 2002 uDevGame contest. He chose to make this during a hiatus following the dot-com bubble, allowing him to work full-time on the project. Kohnhorst took inspiration from Kula World, explaining that he liked how Kula World took advantage of all three dimensions. In order to avoid his game being a copy, he had the character move on the inside walls of a room instead of on free-floating platforms. He then dropped the run-and-jump gameplay, instead borrowing ideas from Sokoban. He kept the graphics simple due to his lack of time and skill in this area. The nano world setting of the game was chosen to complement the simple graphics. The other nanobots in the game were originally added as a test for movement routines, but Kohnhorst felt that they added life to the game. A problem he encountered, however, was that they introduced a "level of indeterminism" to the game. To avoid removing them, he instead had it so that players needed to repair the thing making these malfunctioning machines.

Reception It won the Categories 'Best Graphics', 'Best Originality' and 'Best Overall Game' in the uDevGame Game Programming Contest 2002. The game was downloaded between 2003 and May 2017 alone from SourceForge.net over 170,000 times. A review at acid-play.com was favourably with 4.9 of 5 points. Freeware game website Planet Free Play called in 2005 kiki the nanobot "one of the best freeware games ever.". Inside Mac Games reviewed the game favourably, recommending to give it a try "If you're in the mood for a good, challenging, puzzle game.".

References

External links Official website at sourceforge.net

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kiki the nano bot

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kiki the nano bot claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Kiki the nano bot before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Kiki the nano bot ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Kiki the nano bot

In research: Kiki the nano bot appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Kiki the nano bot in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Kiki the nano bot is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Cross-platform software, Fiction about nanotechnology, Freeware games, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kiki the nano bot outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Kiki the nano bot in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Kiki the nano bot means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Kiki the nano bot out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kiki the nano bot in simple terms?

kiki the nano bot is an open-source puzzle video game designed by Thorsten Kohnhorst and first released in 2005. It is a mixture of the games Sokoban and Kula World.

Why does Kiki the nano bot matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Kiki the nano bot?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Kiki the nano bot.