Coder.IO Board Game Preview

This is a preview copy sent to us for our early opinions. No money exchanged hands. Some art, rules or components may change in the final game. You can follow the Kickstarter campaign here.

Imagine this: You're an advanced robot, suddenly transported from your digital realm to the unfamiliar terrains of Earth. As you acclimate to this new environment, a group of robot beeples catches your eye, racing towards a mysterious portal. Yes, that's right! I said beeples. Great name huh! Well, they look even better, check them out.

But what is your destination? Unknown. But one thing is clear, you must follow. To do so, you'll need to craft your most efficient code yet.

Your Mission in Coder.IO is to compete against fellow players to accumulate the highest points. You do this by reaching each levels goal first to collect the limited and coveted diamond tokens, and by acquiring new code cards to enhance your capabilities and score more points.

The first thing you need to do is select from four uniquely designed robot avatars, each with its own backstory, but seemingly not power, which seems odd. Pick from Bit-Bit, Hexa, Byte, or Glitch. Now, prepare to code, race, and uncover the secrets that await beyond the portal. Your adventure begins now!

Well, once you have set up a five-by-five grid with the level one tiles, that is. Now your adventure can start. But, of course, you need to deal out the starting cards to each player first as well. Each player has the same starting hand of different cards that let you program your robot to do one of many different actions. But once you have done that, now you can start! For reals this time.

On the starting tiles, there will be some that show a signpost. On these, place an extra code card. Now, players will all program their moves simultaneously, looking to pick up new program cards and reach the portal first. The portal and starting position are random each time and could be anywhere. However, you cannot ever place them next to each other. There are a few small rules about the setup like this, but mostly it is completely random and different each time.

The card you have allows you to move forward, turn your robot 90 or 180 degrees. You can duck under mountains, jump over bushes, pick cards up, or even save your position. However, you can only use your save card once. Saving allows you to stay where you finish if you don't make it to the portal. Otherwise, you have to start at the beginning each time. Although you may not have extra cards to help you along the way. After each turn, you will gain all your cards used back into your hand. Apart from the Save card, if you used it.

Each round has four turns. In that, each player can run their program, using as few or as many cards as they like for four turns. It may end earlier than that if all players make the exit. But you can run up to four if need be. The first person to the portal will gain a bonus point, worth one point in rounds one and two, two points in rounds three and four, and three points in the final two rounds. Only the first there will gain this. So don't dawdle! But also, you don't want to rush too much, as you will need to get more cards along the way to gain the extra points they give, as well as the extra powers they will allow you.

Each round, when either all players have made it to the portal or failed after four tries, you will add more tiles and components in. In total, you will do this over six different levels, each with its own unique setup and added rules. Impassable trees will be added. A flag that you must pick up will come into the game, and even new cards that allow you to use your code cards more than once in the same sequence in new and clever ways.

Each turn, players will be noodling out the best pathway for their robot and trying to create more and more complex pathways and manoeuvres to allow them to gain more cards and reach the portals first. But you will never know what other players may be planning, as even though all players plan their turn simultaneously, turns happen in order. So the thing you moved all that way to go and pick up may not be there by the time you get to it!

The coding is a huge part of this game. And if you enjoy that part of gaming, like in Tiny Epic Mechs, then you will love this game, as they execute the coding in a much more interesting and engaging way than I have seen in a family-weight game like this before. There are interesting and clever things you can do. As I plan my moves, I get genuinely excited and nervous about executing them. Excited, as I am hopeful for a cool move that gains multiple new cards or gets me to the portal in the quickest and most ingenious way! Nervous, as if I am not first, everything may go wrong!

If this sounds like fun to you, then check out the Kickstarter page now. You can find the link to that here.