Fun with mindless robots and deadly weapons

Designed and illustrated by Mike Petty

Bored by their trek across the endless vacuum of space, a shipload of killer robots decide to have some fun. Coding themselves to utilize their most deadly weapons, all but one are destroyed in a matter of seconds. Can you survive the Phazo-Oscillating Beam Master or avoid the deadly rays of the Ionified Reflecto-Blaster and Residulating Impulsor?

Blaster Bots is a quick card game for 3-6 players. Firing Mechanisms, Weapon Effects and Target cards combine to make new, unexpected and sometimes downright mind-boggling weapons. Half the fun is saying the names of the weapons you'll create. The other half is figuring out what they do when they go off. As usual, everything you need to play comes crammed in one small box. It sells for $6.

Contents:

• 62 Game cards
• 2 Aid cards
• 18 Robot cards (3 for each player)
• 70 Energy chips
• 10 Shield tokens
• 1 six-sided die
• 1 set of instructions

Currently Blaster Bots is unavailable. A new version is possible in the future, though it's not being worked on at this current time. If you're interested in purchasing a copy, please let me know. If I get enough interest, I'll likely move it up on the list of priorities.

Errata:

If you purchased a copy of Blaster Bots after 7/30/03, these errors are already corrected on your cards and rules. Otherwise, please make note of the following changes:

• The rules indicate that weapon effects take place from right to left when an "AND" card is between them. This is incorrect. They take place from left to right as the second example and the "AND" cards themselves state.
• A better wording on the shield cards would be "damage and/or effect" in regard to the absorption or deflection of hits. The intent is that a shield completely cancels or deflects the hit or hits. The original wording of the cards made it sound like there was a choice in some cases as to whether the effect OR the damage takes place. This is incorrect. No effect or damage of a single hit gets past a shield.
• The Residulating Impulsor card should state "if you roll a 1 or 2".
• The two Target Depressed cards should read "target only the depressed version of that Life Form".
• The Phazo- firing mechanism card should read "1 or 2" at the top of the card, so the icon summary matches the text of the card.
• The Blasting Sidewinder should have a "2" in the damage icon on the top of the card to match the text of the card.

Some notes on the design of Blaster Bots

I first created Blaster Bots back in 1999. I was driving home from a playtesting session with my friends from Placebo Press. While I played one of their games that day, I was surprised to see how much fun some people were having just playing nasty cards on other people. From that core concept, I developed the idea of programming robots to blow each other up.

I don't remember much about the early prototypes. I think they were very similar to what I have in the finished game, but I did have to tone down some of the numbers. When school started that fall, Blaster Bots proved to be a huge success with the students who came to my room during lunch. The game is full of random events well beyond any player's control, but I've never created a game that causes such outbursts of laughter and discussion. Some players hate the game because the weapons can get so confusing and the action is so random. Of course, those are exactly the reasons some players love it.

I showed the game to the guys from Placebo Press and they were mildly interested in it at one time, but nothing came of it. I also sent it to Fantasy Flight Games since they were one of the few publishers I found at the time who were accepting submissions. The game sat in their office for a year and a half before they sent me a kind rejection notice. I completely gave up on the game, nearly forgot about it and moved in other directions.

A number of weeks ago I was thinking of possible projects for Black & White Games and Blaster Bots came to mind. I added it way down the list of other games, but I did take the prototype to school to give it a try with students. Once again, the game had a tremendous effect on them. It moved to the forefront of my production schedule. Even though the prototype was completely playable, I put many more hours into re-wording the cards and the instructions. Some weapons can be an exercise in logical reasoning and careful examination of the rules. I wanted to make the game as simple to play as possible, yet still maintain the enjoyment of working out the effects of the weapon you just created.

I plan on making expansions for the game and publishing some variants here at the site. I imagine I'll also need some errata and a FAQ for the game as time goes on. If you have any questions or comments about the game, please write me at mapetty@newworldgames.com.

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Last updated February 7,2004.

Blaster Bots is copyright 2003 by Mike Petty.