When someone tells you they’ll be “just a minute,” do you think that means they’ll be fast or slow? How fast is fast, exactly? Is it significantly faster than what you think a normal speed would be?
In Robots, the 2020 Kinderspiel Award nominated game, you’ll be able to introduce the concept of time and how we all perceive it differently to kids in a fun, simple, and engaging way!
Growing up, we were always sad when my dad said he needed to do something “real quick” because to us, it never meant quick. In fact, we called his concept of time “Bob Time” because it was sooooo sloooooow even though he thought he was making quick work of whatever it was at the moment.
Everyone perceives time differently, the time something takes and how it “feels” to someone varies greatly. But this is often a hard concept to teach, because we all perceive time and speed the way we do. Fast is fast, slow is slow. It’s just that my fast might be more like your slow.
How Do You Play Robots?
On the front of each card is a line with various items along it as well as a number (1,2, or 3) in the corner. On the back of each card is a speed, (slow, normal, and fast,) each with one of the items pictured on the line. The number in the corner of the front of the card tells the player acting as the Robot which speed they need to use.
The Robot says “beep” to begin, then visually traces the line using only their eyes and says “beep” to end once they’ve reached the item designated by their speed.
All other players then either together as a group or individually say which item they think the robot stopped at. Players receive wooden discs according to how close they were to guessing the correct object.
What Do We Think?
At first, I wasn’t quite sure what to think about this game. It’s so simple, and in many ways doesn’t really feel like a “game” in the traditional sense.
However, what I really think is cool about Robots in how you see just how differently our concept of time is compared to others. What I think is fast, may be someone else’s normal speed. Our perception of time can be very different from one another and Robots helps kids develop this sense while also learning to adjust to someone else’s sense of time as they see it.
How does Robots do this? In a couple different ways!
As each player takes turns being the Robot, you get the chance to see and adjust to how they think about time. The players who are not the Robot begin to learn through trial and error, perhaps the first time the Robot was moving at a normal speed, but the players were short of the goal object by two or three. Now they know that “normal” to the robot is slightly faster than they thought. Comparatively, the Robot now knows that “normal” to the group is slightly slower than what he/she thought, and so they night try and adjust to the group.
Through the process of trial and error, the players begin to get in sync with each other. The first time you guess the correct object is so satisfying and I love the looks of amazement that wash over both the Robot and the guessing players’ faces! It’s like they were able to read each other’s minds!
To that same effect, there’s also a fun back and forth that happens when players find that they have two very different concepts of time. “You went way too fast for snail speed!” “Your rocket speed moved so slow! I thought for sure you would have made it this far!”
Overall, its really cool to see how both kids and adults adjust their speeds to come to something closer to what the group as a whole thinks each speed should be. The results at the end of the game are always much closer than the results at the middle.
For younger players:
The concept of time can be tricky, so for younger players we recommend playing where everyone takes turns being the robot through all or most of the cards. This helps everyone adjust to a specific person’s concept of time. This has worked pretty well for our kids who are 4, 6, and 8 — especially the younger two.
Summary
Robots is a simple game with a truly interesting concept that makes it fun to play with children.
I love that in such a simple way it introduces the concept of time and speed to kids and provides a way for them to see that how we perceive time can be unique to each person.
Because of its simple design, Robots makes a great game to bring along to restaurants, or even on car rides (we suggest leaving the discs at home for these trips) where you can enjoy playing it quickly and quietly together to pass the time, and hopefully it helps everyone feel like that time passes at “Rocket Speed!”
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A special Thank You to our friends at Pandasaurus Games for sending us a copy of Robots for review. As always, our thoughts and opinions are our own.
Game Info:
Title: Robots
2-6 Players Ages 5+
Designer: Reinhard Staupe
Artist: Oliver Freudenreich
Publisher: Pandasaurus Games
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