The return of my ice rules for RoboRally:
There are two unofficial RoboRally boards available online that feature Ice. “The Ice Rink” includes rules for inertia. “The Cold Room” features a much nicer graphic, but the “spin chart” is not yet available (and, given the time spent coming “ASAP”, unlikely to become available, but it would probably have be very similar to The Ice Rink’s) (UPDATE: The Spin Chart is available at the new link!). Neither of them are really suitable to lunch-time play, since tracking and dealing with inertia is tedious. But I like the art on “The Cold Room” enough that I wrote my own rules for Ice. If you’ve got a lot of time and the inclination, try out the inertia stuff, but if you don’t:
Ice
Robots may move cautiously on Ice without change. Rotate Left and Rotate Right function normally. A Move 1 will function normally except that another robot cannot be pushed.
Faster movement will be affected by the reduced friction on Ice. A robot executing a U-Turn on Ice will spin completely around, so that his facing does not change.
A Move 2 through an adjacent robot will cause both robots to slide until they leave the ice, hit a wall, or hit another robot. A Move 2 onto a square occupied by another robot will cause that other robot only to slide, as above. A Move 2 into two robots will not push them at all. A Move 2 with no other robots within the front two squares will slide as above.
A Move 3 has the same effects as a Move 2, depending on whether another robot(s) is moved through or landed on. It cannot push 3 robots. A Move 4 (via Fourth Gear) cannot push 4 robots.
In addition to the above effects, a robot beginning a turn on Ice receives one fewer card than normal, unless that would require a register to be locked.
—jhunterj
I might change:
“A Move 2 onto a square occupied by another robot will cause that robot only to slide as above.”
to something like:
“A Move 2 onto a square occupied by another robot will cause that *other* robot only to slide, as above.”
Other than that, this looks quite good. Have you tested this rules set yet?
Aha. Good correction. Implementing… and it’s live! Thanks!
And yes, I have played on those boards with these rules. Not recently, but multiple times back when my group was playing RR more than once a month.
I used the link to see the inertia rules. Read through them, that saw the next section was “Chess Variants”.
I was a little disappointed that this was not a RR/Chess hybrid…. yet,
Cool idea. I think I’ll write some up post-haste!
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Hi. I found this thread during one of my regular googlings for RoboRally. A while ago I was sent a copy of the spin chart for Cold Room, and put it up here:
http://tartarus.org/gareth/roborally/boards/Cold_Room
I have never played the board or used those rules, so I have no idea how well they work.
Thank you!