Igor's Adventures With The Mad Scientist is a turn-based game: Igor moves one square, and each of the creatures on the level move one square. You can take as much time as you want planning moves - you won’t lose your turn. There is one exception: Continuously running conveyor belts are always running. Whenever some moveable object is pushed on a running conveyor, it will move the entire length of the conveyor and off the end in one turn (unless it is blocked at some point along the path). If conveyors change directions, objects moving along the conveyor will be rotated.

The game board for each level is displayed as a perspective view. Using the arrow keys, you can move Igor up, down, left, and right, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

If you press the ‘up-arrow’ key, Igor moves to the ‘north’ on the level, which appears as a diagonal move up and to the right on the screen. The ‘down-arrow’ key moves Igor to the south, which displays on the screen as movement to the left and down the screen. The ‘left-arrow’ and ‘right-arrow’ keys move Igor east and west. A grid is drawn into the floor, to aid you in seeing how objects align.

If you want to stand still for a turn, press the ‘space’ bar. Igor will remain where he is, but any other objects on the board will take their turn.

You may also use the mouse to control the game. As you move the mouse around the level, an outline box follows the mouse. The outline box will be drawn either yellow or red. If the mouse is 'in line' with Igor, the outline box will be yellow. Being ‘in-line’ means that the mouse is in some square directly north, directly south, directly east, or directly west of Igor. In Figure 3, yellow squares are drawn in each of the locations that are ‘in line’, and red squares are drawn in each of the locations that are not ‘in line’.

Figure 3

When the outline box is yellow, clicking the left mouse button will move Igor toward that square. However, if anything blocks Igor’s path, he will not reach the target square. If the outline box is red, clicking the left mouse button will be ignored.

Clicking the mouse on Igor’s current square keeps him in that spot, while any creature on the level takes one step. This is equivalent to pressing the space bar.

If there are Helper-Robots on the level, these will have little digits (from ‘2’ to ‘8’) hovering above the robot. For example, there may be a Pusher Robot with a ‘2’ above it. If you type the character ‘2’, Igor will pull out a remote-control box, and that Pusher Robot will activate. Any moves you make will move the Robot rather than moving Igor. To return control to Igor, type the character ‘1’.

There are several more controls in the game. Using these controls does not cost you a turn, so all of the objects on the level stay still.

Holding down the Ctrl key while pressing an arrow key scrolls the screen by one square in the indicated direction.

Holding down the Shift key while pressing an arrow key scrolls the screen by one-half the screen size, in the indicated direction.

The screen can also be scrolled using the mouse. Simply move the mouse cursor to one edge of the screen, and the view will scroll in that direction.

‘q’ - Exit the current level. You can also perform this action using the mouse by clicking on the stop sign button at the lower right corner of the screen.

‘s’ - Saves your progress on the current level. This is called a ‘saved-game’. You can later replay your saved-game, returning all objects on the level to their current locations. Note that each level may have its own saved game, so doing a save on one level does not affect the saved-games for any other level. You can also perform this action using the mouse by clicking on the ‘save game’ button at the bottom of the screen.

‘S’ - This opens the ‘Save Game’ menu. This menu allows you to save your current progress in one of ten ‘slots’. (The lower-case ‘s’ always saves into slot ‘0’.)

‘r’ - Replay saved state. If you have previously saved your progress, the level will be reset to the point where you last pressed ‘s’. If you have not previously saved, the level will be reset to its initial state (restarting the level). Clicking on the ‘replay’ button does the same thing. If you have already solved the level, typing ‘r’ replays the solution for the level.

‘R’ - This opens the ‘Replay Game’ menu. This menu allows you to replay saves from any of the ten ‘slots’ or from the solution for the level. You can also choose whether to replay fast or slow.

‘+’ (or ‘=’) - Increase the animation speed.

‘-’ - Decrease animation speed.

F3/F4 - Pause/Unpause the background music.

F5/F6 - Decrease/Increase the sound effect volume.