- Publisher : Lucky Duck Games
- Designer(s) : Brett Sobol, Seth Van Orden
- Artist(s) : Viktoriya Fajardo, Howard McWilliam, OwlGhost Studio
- Players : 1–6
- Playing time : 60 - 90 Min
- Weight BGG : 3.25
What's this?
Players take on the role of inventors seeking to earn Victory Points (VP) by assembling robots, earning degrees, and upgrading their resources.
How do you play?
➡️ Preparation:
Draw and assign Phase cards.
Place Energy cubes according to the chosen cards.
➡️ Phase Resolution:
Phases are executed in order: Upgrade, Assembly, Design, Manufacturing, and Recycling.
Each player performs their actions based on the total energy available. Each action or card requires a specific energy. You must calculate your total energy to perform the actions.
Upgrade: Unlock upgrade tokens that can be placed on your cards to obtain additional actions or effects.
Assembly: Build robots by spending resources and energy.
Design: This phase allows you to design Robot cards and software needed for your actions.
Manufacturing: Allows you to produce resources such as microchips, gears, and sensors.
Recycling: Allows you to recover batteries and adhesive tape, which are used to compensate for the lack of resources or to increase energy.
➡️ End of Turn:
Discard the used cards.
Advance the turn marker.
Is it good?
Raising Robots is a challenging engine building game, where players meticulously assemble their robots by optimizing every resource and every action. The card board system, similar to that of Wingspan but more complex, requires careful planning over eight rounds. Fans of calculation games and resource management will find what they are looking for here.
However, this strategic depth comes at the cost of a certain heaviness. The many manipulations of small elements and the constant calculations can quickly become tedious and harm the fluidity of the game. This game is a multiplayer solitaire where you will spend time on your player board making resource exchanges, among too great a variety (of resources.)
The robotic theme, while endearing, is somewhat overshadowed by the mechanics. The quality of the components, especially the cards and small cardboard tokens, could be improved.
In summary, Raising Robots offers a rich and deep gaming experience for players who like to calculate everything. The programming mechanisms are interesting and the theme original. However, the game’s heaviness and need for constant calculations may put off players looking for a smoother experience.
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Review Raising Robots
Positives
- Programming mechanics
- Strategic depth
- Original theme
- Careful illustrations
Negatives
- Lack of fluidity
- Component quality
- Analysis paralysis
- Limited interaction
- Too computational and too much resource manipulation
Breakdown
- Components and illustrations 7.0
- Mechanics 7.0
- Thematic 7.0
- Replayability 8.0
- Handling 7.5
- Interaction 7.5
- Originality 7.0
