Customer Reviews

Roborally

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have been playing the original Robo Rally game with its expansion boards for almost a decade and it is by far one of the greatest board games ever. The challenges of navigating a fragile robot through the dangerous terrain of the factory floor are both thrilling and hilarious. A single miscalculation can lead to great triumphs and (sometimes literally) crushing tragedies. The straightforward rules and the simplicity of the game mechanics makes this a very approachable game for beginners but also allows a level of complexity and freshness with each play that keeps more seasoned players interested. This game is best when played by the maximum number of people, but expect a full game to take more than an hour.

There is one major drawback to the new release of this great game: the materials. The original game was printed on heavy, board game style boards that are very durable and can withstand the rough treatment that well used board games endure. The new release boards are printed on double-sided, heavyweight card paper (about a double-thickness of normal poster board.) The two decks of cards in the original were slightly larger and printed on a heavier stock than the new release. An improvement over the old version is the damage markers and inclusion of robot sheets that make organizing the game easier. The most disappointing thing for me was the use of plastic figures for the robots instead of the original's metal miniatures. Unfortunately, in all tabletop games the trend lately has been away from metal miniatures in favor of plastic. All of these things considered, I don't see this game standing up well to use by younger players who have a tendency to be less careful with their board games.

Overall, I would still highly recommend this game to anyone who is interested in board games where dice and repetition don't decide the outcome. It is challenging for people with difficulty keeping left, right, and other spatial concepts straight in their head, but isn't unplayable for children below the recommended twelve if a little understanding and patience is allowed. Just keep in mind that more care than usual is going to be needed to keep the game boards from being bent or torn.

(This game includes pieces that could pose a choking hazard for very young children so be aware of this when considering purchasing this game.)

RoboRally has been a favorite of my family and friends for a long time, and I was horrified when the game went out of print. Now, in 2005, it has returned with a few new tweaks and it is still the fun and amazing game that it always has been. :)

The Basics:

In RoboRally you play a robot... they all have different, and mostly psychotic personalities. My favorite is Spinbot. :) Anyway, using programming cards, you have to program your robot and try to win the race. The game is amazingly variable. You have several boards that you can use to build new factory configurations, there are easier and harder boards to traverse... as players, you choose where all of the race checkpoints are, so that can also make the game easier or harder.

Overall, it is a fun, addictive game that has a lot of educational value. Learning to program your robot so that it turns the right way and comes off of the conveyor belt in the right direction, etc. is challenging, and since there are many boards, there are potentially hours of fun for a wide variety of skill levels. For a shorter game, just use one checkpoint (flag).

I unreservedly recommend this game to anyone who would like to try something a little more fun and challenging than your typical department store games.

Okay, here's the bad thing about this new release of a wonderful game. It's significantly lower in quality than the original. Not that the components will fall apart on you or anything. It's just a little disappointing. But since I've got the original sets anyway, and it's next to impossible to find otherwise, this is a fine compromise and a great game.

One more complaint: They removed the Crusher obstacle. I don't know why. It was an easy aspect to understand. I don't mind the loss of virtual bots. That wasn't all that difficult, but the new rules work just as well and avoid some confusion.

On to the game. I won't describe it in detail. Just read one of the other reviews for that. What I will say is that Robo-Rally is a game with lots of luck, but a healthy dose of skill and strategy. Like most card games, you've got to work with the draw you're given, but more often than not, when I lose it's because I screwed up or my opponent simply played better.

The best thing about RR to me is its flexibility and replayability. Since there's no set layout of boards and flags, you can arrange it in as short and direct or as long and complicated a race as you like. I've played with kids as young as ten and found them capable of understanding it. It's not very hard to learn really, but with tons of strategy.

If you've played RR before and are looking for a fresh set, then this will do nicely. If you've never played before and want a unique, flexible, fun game, then I also recommend it.

One of my favorites for ten years now. And always will be.

There is a place in our lives that is rarely spoken of and even less often brought to life with such perfection and beauty - that overlap between the strict von Neumann architecture that has defined our modern computer technology, and just plain silliness!

Robo Rally is simple enough for many pre-teens to play, yet complicated enough for professional software engineers (such as myself) to really enjoy! It teaches the ultra-basics of computer programming in a very fun manner, while letting experts laugh at themselves and each other for silly mistakes or elements of chance and competition.

While I think this game would be great for anyone who is vaguely interested in the subject matter, speaking as a software developer I can't stress enough that this game, for its unique combination of technical aspects and sheer silliness, is an absolute MUST for all nerds, geeks, hackers, and the like.

As with nearly all re-makes, this second version with its plastic pieces and only four maps is of lesser production quality than the original. But the soul of this game isn't about metal versus plastic pieces (as much fun as metal miniatures can be to paint extravagantly for no reason).

A big part of the magic of the game is the wide variety of maps and configurations. While the price of the original, STILL OUT OF PRINT expansion pack(s) has skyrocketed to collectors-only prices, tools and means of making your OWN custom maps are available. Still, with just four two-sided maps in this Robo Rally re-print, the physical configurations are many. Multiply that by the somewhat player-defined goals and you can get quite a bit of play out of the stock game!

I'm not so sure there is "tons of strategy" in Robo Rally, but strategy is certainly very important. Will you race your robot the long way to try to get on the fast conveyors, risking making even bigger mistakes? Or will you intentionally pause to try to do damage to or mess up the program of another robot? With every turn your available options change.

While two can play this game and enjoy it, the more robots there are the more likely random chance, strategy, and tactics, will make a seemingly simple and mechanical trek across the floor of a factory into a silly and frantic game of repairing or recovering robots running wild.

The fact that this is a board game may draw sneers or comments of "How quaint!" from computer gamers (assuming they talked like that), but this is not just any "board game" in my opinion. I AM a complete FPS addict, but I love and adore Robo Rally! It's very nice to have a game that I and my fellow techno-geeks can enjoy where we aren't just staring at a screen. I would never put down the virtual rocket launcher for a Parcheesy or a Life, but I gladly would for a Robo Rally.

I've always been a huge fan of games (board games and video games alike). I just recently got back to the board game side of things and decided to try some new ones, like Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride based on reviews. Both of those games were excellent (especially Ticket), so when I saw some positive reviews for Robo Rally I thought I'd give it a try. I must say that the premise is cool, but the execution just seems a bit too complicated for its own good. The friends that played several games with me agreed that it's slower than we'd like it to be and having to look at each player's card to see what order the robots move wore thin really fast.

That's not to say this is a bad game. Far from it. I can see why people enjoy playing it, but it's just not for me or my friends. We found more enjoyment with other games.

Just googling for 'Robo Rally' gets you hundreds of accounts on how brilliant and fun this game is, so I'll spare the effort of recounting all this. I'll just say that I and my friends played for 4 hours straight the first time we tried it.
Instead I'll say something about the quality of the materials in this new edition. The miniatures are now made out of plastic instead of tin, but are otherwise very well-crafted. Gaming materials seem solid and durable. The only minus is the packaging: there are no containers for the many loose parts in the box. But of course you can easily provide for those yourself.
The original -out of print- edition is said to have better materials, but lacks some of the improvements made here (more courses, model courses in the rulebook, character sheets for the robots to help organize play, ...) and is somewhat of a collector's item, making it an expensive second-hand item.

This is one of my favorite games. It comes with several different boards, which can be played alone for a relatively fast game, or all together for a deeper, more complex game.

The premise is that you control a robot on a factory floor when there is nothing else going on. You program your robot with five moves at a time, out of a total of 9 possible choices (cards) that are given to you. You have to consider what the elements on the board do (conveyor belts, lasers, walls, pits, etc.), as well as what your opponents might do, as you try to move across the board to various checkpoints in a race. If your robot is damaged, it will have fewer options available to it on the following turns, thus making your challenges somewhat more daunting.

It is often quite humorous as a very small error in how the robot is "programmed" can make a very large difference in the results. Also, a perfectly planned and programmed strategy can all fall apart because an opponent (either intentionally or by mistake) moves your robot slightly and send you off in an entirely different direction (or to your demise...).

All in all, this is a wonderful little strategy game that can be enjoyed by many different types of people.

RoboRally is a fun chaotic little game. It's a great game to gently break kids into the concept of computer programming, because that's what you'll be doing during this game. Trying to program your robots five steps (unless severely damaged) at a time to race to a set of flags in order. The first to touch all flags in order wins the game.

Setup time is not too bad. Just a matter for finding the right map for scenario you want to play.

The components in the newest edition aren't too bad. The boards a little on the flimsy side for my tastes, but I guess with so many of them, costs had to be cut somewhere. The robot pieces themselves are decent quality themselves. The rest is somewhere in between.

Be prepared for a LOOONG game! Even the beginner level is tough. To keep my kids interested, I usually only two 2 flags a game. The more people you play can also really ramp up the time taken even with the time limit on getting your cards down.

If you don't like chaos or your perfect plan ruined, this is not the game for you! This game can get a little frustrating at times.

I've played Roborally quite a few times, and although the game is fun, I wish there was more to it.

Roborally is a boardgame where each player (up to 8) controls a robot that is trying to get through an obstacle course. The course is player constructed and the robot must navigate through hazards such as treadmills, spinning gears and lasers, not to mention all of the other robots racing him. To do this, players are given a set of cards with instructions on them, such as "move 1 space forward" or "turn left" or "back up". The player must then put the instructions into a queue that will execute over the course of the turn (every robot does their first action, then their next, and so on). Mayhem is introduced immediately when players start bumping into each other and firing their lasers at each other. With more players comes more mayhem and to a certain extent more fun.

The problem with the game though is the complexity of managing the rules and instructions. The instructions themselves are straight forward, but linking them together can be frustratingly difficult when trying to figure out if you need to turn left or right, and if it would be better to postpone your movement by turning in circles for a few rounds. Likewise, in order to make everything work predictably, there are all sorts of rules on what goes first, and how stuff moves and affects the robots, which can be maddening if you're not good with that sort of thing.

Ultimately it's a fun distraction, lasting as long or as short as you want. You need to be careful who you play with though: my sister has been brought to tears playing this game.

After doing research for over a week I decided on picking up RoboRally. The game is worth every penny, for as you battle your way through each map it will feel like a completely different game. Although a lucky individual may get ahead early on, a well designed map will required them to travel back and forth between the other players getting to each flag. This creates a fun and exciting environment even for those who are well behind.

Bonus: Suggested house rule that the last person to touch a flag gets a free option card