Who wants AI when you can also have Tin Man!? Enter Formula Games’ Robo Factory and build the best robot for your customers. Are you the mastermind behind the latest Robocop or will you build an ED-209? We played a prototype of Robo Factory so the actual product might differ slightly.
Goal
Perhaps the reference to Paul Verhoeven’s classic is a little misplaced (for those of you who have never seen this brilliant movie: go watch it – and you’ll discover that ED-209 is not very cute and colorful, unless you mean red), because Robo Factory is an extremely family-friendly game where players take on the role of robot manufacturers. More akin to the Iron Giant than to the Terminator.
The factories have to guess which robot the customer (a fellow player) wants built. Using different colored parts, players figure out (similar to Mastermind) which parts to produce. The first player to produce the correct robot wins points and the player with the most points (energy cubes) after all rounds, is the winner!
Gameplay
Robo Factory is a true deduction game, which means that players must come to a conclusion based on limited information and making connections between this information. Players can find out more information in this type of game, but often that helps other players or is not “free. Besides Mastermind, other deductive games include Stratego, Sherlock 13 or Tiwanaku.
So in Robo Factory, players try to fabricate the right colors and parts. The customer is secretly assigned a card with the correct parts. The customer provides limited hints about the correct parts by placing three random other robots cards on the central game board and indicating how many parts from this card match.
Players can purchase additional secret hints, but this may cost them points. Players can make notes on the supplied draft sheets and secretly select the parts they think are correct. Additional hints may be forthcoming, and players can earn energy cubes by guessing correctly.
Verdict
Robo Factory is a fun family-friendly and playful deductive game that can be described a bit like a thematic Mastermind that is also playable
for larger groups than just a two-player duel.
Play it with your kids, nephews or nieces to teach them creative thinking and deductive insight and stimulate their problem-solving skills. Alongside the math game Formula Games has another reasonably educational game up its sleeve, but with Robo Factory it has a much more subtle presence and through these colorful robots you can appease even learning-shy players to learn.
With two players, the game comes off a little less, as a bit of competition between different robot manufacturers is eliminated. With larger groups of players, the game is a lot more dynamic due to the more extensive exchange of information between the customer and the factories.
Because players can cash in their points, they face an interesting dilemma: play safe and sacrifice points or take a risk, take a gamble and hope or maximum profit. The game is colorful and serves as a strong introduction to deduction games that will delight young and old and novice players alike. Screw here, bolt there! And give my regards to Wall-E! 🤖
