RoboRally Board Game First Impressions

In RoboRally, you’re programming Robots around a map.

They just won’t do what you want them to!

Imagine that you’re a supercomputer. Now imagine that you’re bored. So you dream up a little contest for you and a couple of your supercomputing buddies. Your task is to move one of the stupid little robots out on the factory floor through a series of checkpoints scattered throughout the factory. The wrinkle, however, is that the factory floor is filled with all kinds of inconvenient (if not down-right deadly) obstacles located in various locations: conveyor belts, crushers, flame-throwers, pushers, teleporters, oil slicks, pits, etc. But the real fun comes when the robots cross each other’s path, and suddenly your perfect route is something less than that…

Each player gets a Robot, I took the purplest one called Squash Bot. The diagram helps you know which way is forward from above which actually helps.

Everyone starts in the same space on the Map and draws a hand of cards. You then lay out 5 of those cards face down to program your robot.

The cards are to move forward either 1,2 or 3 spaces, they turn left or right, perform a u-turn and move backwards. What you get is what you’re stuck with and you may not always get what you want.

Programming

You have to program 5 cards and carry out their actions in that order no matter what you get or where you are when the next card will activate.

Also, the board is crazy full of tricks and traps…

Those conveyor belts move you at the end of each card activation if you’re on them during your turn which can be good if you’ve planned it right. There are also pits around the board you can fall in, causing you to miss a turn which is really dull.

There are other rules including shooting each other and ‘powering down’ for a turn to reset your health.

RoboRally Summary

It’s a good game from the creator of Magic the Gathering and King of Tokyo/King of New York. Not my kind of game really but fun and one I’d like to play with 5-6 players. But I would want to see a smaller board if I do. The game takes ages, far too long for what it is. I don’t mind it too much but I would like to shorten the board next time.

The goal is to get your robot over all the checkpoints on the map first.

Jesta ThaRogue