So what do you think about Roborally?

What is says on the title! Also, what are your thoughts on the new version compared to the old ones?

It's a fairly divisive title but people who like it love ir very dearly. Where do you fall?

Thought it was great fun when I had it, just never had enough people wanting to play it. The 1st edition had all the better boards, can't remember much about he 2nd edition. The age old joke is about everyone doing robot dances at the table, everyone moving their arms and hands to orientate themselves with their cards as they planned their moves.

If you keep the map simple and play with a timer, Roborally can be fun. With a big layout and no timer, the game drags on and on even after there is an obvious winner.

Roborally is probably my favorite game. I've enjoyed it for over 20 years and would still play more. I have my own customized copy that uses bits/boards from several editions. A few observations;

Laser Maze is the worst board. For some reason everyone wants to play it but for me it just slows down the game because everyone will be powering down a lot to recover. The boards with water are bad for the same reason. Your bots will move slower so the only real effect is the game will take longer.

The German edition had Garfields original rules where there were no virtual bots and you just had to pass through a checkpoint like in an actual rally instead of stopping on it. These were the best rules and I still prefer them although now we use the starting boards instead of virtual bots anyways.

Never use more than 2 boards* and a few flags that are placed where they aren't impossible to get to. People who complain about game length usually played with several boards and flags far apart or in hard to reach spots. *The only exception is the Grand Prix expansion which has 3 boards that go together to make a race track of conveyors where you move fast.

Not understanding left from right or having poor spatial skills in general make the game MORE fun to play. It's a silly game and the fun is really in the journey not the ending. It's not only okay to screw up, its practically the whole point of the game. If you can't laugh at your bot falling into a pit because you were only supposed to move 2 before turning left then this isn't the game for you. If you don't like getting pushed into a pit because your friend decided to be a dick this turn then this game is also not for you.

For those who don't know, Richard Garfield re-designed the game for the newest version a year or two ago. Every player has their own small deck of cards for programming. When you take damage you add a damage card to your deck that can only be removed by playing it in your register. There were a few other changes as well that all tried to make the game more appealing to fun-murderers who can't handle getting dealt all left turns.

I've played 8 bots on one map, and it was hilarious. Couldn't help but shoot each other.

Love the game.

RoboRally is still among my favourite games. We used to play whole day sessions and shorter ones, but the big events with 6+ players and a carefully designed track (like Grand Prix) were the most fun. We ended up with organisation houserules like: dealer duty moves clockwise around the board, dealer is referee in rules and timing disputes.
I still have over 40 boards and 20 robots stored somewhere and have played online daily for almost 20 years, but may never again play offline. Usually the online versions of RoboRally have very intersting boards in all shapes, not the typical 12x12 square, and the rules are changed to make the game more tactical and less chaotic, mainly by calculating priority based on the prior turn.
I tend to dislike certain details like the finite number of lives and Arena games whithout checkpoints, but stay out of those, play on my own board designs and get to play and stay in contact with people I don't often meet IRL any more.
Awesome system.

I too love Roborally. I've got the 1994 WotC edition with an expansion or two. It was easily one of my most-played games back when I used to go to the local club and had a regular gaming group. I agree with people who point out that board layout is crucial to an enjoyable game. And yes, it is a game that requires you to celebrate your SNAFUs. I've got lots of good memories from games of Roborally, but if I had to pick just one? It's the time when, playing a game including two newbs at the club, Twonky -



(Twonky was my personal bot of choice) took a point of damage. Eyeing up the board position, I decided to feed it through The Big One which, being an explosive option, went off. Sixty-four points of exploding damage later, the smoke cleared, and fully two other bots had joined Twonky back at their spawning points. The look of sheer dumbstruck amazement on those two newbs' faces was priceless! Twonky getting The Big One was always a source of amusement because I was always determined to set it off, invariably at my own expense, but that was the best time.

Nodens wrote: RoboRally is still among my favourite games. We used to play whole day sessions and shorter ones, but the big events with 6+ players and a carefully designed track (like Grand Prix) were the most fun. We ended up with organisation houserules like: dealer duty moves clockwise around the board, dealer is referee in rules and timing disputes.
I still have over 40 boards and 20 robots stored somewhere and have played online daily for almost 20 years, but may never again play offline. Usually the online versions of RoboRally have very intersting boards in all shapes, not the typical 12x12 square, and the rules are changed to make the game more tactical and less chaotic, mainly by calculating priority based on the prior turn.
I tend to dislike certain details like the finite number of lives and Arena games whithout checkpoints, but stay out of those, play on my own board designs and get to play and stay in contact with people I don't often meet IRL any more.
Awesome system.

Online ?

Once again Viscount M Barnes, Eurosnoot, is in the fun-killing minority - I can only wonder what his premium site 'Games by Michael' talks about (apart from GW).

Southernman wrote: Online ?

Robo Racer
It's not RoboRally, but it's fun. And it's got a great community.

Classic. I play it once or twice a year, usually with new players on just one board. I probably win less than half the time. It's a blast for 75% of people and hell for the last quarter.

I am one of the few that finds Roborally hell. I enjoy chaos in my games (love me some Dungeonquest), but I think for me the chaos has to come from cards/dice and not tactical mistakes by players. I just found that every time my robot stuffs up, it makes me feel like it is my fault as I mistook left for right or forgot about something on the board, and so I felt like I had made myself look like an idiot in front of everyone else. This probably comes from being a mathematician/programmer so I feel that I shouldn't make these mistakes as it is my job.

So while everyone makes mistakes in Roborally, I weirdly found I could never excuse my own mistakes so it was just an exercise in self punishment.