Game description
World of Robotics is a Czech deck building game for 2 to 4 players. Each player takes on the role of a 'programmer' of a massive alpha robot. These programmers duel against
each other by using their alpha robot, beta robots, equipment and programs. Each player starts the game with randomly chosen programmer and then chooses an alpha robot.
Programmers have two abilities that cost them Exhaustion Points and can be used once per turn (turn meaning one round of turns of all players till it reaches you once again). Each programmer has a limit of how many points that card can use. If maximum is reached (9 usually) the player with exhausted programmer loses the game at the end of his or her turn.
Alpha robots have Hit Points' value and Shield Points' value. They also have an ability. It can be used as many times as you want.
Each player has a starting deck consisting of 10 Titanium cards that give 100 resources, 2 Smoke Bombs that either draw a card or prevent next 20 damage dealt and 1 card that negates any action or reaction. Each player starts with seven cards in their hand.
During their first main phase they can buy cards from robomarket, use actions/reactions, play equipment/bots.
Next is attack phase in which robots can attack opposing alpha robot. Robots can only attack if they have a weapon equipped. Damage is first dealt to the 'Shield Points' and then HP is used. When both reach zero the player controlling that robot loses the game.
This phase is followed by another main phase (because for example you can draw more cards during combat but wouldn't be able to play the cards otherwise). The cards can be bought from 'Robot market' - area consisting of 8 piles of cards. In those piles one can encounter beta robots, programs and equipment cards. There are three more piles with resource giving cards - Titanium, Uranium and Platinum. In order to buy a card a player needs to play enough resource cards in order to pay the cost of the wanted card (played cards go immediately to robot scrap - discard). When a card is bought it is put on top of the player's deck.
At the end of turn all cards (robots, used equipment, cards in hand) are put into player's discard pile. That player then draws seven cards and the game goes on till one of the players (erm alpha robots) dies/is destroyed or one of the programmers gets exhausted.
Contents
The box (which is kinda neat but cannot hold the cards when sleeved) contains:
- rules (that are supposedly simply but not explained well)
- game board (we never use something like that unless necessary for the game)
- damage counters (those are pretty bad, 20 sided die seems as the best counter)
- exhaustion point counters (same as above - 10 sided die is ideal)
- 203 playing cards (the quality of the print is meh, sleeves advised because this won't survive for long even though the game does not require
excessive shuffling as most deckbuilding games do)
First experience (far from positive)
We borrowed the game from a local game store to check it out because we were both quite curious about it. We did not have time to try it out until recently. We both expected something completely different (we are used to deck building games and for me personally this would not qualify as one). I unsleeved several type two decks (because they are not legal anymore anyway) and sleeved the Robotics game. Zdenek read the rules and while reading them I already understood that the rules will be a bit problematic because the rules incited more questions then answers. There is not much explained in them and there are card effects that don't really make sense or it is not clear what the cards do (or rather when). He explained the game to me then and we tried to play our very first game.
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I chose some programmer and later some random alpha robot because I did not understand the abilities just yet. Then we both started buying some resources so we could buy some tech or programs. When we finally managed to attack each other we got a bit stuck because there was no clear say about whether Shield Points kind of regenerate or just go down and then HP is used. But it seems we were just looking for some sense in the game because we expected a game to last for while (30 minutes). After trying to google something on the internet I landed on some description of a test game. After one player dealt 210 points of damage he won the game so we found our answer (simply the SP and HP go down) and started a new game. I chose one programmer (Lily) that can look at the top 5 cards of the deck. The second ability searches for a card in a deck but it costs two more cards from hand and discarded cards cannot be resource cards (so I never used that ability). As a bot I took one that seemed the most aggressive one - for sacrificing a beta robot it deals 10 damage to opposing alpha robot (Centurius).
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The following game wasn't any slower. It ended very fast. We cannot imagine games taking more turns than let's say 6 turns. After those few games the game seemed to be primarily about choosing an alpha robot well. There are always alpha bots that counter different bots, so if the second player sees what bot is missing he or she can choose alpha robot accordingly. Then simply buy a weapon and swing. Some other cards may be needed but not a high number is needed. The deck alone works on 3-4 cards only plus those basic cards which one cannot really get rid of much. Getting defensive slows down hell a lot though and the game is not about being able to survive but about destroying opponent's alpha robot.
In the second game that I hoped to be longer I was discarding about 3 cards from my opponent's hand each turn (and the discard is random to make it even more annoying). The game ended soon as well as I just bought one weapon and attacked with that while not allowing my opponent to actually play something (my programmer also could discard a weapon if something would go awry). None of us enjoyed the game.
Anyway the very first impulse to try the game came from the fact that the game was advertised as deck building game and I usually like those. But in this case it feels completely different primarily because the game is so fast. The cards that one buys can oftentimes be used on the very same turn as there are two Smoke Bombs in the deck that allow you to either draw a card or prevent 20 points of damage. When someone uses the word deck building I would expect the players to buy more cards and when having a functional deck being able to do something (in this case attack and deal damage). In this game the cards can deal damage fast and in great amount and even those 40 damage prevented won't save the player or prolong the game much. So there is no time for different phases of the game like early/mid/late. Since here it is pure aggression (and judging from posts on the official page I guess that's what the authors wanted, just to run your opponent over and that's it. It is either you or him, not much of a way how to actually impact the game and turn the tides).
We still have to explore the game but after going through each single card we can clearly see what is possible and what not and I personally am not sure if I want to give it a second chance. Preparing the game and shuffling the cards pregame takes longer than the game itself (now that everything is sorted this statement probably won't apply much, but still you get the idea). Unless there is a market that offers only 700-900 cost cards the game will be too fast for my liking and well the game simply does not have 'control' as a deck type.
The biggest downfall though is the fact that this game simply does not have a future. The way the game is there is not much that could be done to make the game last longer or make more sense. Adding cards won't help no matter if they are more powerful or if they would be able to stall the game a bit because players will simply ignore those. The game is about buying the best card that shows up and finding a card that counters that and in the meanwhile buying something with what one can attack won't simply work. The whole design of the cards would have to be changed in order to make this game work.
This game though gave me some insight on what things to avoid when trying to come up with a deck building game and I can also see what should be done correctly:
- First the TEXT and icons and other stuff needed for the game should be visible. That means readable from a distance (of one's head from the card laying on the table).
- The game should be long enough to become relatively difficult or that interesting interactions can happen otherwise I don't really have a reason to play that game. If the game ends 'sooner than it begins' why bother.
- Seven cards in hand is too much.
- Rules should be well explained and structured. All keywords or effects explained clearly!
Additional Info
I mentioned (not really but you could deduce)that there is a possibility to get rid of a card from your deck. Some of the cards in the game have one of three icons. There is a trash icon, recycle one and Ti. The trash icon allows a player to put one of your cards from discard or hand (I think) on the bottom of one of the market deck piles. Recycle icon let's you discard the card with the icon and return a card from discard pile to your hand. The last icon simply gives you 100 resources (Titanium).
Also there three types of equipment. Weapons that allow a robot to attack, support equipment that can prevent damage or have other special ability stays in play till game effect destroys them and 'protective equipment that prevents damage (is discarded after it prevents the damage).
Verdict
1.5/5
I won't give it 1 because I see how difficult it actually is to come up with something and balancing something is even worse. Creating a game, marketing it and then actually selling it is not an easy feat. All those people merit respect for that. But game-wise this has nothing to offer me and thus I won't recommend it to anyone. (But I still have to see what attitude to the game non-TCG players will take).
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