The player should play these on their turn, either on its own or in conjunction with an Instruction card. A player can only play the FUNCTION card once (once the card has been played it is removed from the player).
The use of the FUNCTION card is limited only by the players imagination – so if a player can play the card in such a way that allows them to reach Ram then great, however they can’t simply say “DO move me UNTIL i reach ram” or something similar as their FUNCTION needs to use individual steps (commands/instructions). There are only three valid methods of playing the FUNCTION card and they need to be phrased correctly.
The first two methods are:
1. IF… THEN… For example, the player could say IF there is a wall in front of me THEN remove the wall;
2. DO… UNTIL… For example, the player could say DO move me forward UNTIL i reveal a wall
Other valid examples of using the FUNCTION card (for the above two methods) include:
“DO move forward UNTIL i reveal a wall”
“DO move forward and then turn right UNTIL i hit a wall”
“MOVE FORWARD and IF i reveal a bug THEN turn right” (in this example the player has played an Instruction card and the FUNCTION card)
Of course if the player reveals a BUG or a CPU (special card) then the player’s function has failed (unless their FUNCTION took into account they might reveal a BUG or CPU) and the normal rules for the revealed card applies.
If a person finds two FUNCTION cards then they should be able to nest the cards i.e. play the two FUNCTIONS at the same time. For example:
DO move forward IF find a bug THEN turn right UNTIL i hit a wall
3. The final valid method for using the FUNCTION card is RUN PROGRAMME.
For this method the player places out in front of them multiple INSTRUCTIONS (using the left over Instructions cards) in the sequence they want their Programme to follow on the ONE turn. Once the Player has laid out every Instruction/Step then the player should say “RUN PROGRAMME”. They can then move their Programme through each instruction/step (still following the rules and revealing the card in front of them before moving forward):
– If the Programme reveals a WALL or a BUG the Programme is returned to where they were on the Grid before they played the FUNCTION card
– If the Programme reveals the CPU the normal rules of encountering CPU are played (i.e. the game is RESET)
– If a FUNCTION card is revealed then the player can remove it from the board and use it later
