Vectorball, also spelled Vector Ball, is a video game featuring an imaginary sport played by two robots, released in 1988 for the Commodore Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS and ZX Spectrum computers by the M.A.D. from Mastertronic.
Vectorball can be played by two human players, one against the computer, or the computer against itself in a demonstrative way. Each contestant controls a vaguely anthropomorphic robot that glides over a rectangular field, with the aim of sending a ball into the opponent's goal. The course is not flat, but can have gradual changes in elevation, bumps and bumps; you can choose between some types of fields (4 or 5 types depending on the version) with different types of terrain irregularities. You can also set the duration of the encounter and, depending on the version, some physical characteristics such as the friction of the field or the acceleration of the robots.
The field is shown with an isometric three-dimensional view, with diagonal scrolling only in the longitudinal direction. An exception is the Commodore 64 version which shows one half of the field at a time and switches between them without scrolling. The MS-DOS version, on the other hand, has a wider and sliding field in two dimensions, therefore also transversally. In any case, the view always frames the ball, so the robots can also end up off the screen, where they are controlled blindly. The graphics are minimalistic and show the field surface as a monochrome grid on a black background (only on MS-DOS the grid has some color variation).
Robots can move with inertia in all directions and collide with each other. The ball travels low to the ground (on the Commodore 64 it looks like a rotating disk), following the profile of the elevations and being affected by gravity. He cannot go out of bounds as he bounces off the edges. The robot catches the ball by touching it, at which point it can no longer move until it throws the ball back. It can only rotate on itself to determine the direction of launch of the ball and vary the force of the launch, which is represented by the robot's floating head: the head lifts and moves away from the body in proportion to the set force. According to the manual there is also a limited time after which the ball is forcibly re-thrown, but this doesn't seem to happen, at least not in all versions.