Submitted by Jonathan Degann of The Westbank Gamers
Ricochet Robot by Alex Randolph is surely the most "different" of all the new games featured at Gulf Games III. It's arguably not really a game, nor even competitive solitaire. Most describe it as a puzzle. Everyone is racing to solve the same puzzle, and whoever delivers the best solution in limited time wins the round.
The game board is a cardboard grid with targets (colored spots) and barriers (thick lines). Players turn over a chit, which will effectively say "get the green robot to such and such target" in as few moves as possible. For example, you might have to get the green robot to the triangular green target. All players then look at the board and mentally move the pieces to come up with the shortest solution.
A robot moves like a rook -- but can only stop or change direction upon hitting a board edge, a barrier, or another robot. That third stipulation is what makes the game dynamic. You can move the other robots, using the same rule as above, in order to insure that the green robot has something nice to bump into that will help it reach the goal.
Here's how one scenario might work. I move the red robot up two spaces and let it stop at a barrier (one move). I move the green all the way to the left until it stops at the red robot (two moves), and then up until it hits the L-shaped barrier with the green target (three moves). Now I move the yellow robot out of the way, all the way to the right edge of the board (four) and have the green robot follow it, where it will stop one column from the right edge, at the yellow robot (five moves). Perfect! I take the green robot down, where it lands smack in the middle of the green triangular target (six moves total).
"SIX!" I shout, and smugly turn over the egg timer. If someone can shout out "FIVE!" (or lower) before the egg timer runs out, he will have a feeble opportunity to try besting me. Heck, someone else can shout "NINE" if he thinks that the other two of us can't perform. If Mr. Five fails, I will get to take the green robot to the target in six moves, and score a point. If I can remember how the heck I did it.
Then a new chit is turned over, and now we might have to get the red robot to the red square target. Repeat until all the chits have been turned. Most points wins.
This is not what we think of as a strategic game. It's for people who are proud of their math SAT scores. It's mental gymnastics, mental pretzel making, or mental frying... depending on your point of view. There are a lot of people who will hate this game. The lack of interaction and the speed pressure will clearly turn some people off.
When we played, I don't think that there was a single person who was looking forward to this sort of game. People complained that it was a brain burner. But we all got into it, and in fact our scores were pretty close. It sucks you in. Each round goes fast, and you can do as few rounds as you like. You can play it as a starter, and when the others show up, they can join right in.
The nice thing about this not being a real "game" is that it offers a different feel to a real game, and sometimes that's refreshing, especially as a quickie that's tossed in somewhere in a gaming session. The puzzles are always different, partly because the robots are always starting in new places, and partly because the board breaks into four pieces which can be recombined and flipped upon set up.
Ricochet Robot made me feel like a safecracker. Hmmm. Red up. Green right, then up, then left, then down. Yellow right. Green up. Blue down. Green right, then up. "CLICK." Ahhhh.
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