Stress Botics

About this board game

Stress Botics is a sci-fi adventure board game for 2–4 players, with games lasting about 135 minutes. Players control easily stressed Beta Bots sent to an unstable exoplanet by Cubebotics CORP® to mine resources and deliver them to orbiting corporation ships.

Each round begins with an event, followed by secret programming. Players choose and commit actions before revealing them, then take turns interacting with resource-filled chambers, enemies, Alpha Bot, or one another. A bot’s stress level determines turn order and affects which resource deliveries it can make.

Every player manages an individual robot blueprint containing multiple containers with limited capacity. Mined resources can be delivered to ships, transformed, or spent to improve the robot’s capabilities. Successful deliveries require the right resources, as well as precise timing and alignment with the matching ship’s orbiting trajectory.

• Program actions in secret before anyone reveals them.
• Mine, store, transform, and deliver resources.
• Interact with the autonomous Alpha Bot for advantages and assistance.
• Respond to Cylindroid bots that move, attack, or occupy resource chambers.

Alpha Bot advances through the planet’s chambers toward the surface, unlocking new mining locations and providing support along the way. However, it is vulnerable to enemy attacks and planetary dangers, so players may need to steer it away from harm. At the end of each round, maintenance activates the Cylindroids, while players gain benefits or suffer stress based on their distance from Alpha Bot.

The game ends when Alpha Bot reaches the final chamber. Players score victory points through resource deliveries, robot upgrades, and other objectives, then reduce their totals by the stress accumulated during the adventure. In Stress Botics, the player with the highest remaining score wins.