Robo Rally Rebooted

BGG
Robo Rally (2016) | Board Game | BoardGameGeek - https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/216201/robo-rally-2016

Amazon
Amazon.com: Robo Rally: Toys & Games (~$40) - https://www.amazon.com/Hasbro-HASB89050000-Robo-Rally/dp/B01N8T7ACD

Robo Rally 2016 Design Notes
I just found out today that the new version of Robo Rally is out. I have been so out of the loop that it was a complete surprise - I wrote Hasbro an email in September asking about it because that was when I was told it was to be out - and I never got a response.

I stumbled over the game in the back of a local game store. Looking at the package I could not even tell it was the new version. I read the text and looked at the picture, looking for some sign it was the new version - eventually I spotted the priority component - which is new - and so concluded that I was in fact looking at the new version of the game..

Of COURSE this game should have a separate page. It is a different game. It is so different that I intending to publish it with a different IP when I wasn't getting any response from Hasbro. But, the people who made the decision to keep it on the old RoboRally page are not entirely to blame - Hasbro apparently went out of their way to make sure it looked like the old RoboRally in every way. It is for that reason I am writing these notes, I feel the player should be able to find some description of the differences and their reasons from a semi official source.

I don't want people who like RoboRally to get this version and be disappointed because it is not what they expected. So let me tell you as the designer what I was trying to do and why. In the following notes I will refer to old Roborally as RR Classic, and new Roborally as RR Rebooted.

The Origin

Koni, my wife, was lamenting the fact that we seldom play my games except when they are under development. This is because when I play games with which I have finished the design I feel bad whenever I see a flaw. Generally when I force myself to play I enjoy myself, but that is my nature. When it came to RoboRally I really had trouble with the flaws, in part because it is one of my earliest designs and I care deeply about it. She suggested I redesign it using my 25 odd additional years of design experience. The more I thought about it the more I liked that idea so I began to think about a RoboRally reboot.

The Deck

The biggest change was players getting their own deck of program cards. This helped with at least two of my problems. First, it flattened the distribution so the chances of getting a usable hand was much greater. It killed me listening to players whine about getting all turns. With the individual decks you can still get amazing hands or hosed - but players almost always have something usable. Second, I hated wrangling the cards. The dealer in RR classic has to deal hands of different sizes which is a small but omnipresent annoyance. If you have a designated dealer it might feel great - but as that dealer in my group I found it tiring - and was amazed at how much faster things went when players kept track of their own decks.

This shouldn't really be thought of as a deck building game - changing your program card pile for the better does happen in a minor way - but the individual decks is much more about flattening the distribution and speeding the game up.

Damage

While someone might be disappointed the game isn't really deck building it is completely deck destruction. The personal decks allowed me to revamp the damage system. In RR rebooted damage is represented by adding bugs to your personal decks, which are blank cards - thus - probabilistically acting somewhat like the old damage which results in a player being dealt less cards. Rather than power down to get rid of your bugs - you must program them and they generate a random move but then disappear.

This made the game much crazier in a way I liked. In RR classic players would power down after a few damage or press their luck. Powering down was skipping a turn, which is a bit of a drag. For this reason players would tend to press their luck more than they should - not because it was a good move but because they would be bored skipping a turn. In RR rebooted players have more options when taking damage and they are generally less boring. A player can ignore their damage for a while, pressing their luck in a similar way to RR Classic, getting smaller and smaller probabilistic hands. A player can find a safe-ish corner and get rid of a lot of bugs, thus effectively 'powering down'. Players now have the option of playing just one or two bugs on a hand in a way that might not hurt them too badly, or even, if they are clever and lucky, help them.

In RR Classic conservative players would bounce between hands so large they don't risk too much on their program, and skipping turns to maintain that advantage. In RR Rebooted all players must deal with the chaos of a damaged robot, a conservative player can take less chances but they will be flipping random moves at some point and adding to the chaos of the game.

The new damage system also allowed new types of damage. So there are Trojan Horses, which when programmed are removed but replaced with TWO bugs. This means you temporarily make your deck worse cleaning up trojan horses - best perhaps to ignore them. Viruses when deleted are put into the decks of nearby players. The blue screen bug simply reboots your Robot, restarting it as if it had driven into a pit or off the map.

Option Cards

In RR Classic players often felt there weren't enough option cards being played. This was sometimes solved by players being dealt one at the start of the game or with some similar fix. I didn't really like that sort of fix - because the option cards were pretty swingy, and getting some crazy option because you took time out of the race and rolled the dice is one thing - but just being dealt it at the start didn't feel right.

Another thing that didn't feel right was that, in a way similar to the decision to power down, the correct play wasn't always the fun play. It was often incorrect to go out of your way to get an option - this is a race after all. Players would do it, however, because they thought options were fun. Wherever one can, it is a good idea to make correct and fun play line up.

So my solution was to give all players a hand of 3 option cards and some energy. The option cards have an energy cost - and players can get energy through their program or picking up energy from certain squares on the board. The cost allowed me to balance the options a little better, and giving players a hand of options allowed them to pick the option that supported their play. If your cards weren't to your liking or if you played them all you could purchase new cards for 2 energy, which would go to your hand. Players can still go out of their way for more energy at the cost of speed in the race - effectively getting more options - but even a player focused entirely on racing will be getting options.

I have not played RR Rebooted as published - but it looked like they were replacing this system with some sort of 'shop' you bought from. I am skeptical it is as good as what I had but I hope I am surprised. If it isn't, I you might try as this document suggests.

Priority

Priority wasn't a big deal to me but with everyone having their own deck little numbers weren't going to work as well. I played around with a few different methods of determining which robot had priority and settled on a fixed transmitter on the board - whoever was closest had priority. Ties were broken in a clockwise sweep. (I haven't seen the rules but discussions here on BGG make me think there must be an error in the rules or examples - it is really quite simple).

This had some minor effects on the game, which I liked but may not be to everyone's taste. When robots are in a position they might interfere with one another it is often easy for the player with priority to do so, in more subtle ways than before, since they might push with low speed cards. I found in my games that I was making more programs that took into account the fact that I might be pushed and I didn't know how far - rather than simply playing my highest priority card and hoping to get out of the way first.

Conclusion

I hope this helps show players of RoboRally what RR Rebooted is about. I was worried about putting this really different set of mechanics on a game that many players liked as it was - it was one of the reasons I did a poll on BGG 2 years ago. If you really like RR Classic you may be disappointed because I am fixing problems you don't have. But if some of what bothered me resonates with you, maybe you should take a look.

-- Richard Garfield (Phelddagrif)

Robo Rally 2016 Design Notes | Robo Rally (2016) | BoardGameGeek - https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1692639/robo-rally-2016-design-notes