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The year is 2047, and silence hangs over the International Research Facility on Mars. The scientists have vanished, leaving only their loyal robot companions behind. Four of them remain, still guided from Earth by their human creators. Their task is simple on paper but tricky in practice: scour the empty facility, collect parts, and rebuild rocket engines to escape the planet.
Of course, only one robot will actually manage it. The others will be left stranded, staring at the red dunes for eternity. At least the view is nice.
👥 2-4 players, ages 10+
⌛ Playing time: 60 minutes
📝 Designers: Pierrot
🎨 Artwork: Zoltán Nagy
🏢 Publisher: Everland Studio (preview copy provided)
Check out the Kickstarter campaign by clicking here
Gameplay Overview
In Robo Rescue, you play as one of these stranded robots, and your goal is to assemble the rocket engines needed to leave Mars. With three or four players you need three engines. In a two-player game you need four.
Engines can be built in a few different ways. You can fill oil tanks, wire up circuits on your cable matrix, collect processor chips, or charge energy cubes. There is one catch though: each system has limits. Oil tanks can only give you two engines, processors only one, energy cubes one, and cables up to two. In other words, you cannot just spam oil and coast to victory. You will need to diversify.
Each turn starts with programming your robot’s movement using command cards. You can do a single move or a combi-move, and you can boost them with up to three modifiers (all different types). These add tricks such as turning in place, levitating over boxes, pushing obstacles or destroying them, or even opening a portal to the opposite side of the board. If you run into a wall or another object, the rest of your planned steps on that card are lost, which makes careful planning important.
As you wander through the facility, you carry out actions based on where you land. You might draw extra command cards, pick up oil cubes, roll dice for cable tokens, or grab bonus cards for quick one-time effects. If you land on a powered space you can claim processor chips or blast tokens. Using a blast token lets you either blow up a box to collect three oil cubes, or charge an energy cube if you’re standing in a corner space.
Board actions come with one important rule: you cannot repeat the same action in the same turn. If you take a single move, you choose two different actions. If you take a combi-move, you get one action after the first card and two after the second, but all three have to be unique. It keeps the pace moving and stops anyone from hoarding one type of resource too easily.
After movement, you can also convert resources on your player board. These conversions are essential, because they help you turn one type of part into another and keep your rocket progress moving.
The game ends once someone has finished all their engines. The round continues until everyone has had the same number of turns. If more than one player finishes in that round, you count up leftover resources. Oil cubes and cables are worth one point each, processor chips are worth two, and energy cubes are worth four. The highest total wins, although if it is still tied, the tied players share victory as “Ultimate Survivors.”
Artwork, Components and Visual Design
Robo Rescue has a colourful and playful look. The board is a grid of rooms marked with icons for actions and resources. The pink and purple palette gives it a proper sci-fi vibe, yet it remains clear and easy to follow during play.
The robot miniatures are fun and distinct. Each one has its own design, from boxy to multi-limbed, and they move around alongside chunky container boxes that act as obstacles. Each player also gets a spacecraft standee with big comic-style rocket art. As you build engines, you slide tiles into your rocket board, and it is hard not to feel a bit childish joy when your ship finally starts looking complete.
The personal player boards are perhaps the busiest part of the game, but they do a lot. You track your oil tanks with translucent cubes, slot cable pieces into circuits, and add modifiers and abilities as you go. The cable tokens look like little connectors, and rolling the bright blue dice to see which ones you get gives a small hands-on thrill.
The decks of cards and tokens keep things lively. Commands, bonuses and abilities are illustrated with bold colours and simple symbols, which makes them easy to read. Overall, the design manages to feel both fun and functional. The visuals are playful without making the board confusing, which is important in a game where half the fun is seeing chaos unfold in front of you.
Our Experience
When we played Robo Rescue, the game quickly turned into a lively race across the board. With four players, the facility felt crowded in the best way. Robots were constantly getting in each other’s way, pushing containers or flipping switches that changed the state of the board. Those moments when your carefully planned move was ruined by someone else’s manoeuvre had us laughing and groaning in equal measure.
With two players, it felt like a completely different game. The pace was calmer, and the focus shifted to efficiency and careful route planning. The programming puzzle was easier to control without as many collisions, and the whole thing felt more strategic. Both versions worked well, just in very different ways.
The tactile side of the game added a lot to the experience. Dropping oil cubes into tanks, wiring circuits and locking rocket engines into the spacecraft made us feel like we were actually getting somewhere. Building engines piece by piece felt physical and thematic, and watching your ship fill up over time was very satisfying.
The board actions also encouraged us to keep moving rather than sitting in one corner. The uniqueness rule means you have to spread out. And the switches… well, they are both brilliant and cruel. Sometimes they opened up new opportunities, other times they completely ruined your plan because someone else happened to land on one at the wrong moment.
The theme of homesick robots gave the game more flavour than I expected. Many programming games feel abstract, but here the small details like filling tanks and charging energy tied back nicely to the story.
The pacing also shifted as the game went on. Early turns felt light and flexible, while later turns became much tighter. By the end, it felt more like a serious puzzle, with every move and conversion mattering. That change in tempo caught us off guard the first time, but it gave the game a nice arc from playful to properly thinky.
Our Thoughts
What stood out most for us was how Robo Rescue blends two different styles. On one side you have the chaotic fun of programming, and on the other side you have resource collection and engine building. Most programming games stop at collisions and blocked moves. Here, every step feeds directly into the systems you need to complete your rocket.
The four ways of building engines also kept things fresh. You cannot just repeat the same approach each time. The player boards give you all the options, but with limited space and resource caps you are forced to make choices. The conversions help you adapt if one path dries up, but they can slow the pace a bit and occasionally cause analysis paralysis when players overthink.
The ability cards gave the robots some personality and asymmetry. Getting extra modifiers or new ways to generate resources made us feel like our robots were growing. Some abilities felt stronger than others, though, and getting a good one early could snowball into an advantage.
There is also a fair amount of luck. The cable dice, the timing of the switches, and the bonus cards all add unpredictability. For us, that kept things entertaining, but players who prefer total control might find it frustrating. The “standby” turns, where you cannot do much because of poor programming, also slowed things down if they happened too often.
The main question is who the game is for. Casual players might find the systems and conversions too much, especially since the art makes it look lighter than it is. Heavy gamers might find it too random and not deep enough. It sits somewhere in the middle and may not hit the sweet spot for everyone, but it does feel well-suited for players who enjoy quirky hybrids and don’t mind a bit of chaos mixed into their puzzles.
We think Robo Rescue is best for people who already like programming games but wish they had more to chew on. It has plenty of charm, toy-like fun, and a theme that makes the mechanics feel alive. It may not be the next mass-market hit, but it is a game that builds up from lighthearted fun into a proper brain workout. And really, how many games let you cobble together a rocket on Mars using oil, wires and glowing cubes? Not many.
Robo Rescue is up on Kickstarter right now, in case you are curious.
📝 We received a copy of the game from Everland Studio.
