This article originally appeared in Pyramid #19
Armed and Dangerous
Published by Wizards of the Coast
Designed by Richard Garfield
$29.95Wizards of the Coast (WotC) released RoboRally in 1994, but the game is much older than that. It is, in fact, the first game Richard Garfield (designer of Magic: the Gathering) offered to WotC.
RoboRally is a good game with some minor, fixable flaws. The setting is a factory in some distant galaxy, and the premise that the factory computers (the players) run robots through a combat-intensive race for entertainment. The basic game has six different boards, eight miniature robots, a rule book, cardboard chits, and two decks of cards: program cards and option cards.
Each turn, players are dealt nine program cards. The players then choose five cards to program their robots for five movement phases at a time. Each program card is a specific instruction, such as "Turn Left," "Back Up," "Move 3 forward," etc. When all are done programming, cards are revealed one phase at a time and the robots are moved according to the program.
Each robot has a laser weapon, and those with an enemy robot in front of them at the end of a phase may fire at them. A laser does one point of damage, which reduces the number of program cards dealt to that player in future turns. There are repair stations on the board, and a robot may "power down" at any time to repair all damage — but a powered down robot doesn't move, and is subject to being pushed into a pit during that turn . . .
Option cards . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: May 1, 1996
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