Designed by: Reinhard Staupe
Robots is kind of deduction game that can be played competitively or co-operatively. In either case, players take turns pretending a robot…
The game consists of a set of cards showing the path the ‘robot’ will take along it, complete with various items that they might stop at. The active player – the robot for this turn – looks at the back of another card and announces the speed they’ll be moving at along the path: fast, normal, or slow. The robot also knows where they have to stop on the path, but this information isn’t given to the other players. Instead the robot ‘beeps’ to show they have started moving along the path, and then beeps again when they stop.
Playing co-operatively, the other players can discuss between them where they think the robot got to before guessing (playing competitively, everyone makes their own guess) and if they guess right, they score 3 points. One stop out on the path is 2pts, and if you’re two stops away a single point is scored. The idea, then, is to try and ‘synchronise’ with the robot, so you’re ‘moving’ along the path at the same speed they are. As soon as all the cards are used up, the game is over: co-operatively, 25 points are needed for the win. Competitively, the player with the most points is Best Robot.
None, although playing co-operatively can weirdly lead to more debate than the competitive version!
Almost none
Almost absent
It depends very much how you feel about the experience of sitting in a room going 'beep' for ten minutes. Robots is very one-note, but it is at least a fun, and kind of bonkers note.
2-6
Players
4+
Years
5-15
Mins
Sam says
Robots takes the ingeniously simple concept of The Mind - you have to figure out what speed people are playing at - and adds a sprinkling of family-flavour. Not that The Mind is unsuitable for families, but it's fairly themeless and Robots gives it a bit of visual focus, and a much faster play-time as well. I don't think it's as good as its predecessor, but it succeeds on its own terms very well.