RoboRally

6-player game in progress

In RoboRally, 2–8 players assume control of "Robot Control Computers" in a dangerous widget factory filled with moving, course-altering conveyor belts, metal-melting laser beams, bottomless pits, crushers, and a variety of other obstacles. Using randomly dealt "program cards", the controllers attempt to maneuver their robot to reach a pre-designated number of checkpoints in a particular order.

Game designer Richard Garfield designed RoboRally in 1985,[1] but when he first showed it to WotC, they were uninterested. After WotC produced Garfield's collectible card game Magic: The Gathering in 1993, they expressed interest in publishing RoboRally,[2] which was released in 1994 with pewter playing tokens designed by Phil Foglio, who also did the artwork for the game.[2]

Several updates and expansions rapidly followed, including a second edition (1995); Armed and Dangerous (1995); Crash and Burn (1997); Grand Prix (1997); and Radioactive (1998).

In 2005, Avalon Hill re-published the game with minor rule revisions and cosmetic changes that included replacing the pewter robots tokens with plastic robots. Eleven years later, Avalon Hill re-released the game in 2016 with revised boards and substantial rules changes making the game incompatible with the previous editions.

In 2023, Renegade Game Studios obtained the rights to a number of games published under the Avalon Hill brand from Wizards of the Coast, among these was Robo Rally. The board size went back to the 12x12 inch grids but the rules remain close to the 2016 revision. Two expansions, Wet & Wild and Chaos & Carnage, were available close to release. A Transformers tie-in game was announced in summer 2023,[3] changing to six distinct Transformers characters and their personalized upgrades and abilities. One day later a further expansion, Master Builder, was announced, which was meant to give players the opportunity to customize boards with 6x6" tiles as well as tokens of the most common board elements.[4]

In Issue 18 of Shadis, David Williams liked this "manic racing game", and thought that the components were of "high quality" but questioned the use of expensive pewter playing pieces instead of plastic tokens, saying, "Wizards did not cut corners, but it would be nice to have a cheaper option."[2]

In Issue 2 of Arcane, Andy Butcher found that this was a good game for casual playing. He concluded by giving it an average rating of 7 out of 10, saying, "anyone who's looking for great way to while away a couple of hours and have fun is strongly advised to check this out – it's simple to learn, extremely replayable, and most importantly, a great game – although you do need at least four players to get the most out of it."[5]

John ONeill of Black Gate commented that "all the challenge comes in the nature of your idiotic robots, and the numerous ways they can stumble stoically – nay, joyously – towards their own destruction on the factory floor."[6]

RoboRally was chosen for inclusion in the 2007 book Hobby Games: The 100 Best. James Ernest commented: "Why is RoboRally one of the best hobby games ever? Besides being a completely solid game at heart, RoboRally succeeds at one of the hardest tricks in game design: it is genuinely funny. I don't just mean that it has funny jokes in the rules or funny robot characters. It has those things, but putting jokes in a rulebook is relatively easy. The richest humor in this game comes from the play of the game itself."[7]

• Rollespilsmagasinet Fønix (Danish) (Issue 10 - October/November 1995)[8]
• Pyramid[9]
• Casus Belli #86[10]

• At the 1995 Origins Awards, RoboRally won awards in two categories:
  • "Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Boardgame of 1994"
  • "Best Graphic Presentation of a Boardgame of 1994"[11]
• At the 1996 Origins Awards, the Armed and Dangerous expansion won "Best Graphic Presentation of a Boardgame of 1995"[12]
• At the 1997 Origins Awards, RoboRally Grand Prix won "Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Boardgame of 1996"[13]

Between 1994 and 1999 Wizards of the Coast (WotC) released the original game, four expansion sets, and a limited edition board.

• RoboRally (first edition, WotC, 1994): Basic boards (6), unpainted metal miniatures with detached plastic bases (8), movement cards, option cards, and counters.
• RoboRally (second edition, WotC, 1995): Basic boards (same 6, with lighter coloring), unpainted metal miniatures with integrated metal bases (8), movement cards, option cards, and counters.
• Armed and Dangerous (WotC, 1995): Additional boards (6), additional option cards, and counters.
• Crash and Burn (WotC, 1997): Additional boards (2)
• Grand Prix (WotC, 1997): Additional boards (3), with randomly selected reprinted basic boards on the backs.
• Radioactive (WotC, 1998): Additional boards (3)
• "Origins ’99" (WotC, 1999): A single new board (King of the Hill), only given to finalists in the championship tournament.

In Europe (German by Amigo, and Dutch by 999 Games), a different series was released. It incorporated a few rules changes and fewer components to make the game simpler. The damage and life tokens are larger and thicker than those of the original American release. The movement cards are color-coded. Forward (Move) cards have blue arrows, Backward (Back Up) cards have red ones and Turn cards yellow ones.

• RoboRally (Amigo, 1999; and 999 Games, 2000): Basic boards (4, lettered instead of named), prepainted plastic bots (4), color-coded movement cards, counters.
• Crash & Burn (Amigo, 2000): Additional boards (4, lettered instead of named), prepainted plastic bots (4), option cards.

The Avalon Hill edition also changed the cards. The new Move cards have only an arrow in the corner instead of the number with the arrow, which means you have to look at the full face of the card to distinguish them. It also has larger counters. Character sheets were introduced to track damage, life counters, power-down status, and program cards. Each sheet also contains a copy of the turn sequence for reference. The graphics have been redesigned to make the functionality of board elements clearer. The rules were also simplified to remove the concept of virtual robots.

• RoboRally (Avalon Hill, 2005): Double-sided boards (4), Docking Bay (a double-sided starting grid, one-third the size of a regular board), plastic bots (8), movement cards, option cards, plastic flags (8), sand timer, and counters. The board combinations are Chop Shop & Island, Spin Zone & Maelstrom, Chess & Cross, and Vault & Exchange.

The 2016 edition significantly changed the damage system and gave every player an individual deck rather than a shared deck. Priority is determined by proximity to an antenna token and archive markers have been replaced with respawn point tokens. The boards in this edition are 10x10 rather than 12x12, and are named 1A, 1B - 6A and 6B. The docking bay is 10x3.

• Robo Rally (Avalon Hill, 2016): Double-sided boards (6), double-sided start board, prepainted plastic bots (6), individual movement decks, damage decks, option cards, plastic flags (6), sand timer, plastic antenna token, plastic energy cubes and counters

The 2023 edition sees the return of the 12x12 boards. some of the classic expansion boards are reprinted, while newer ones are introduced as well, the original base game ones are omitted. The material quality is upgraded from the previous edition with thicker boards and tokens and larger cards.

• Robo Rally (Renegade Game Studios, 2023): Double-sided boards (4), double-sided start board, pre-painted plastic bots (6), plastic checkpont marker flags (6), indicidual movement decks (6x20 cards), damage deck (40 cards), upgrade cards (40), energy tracking cubes (8), reboot tokens (6), archive tokens (6), checkpoint tracking tokens (6), player aid,
• Wet & Wild (Renegade Game Studios, 2023): Double-sided boards (3), upgrade cards (5)
• Chaos & Carnage (Renegade Game Studios, 2023): Double-sided boards (3), upgrade cards (5)
• Transformers: Robo Rally (Renegade Game Studios, 2024)
• Robo Rally: Master Builder (Renegade Game Studios, 2024): 6x6" game boards (), tokens ()

• Wizards of the Coast's RoboRally home page
• Renegade Game Studio's Robo Rally product page
• RoboRally at BoardGameGeek
• roboracer