I remember my family renting a VCR and a VHS of some episodes of the Transformers cartoon show in the 1980’s for a sleepover birthday party when I was 10. That show, and the toys, were some of my favorites when I was in that awkward phase of growing up but still really liking toys, especially big stompy robots (and not much has changed if I’m being honest). Transformers and Robotech led me to Battletech to help make the gaming connection.
Robo Rally, originally released in 1994, is a programming racing game where the robots get to bump and shoot at each other because rubbing is racing. Today’s review will look at a new Transformers themed version published by Renegade Games.
Gameplay Overview:
There’s too much to cover so the following is only a high-level overview four phases of each round of play:
The first is the Upgrade Phase (All players do this at the same time) where each player may do each of the following actions once in any order:
- Pay 1 energon cube to draw 1 upgrade card.
- Install one upgrade card by paying its energon cost. Each player can only have three temporary and four permanent upgrades installed at a time
- Uninstall one upgrade.
Next comes the Planning Phase: Each player draws cards until they have nine planning cards in their hand. Then they place a card face down in each of the five registers on their player board. These will be the actions taken during the next phase and you can pick your robot form to either be a robot or their vehicle alt form.
Then it’s time for the Activation Phase or where the magic chaos racing happens
- The first player plays the card in the first available register and continues clockwise around the table
• After each player’s move activate board elements in the order specified on the rulebook and then activate robot weapons (pew pew!) which can shoot in different directions based on their current form.
• Perform checkpoint resolution and if it’s the last checkpoint, that player wins
• Repeat for each register until all five have been executed
Lastly, the End of Round phase is a clean up phase
- Cosmos token is passed to the player on their left
- Return any scrap damage cards in your register to the discard pile
- Clear the remaining cards in your register to your discard pile
These four phases continue until the first robot reaches the final checkpoint and wins. I’ll explain a bit more about damage and some other details in the next section.
Game Experience:
For the kids of the 80’, Optimus Prime and Megatron are the two most iconic Transformers in this box. The others; Drag Strip (first appearance in 1986), Arcee (movie), Blurr (movie), and Flamewar (2005) were not familiar to me despite having watched most episodes of the original show and movie but I’m guessing by their inclusion that these probably resonate with later fans.
At a high level, this reminds me of Quirky Circuits meets Thunder Road Vendetta between the programming and the chaos. And much like Thunder Road, there’s a lot of varied terrain that alters the rules of the game. And much like Quirky Circuits, stuff is not going to go according to plan but in Robo Rally it’s because you were pushed or shot as opposed to Quirky Circuits it’s because you couldn’t read the room (story of my life).
Conceptually, Robo Rally is very straightforward as you pick your actions but where it gets relatively tricky is it’s a game of exceptions as each different terrain type and robot form change the rules. This makes the first play or two a little challenging as the game grinds to a halt as players refer to the rulebook and reference card (which could also tip their moves off to other players). But over time, it starts to click and the terrain becomes part of your strategies that may or may not play out as everyone starts bashing and shooting each other.
Experienced players with the game will have a slight advantage, this game is pretty easy to teach as the basics only take a few minutes and the terrain can be discussed as people approach it. Meanwhile, there are also some differences between this version and the original Robo Rally and the rulebook explains how to port maps and robots between the versions.
The rule book has eight tracks in it and rules/suggestions for making your own out of the four double-sided map tiles. Each pre-designed track has recommendations for player count and difficulty and based on these recommendations, the game plays best at three to five players with four being the count that is most frequently cited in the “best at” count. But, as the tracks spread out and the player count goes the game gets longer and, for me, there’s a point where I feel it just goes on too long, especially if you’ve been knocked off course and are pretty far behind.
One of my favorite parts of the game is the upgrades. I like how each robot has its own upgrades that feel thematic to the character and then the generic upgrades which can allow for more customization. Being able to install and uninstall various upgrades allows for a lot of flexibility to situationally adjust your robot as needed.
Another thing I love is how damage clutters your hand (because I hate it when it’s cluttering my hand). And sometimes other effects will make you drop a card from a register, and you feel great when it was a trash damage card anyway or if you’re on a moving walkway and still get to advance as you lick your robotic wounds. There are some damage cards that have other effects like not allowing you to shoot, lose Energon cubes, or provide movement penalties adding some luck to the damage.
My biggest complaint with the game is modes, which in themselves is cool and an important feature to take into account to best use the terrain. The issue is that the only way to know if another player is in bot mode or alt-mode is to look at their player card. It would’ve been nice to have alt-form minis or something else more focused on the figures to help players better process the tactical situation on the board.
Robo Rally has an interesting flow as the game slows down while people carefully plan out their moves and then everything goes to hell in a handbasket within two registers and the laughing and groaning kicks in. Like many racing games, if someone gets far enough ahead, it feels like they’re going to run away with it. However, most of the games I’ve played have been close but I think that’s also because everyone targets the leader if they can, like they’re playing Mario Kart.
Final Thoughts:
The theme of Transformers Robo Rally drew me in, but the gameplay is what retained my longer-term attention. At some point, I’d forget that I was playing as Optimus Prime and was focused on navigating this weird world and avoiding the other robots who were shooting at me (rude!). The gameplay holds up so if you want a competitive programming game, this is a great place to start.
Final Score: 3.5 Stars – Transformers Robo Rally is the classic game with a new theme that allows you to carefully plan out your turn, get nudged off course, and then have that plan completely fall apart. And with lasers guns.
Hits:
• Transformers theme
• Executing a program makes you feel clever
• It can be fun throwing your friends off course
• Upgrades are fun ways to customize your bot
Misses:
• If you want a peaceful and deterministic race, this isn’t one of those games
• Can be frustrating when your plan falls apart
• Need to check other player boards to see bot/alt form
• Might overstay its welcome for longer races/higher player counts
Source: Board Game Quest
