In Robotic Quest Enviornment gamers will carry their beloved bots to boldly battle and barrage the opposite bolt buckets ‘til they bust their bearings off!
Oh, proper, backstory. A number of points of this recreation first caught my consideration: it’s a deck builder, and one of many designers additionally co-designed Star Realms—a recreation I loved throughout my early days within the interest and one I nonetheless contemplate fairly good. It additionally regarded like a pleasant household recreation and had the toy issue, which all the time appeals to my kiddos. So we determined to place it to the check and see if it will maintain up, or collapse below our scrutiny.
Robotic Quest Enviornment is a 2-4 participant area type recreation for ages 12+ and has a listed playtime of 30-60 minutes.
Gameplay Overview:
At the beginning of the sport, gamers select which bot to play, every with a special potential, and obtain equivalent beginning decks of ten playing cards. In your flip, you possibly can play battery playing cards to maneuver your bot, or spend the batteries to buy new playing cards from the store. The store consists of 6 playing cards randomly drawn from the upgrades deck, in addition to three stacks of playing cards all the time out there to gamers.
Different playing cards are performed for particular talents or to wreck different bots with melee or ranged assaults. Bots might be pushed into obstacles or different bots, inflicting them to take injury. While you injury one other robotic, you obtain well being cubes from their participant board equal to the injury dealt. These well being cubes will rely as factors for you on the finish of the sport. There are additionally sure tiles on the board that may injury a robotic that strikes or is pushed onto them. Different tiles have constructive advantages, reminiscent of permitting you to heal or draw a card.
When a participant’s bot loses its final well being dice, it’s knocked out. The bot is faraway from the board till the beginning of its proprietor’s subsequent flip, at which level it respawns. Every time a robotic respawns, it locations one blue dice on its board, along with common crimson cubes. The blue dice is all the time the final well being level to be eliminated when a robotic takes injury, and there are a restricted variety of them within the provide (differing relying on participant rely). When a robotic respawns, however there aren’t any blue cubes left within the provide, the sport ends. Gamers rely what number of cubes they’ve collected, and the participant with probably the most factors wins.
Sport Expertise:
Robotic Quest Enviornment is simply what it says it’s: an area type battling deck builder with cool-looking robots! As a deck builder, it doesn’t actually do something new: you begin with a 10-card deck, draw 5 playing cards, play them, purchase higher playing cards, draw new playing cards, and when you possibly can’t, you shuffle your deck.
The world a part of the sport might be probably the most adventuresome facet, because it’s form of enjoyable to go round smashing up the opposite bots. What I appreciated greatest about it’s that getting KO’d doesn’t really feel terrible, as a result of you possibly can spawn proper again in with no damaging penalties, besides that your opponent gained some factors. That feels significantly better than participant elimination. This, together with the sport finish set off of operating out of well being cubes, appeared to be one of the vital considerate points of the design.
We performed this recreation as a household, and it labored nicely with youngsters due to the forgiving mechanisms and the lovable toy-like robotic figures. So, regardless of the field saying ages 12+, I feel this recreation is greatest fitted to households, or as an introductory board recreation, within the custom of Star Realms, and I feel that’s the place it would shine greatest.
In deck builders, a typical criticism is market stagnancy—that’s, no one needs to purchase playing cards as a result of none of them are fascinating and there’s no good approach to cycle by means of them. I didn’t really feel this downside on this recreation as a result of there aren’t many playing cards that really feel like junk playing cards, and the pricing vary appears to be properly unfold out. So with six playing cards (plus the three mounted stacks) out there, I discovered there have been incessantly fascinating choices out there to gamers.
Then again, I additionally discovered myself hesitant to buy too many playing cards. I’d purchase just a few I appreciated, then simply preserve my deck slim and cycle by means of these, so I may give attention to preventing within the area (keep in mind, batteries are used each to maneuver your bot and to buy playing cards). I needed just a little extra incentive to proceed including playing cards all through the sport. So I felt form of like I used to be lacking out on the deck-building facet if I targeted on the sector, and like I used to be lacking out on the sector if I targeted on deck constructing.
Moreover, I discovered it straightforward to overlook about my bot’s potential, or possibly the talents simply didn’t really feel that attention-grabbing or related typically sufficient. There was additionally a certain quantity of messiness to the non-public participant areas. Participant boards are small, and the areas to your well being cubes are smaller than the cubes themselves, with no outlines or indents, so for those who knock your board, you would possibly combine them in together with your level cubes. I additionally would have appreciated a chosen place for my deck and discard pile.
Last Ideas:
Many Deckbuilders of at this time have transitioned from the Dominion-esque pure deckbuilder mannequin, to include deckbuilding as one side of the design. Right here, it’s the mechanism that fuels robots in area battles. The trick with these hybrid designs is discovering steadiness and making all components of the sport attention-grabbing for gamers to interact with. This recreation felt, for me, prefer it virtually nailed it, however not fairly. It has enjoyable moments, some good design points, however it’s just a bit too secure and predictable.
I do suggest Robotic Quest Enviornment for households or those that choose lighter video games as a result of it’s extra forgiving than different area battlers and is playable inside an hour, however in the end, I didn’t discover the sport to be as enjoyable as the concept of it sounded.
Last Rating: 3 stars – An honest household recreation with a pleasant toy issue
Hits:
• No participant elimination
• Few “junk” playing cards
• Intelligent injury = factors design
Misses:
• Doesn’t really feel contemporary or thrilling
• Deckbuilding/ Enviornment steadiness appeared just a little off
• Participant boards weren’t very purposeful
