CyberBall

Welcome to CyberBall!

In this mix of football, basketball and brawling, two teams of four robots fight for the ball and try to be the first to score.

Give instructions to each of your robots to get into the best position, block your opponent and protect the ball carrier. Careful tactics are required to make sure that your opponent doesn’t get past your defences. Try to keep your options open, a cleverly thrown ball might just bypass the wall of metal that is about to slam into you.

This is a big game in a tiny box, both physically and strategically. Each turn you have to give each of your robots unique instructions, so you need to plan ahead. If you have a robot dash ahead then don't complain if you leave it stranded, surrounded and pummelled into submission. That said, all it takes is a bit of bluffing or a lot of luck and you can get the ball past their defenses and win the game. Try to keep the other robots available so you can have them run interference or wait for a surprise pass, but be careful to consider defence. One bit of bad luck and they could snatch the ball, if you've not left someone at the back then nothing can stop them.

Having to get the rulebook out to see what you're doing can really slow down a game, but not CyberBall. Not only does each instruction use only a few standard keywords, rules skimming is not required. The instructions are explained fully in the rules but are also described on the cards, with a walkthrough of the instructions on one side and an explanation of all the keywords on the other. With this you can see exactly what you need to do and (in combination with the Direction cards) exactly where to do it.

How to Play

Stage 1: Set Direction

Each player gives a hidden command to each of their robots to set which direction they will be facing. When they are revealed, turn all of the robots to match.

The Direction cards are kept in play. The later stages refer to Green, Orange and Yellow squares so this gives an easy to see, instant guide for which squares those will be.

Stage 2: Give Instructions

Now comes the tricky part. Each player takes turns sending and executing instructions on one of their robots, trying to find a way to either take or protect the ball while also getting your other robots into the best position.

To begin with, each player takes turns to assign the DASH instruction to one of their robots. Next, they each assign SWERVE to a different robot. This continues with TACKLE and finally PASS until all robots have acted this turn.

What are the instructions?

The first two instructions (DASH and SWERVE) are used to get those robots into the best position, grabbing the ball, getting away from threats or just getting ready to do more next time.

After that comes TACKLE. This is used to keep everyone away from the ball carrier, otherwise it can let you take the ball from your opponent (or at least get them to drop it). Because each robot can only get one instruction each turn, the ball carrier needs to be careful who they get close to. It's also the reason why you will often need to use DASH and SWERVE to get ready for the next turn.

The final instruction is PASS. By now you should have everyone in place so that you can get the ball where it needs to be. Grab the dropped ball (or get into the right position) and throw the ball to another robot. Maybe show off and bounce it off the wall to get past an opponent. Alternatively, if the ball carrier is in danger and might lose the ball next turn, you can go over to them and get them to give you the ball.

Stage 3: End of Turn

Nobody's scored yet? Okay, swap who is first player and have another turn. Keep going until one of you makes a mistake and the other one wins.

The way you win is to either score a touchdown or get the ball into your opponent's goal. So, watch out for a sneaky player bluffing you with an aggressive run and then throwing the ball past you into the open goal.