How to play

The aim of Ricochet Robots is to get the robot with the same colour as the target, onto the target in as few moves as possible.

Robots may only move in a straight line and must move until they are stopped by either an obstacle, the edge of the board, or another robot. The robot may then move again from their new position, in effect, “bouncing” off the obstacle.

Other robots may be moved to provide easier access to the target space.

The player with the lowest number of moves to successfully reach the target space is the winner.

Game modes

In the Ricochet Robots board game, players cannot move the robots and must instead “bid” how many moves they think, with the current board setup, it would take to reach the target space. Once the first bid has been spoken aloud, a timer is started. During this time, other players may place bids that are the same or lower than the first bid. When the timer expires, the person who bid the lowest plays out the moves to verify the solution is possible.

With this online implementation, this mode is called “Classic“ and tries to recreate the process of thinking through the process of moving the robots.

A less stringent mode is also available called “Competitive”. Like Classic, a timer starts when the first bid is placed, however robots may be moved at any time and a correct solution must be submitted by the end of the timer.

The final mode is great for people new to Ricochet Robots or those who just want to work the puzzle without the timer and is called “Chill”. During this mode solutions and bids may be placed at any time and the game only stops when the person who started the game decides to.

Starting a game

Register or login
Start a new game
Send the link to anyone you want to join your game
Once everyone has joined, click start

Options

All game modes have the following options:

Board: The board layout you want to use. Change this from “Random” to choose the layout you want
PRNG seed: The robot starting positions and chosen target are randomly chosen at the start of every game. If you enter in a numeric seed, the positions will be random but if the same seed is used the same random positions will be used

If you choose the same board layout and seem PRNG seed, the game will be identical.

Each mode has a different options that may be set.

Competitive

Timer: After the first bid or solution is submitted, how long do other players have to submit their solutions?

Classic

Timer: How long after the first bid do other players have to submit their own?
Move timer: Once the timer has expired, how long do players have to submit their solutions i.e. move the robots to achieve their bid
Game timer: How long should the game last if no bids are submitted? This stops games with difficult solutions lasting too long