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RoboRally

board game

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ643841
Source-derived summary

RoboRally, also stylized as Robo Rally, is a board game for 2–8 players designed by Richard Garfield and published by Wizards of the Coast (WotC) in 1994. Various expansions and revisions have been published by WotC, Avalon Hill, and Renegade Games.

Description

In RoboRally, 2–8 players assume control of "Robot Control Computers" in a dangerous widget factory filled with moving, course-altering conveyor belts, metal-melting laser beams, bottomless pits, crushers, and a variety of other obstacles. Using randomly dealt "program cards", the controllers attempt to maneuver their robot to reach a pre-designated number of checkpoints in a particular order.

Components

The game box contains:

4 double-sided map boards

8 player mats

8 robot tokens and matching archive markers

8 Power Down tokens

84 Program cards that either move a robot ahead or back, or turn it either 90 degrees left or right, or reverse its direction

26 Option cards

40 Life markers

60 Damage tokens

two-sided Docking Bay board

30-second hourglass timer

rulebook

Set-up

Each player chooses a robot token and its matching archive token, and also receives three life tokens and a player mat. The players choose a race course by common consent, place numbered flags on it according to the race course chosen, and abut the Docking Panel board against the side of the map indicated by the race course chosen. In randomly determined order, each player places their robot on a starting square on the Docking Bay board with their matching archive marker under the robot.

Preparing to move

On each turn:

The Program card deck is shuffled and nine cards are dealt to each player.

For each point of robot damage, the number of cards is reduced by 1.

Players plan how to get to the first numbered flag, choose five Program cards from their hand as the robot's next five moves, and place the cards in order facedown on the table.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “RoboRally” as board game. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around RoboRally, board and game.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1994—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with RoboRally, board and game providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “RoboRally”, the useful work is to connect “board game” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q643841. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1994.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “RoboRally”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow RoboRally primary sources, RoboRally archive and RoboRally research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from RoboRally” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.