Robo Rally Dice Review: Klenko Spins Garfield's Classic with Real-Time Dice Chaos

Robo Rally Dice is a spin-off of Richard Garfield's 1994 programmed movement classic RoboRally, designed this time by Kane Klenko — the mind behind FUSE — who swaps the original's cards for real-time dice drafting. It's a fresh angle on a cult board game that's spent three decades inspiring equal parts love and frustration.

Instead of dealing cards and planning five moves from a fixed hand, players here roll custom dice repeatedly — as fast and as many times as they want — picking them out one by one until they've locked in five movement symbols. The catch: the first player happy with their selection grabs a black pip die and starts rolling, counting down from three sixes. Everyone else is racing against that countdown, which injects the frantic real-time pressure Klenko is known for. The custom dice cover the same movement vocabulary as the original cards — forward, turn left or right, about-face — so the programmed-movement chaos fans love is still intact. Components are a mixed bag: cardboard tokens feather on punch-out, player boards are thin, and the modular map boards start warping almost immediately. The wooden robot pieces are a highlight — blocky, arrow-faced, each with its own name and cartoon personality. The art carries a retro-futurist comic-book style that suits the theme well. Dice are solid quality plastic, nicely weighted. The card count, though, is a paltry 20.

RoboRally has been through multiple editions since 1994 and built a devoted following around its signature blend of careful planning and spectacular plan collapse. Klenko's redesign strips the experience down to 30–45 minutes for 2–4 players, leaning into speed and tactile dice-rolling rather than the slower card-management of the original. Garfield's name doesn't appear on the box — this is firmly Klenko's take on the universe.

Whether the real-time pressure improves on the original's deliberate tension or just replaces one kind of chaos with another will likely split the existing fanbase. For newcomers or players who bounced off the original's longer runtime, the dice format offers a more accessible entry point into robot-racing mayhem.