1991 · Maxis · Strategy · Turn-based tactics

RoboSport

The thinking man's shoot-em-up. Plan your tactics, instruct your troops, and kick Robutt!

Released: 1991
Platforms: Amiga MS-DOS Windows macOS
Genres: Strategy Turn-based tactics
Developers: Maxis
Publishers: Maxis
Modes: Multiplayer
Themes: Stealth
Country: United States

About

RoboSport is a 1991 turn-based tactics video game created by Edward Kilham and developed and published by Maxis.

The player creates teams of robots and maneuvers them around a board to map out one "turn" of movement. The other players and AI do the same and then all movement is played out simultaneously. The robots are equipped with different weapons, including rifles, grenade launchers, and so on. The game supports multiple modes such as capture the flag and a "hostage" game.

Keywords

turn-based
robots
capture the flag
simultaneous turns
instant replay

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Reception

The game was reviewed in 1991 in Dragon #172 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 5 out of 5 stars. Computer Gaming World praised the Windows version of RoboSport for its excellent user interface, ease of programming, and quick play. The magazine concluded that it was "at least three excellent games crammed into one nearly seamless sport".

A later article reported that the game depicted small arms and combined arms tactics better "than many computer wargames dedicated to the subject". A 1994 survey in the magazine of strategic space games set in the year 2000 and later gave the game three-plus stars out of five. , praised the game for the flexibility of programming computer robots that would then fight providing an interesting outcome. Macworld highly recommended the game for strategy game enthusiasts.