Robo Rally

[YrNotYrKhakis]

If you like strategy board games where planning ahead is crucial to winning, you'll love Robo Rally. I've been playing Robo Rally for a few years, and it's always been my favorite board game. Basically you control a robot in a factory and race to the checkpoints to win. You shoot lasers and other added weapons (via cards) to destroy other robots in the process. The game comes with 4 double-sided "factory floor" boards that can be set up in any combination. The checkpoints are plastic pieces you can place anywhere at the beginning of the game to make things easy or difficult based on the people playing. It has tons of replay value.

Anyone played this before or am I introducing this to most people here?

[PJON]

grrrr Ive seen it in action. A bunch of people in my game club like it. I have never played it though. It seems like a long game, and a whole bunch of math or planning, that my simple brain will not allow.

[YrNotYrKhakis]

Well you get 9 cards that dictate movement, and each player puts 5 of them in order face down to essentially "program" their robot. You have to have good spacial skills because after each movement executed you have to plan for what the factory floor board elements do to your robot. It's like a five-step chess game at a time.

[Old Dwarf]

It's been around for years(then again so have I )
The Theme never grabed me but it does have a following.

OD

[Zinthos]

I too love Roborally, but you do need a group of like minded people for it to work well.

RoboRally suffers badly from leader break-away syndrome, my group puts a dice on each flag that needs to be shot 6 times before it is removed and the flag can be taken. This slows the leader a little and help keep the games interesting past the first or second flag. But a good game really shouldn't need such hack methods for it to play well.

However, have you considered that roborally boards could make a fun change for out favourite Zombie game?
The squares are the right size. Board elements like lasers, conveyors and pits, all have simple carry-over meanings.

So, how about a game of Last Night in the Factory?

[PJON]

...Hows about....

Last Night at Castle Drizzt

[Cobby]

This is a favourite with my group- it works really well with 4 or 5 players, and a few beers. It gets chaotic- we've had people almost in tears from laughter before.

It is really versatile too in terms of game length and complexity- you can choose massive maps with many pitfalls or smaller, simpler maps.

The rules are pretty straightforward (no more complex than LNOE say) and once the group gets into the flow, each turn runs really smoothly. The only tricky thing at first is to understand the sequence of things (conveyor belts, lasers, robots moving).