Dumbots · Robot tactics for your phone and browser

How a turn works

1 Plan in secret

Tap a robot, tap where it should go. Add a Look, a Wait, a Scan, a stance, a shot at a tile, a grenade, smoke or a mine. A timeline shows where all your robots will be at every moment. Your opponent does the same, and neither of you sees the other's plan.
2 Everything happens at once

Every player's plan runs at the same time, for 15 seconds. Robots fire on their own at any enemy they're looking at, so where a robot looks matters as much as where it walks. Plans collide: robots bump into each other, dodge, and walk into crossfire.
3 Watch the movie

The turn plays back as a movie, showing only what your own robots saw. Missiles in flight finish their flight. Then plan the next turn, until only one team is left or the turn limit is up.

The robots

Six types, each good at one thing. Pick 4 to 8 robots (6 by default), any mix: up to half the team plus one of a type, and at most 1 Medic.

Rifle

The all-rounder

Quick, long-ranged and steady-handed: its aim shrugs off half of a target’s cover and crouch. Fires on the move.

Heavy Machine Gun

The Gatling

A hail of fast rounds that catches robots on the move. Has to stop to fire, and aims best crouched or down. The heaviest armour on the slowest legs.

Missileer

Artillery

Long-range missiles that arc over half-walls and burst on impact. Slow to reload and slow to fly: a target that keeps moving can dodge them. Fires on the move, and a popgun for close calls.

Stealth

Hidden scout

Invisible while it stands still: slip it in close and it watches the enemy for your team without being seen. Its zap never misses and hits hard at anything that steps next to it, from any side, so it can strike when the moment is right. Moving or zapping gives it away, and once spotted it stays visible while an enemy has eyes on it. A popgun for when it has to shoot.

Light/Auto

Scout

The fastest robot on the board. A burst rifle, two mines to leave behind, and legs that jump half-walls.

Medic

Support

No gun at all. Heals teammates next to it, even standing by to heal as the damage comes in, from one supply for the whole match. When it runs dry, it rockets off the board.

Side by side

	Rifle	HMG	Missileer	Stealth	Light	Medic
Health	90	120	115	80	90	70
Armour	15%	35%	30%	20%	15%	15%
Speed (tiles/s)	3.3	2	2.5	3.3	5	3.3
Weapon	Rifle	HMG	Missile	Zap	Burst Rifle	No
Damage	22	9	60	60	3 × 12	No
Range (tiles)	14	9	2–16	adjacent	12	No
Fires on the move	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Splash damage	No	No	Yes	No	No	No
Arcs over half-walls	No	No	Yes	No	No	No
Steady aim	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Popgun backup	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Jumps half-walls	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No
Invisible when still	No	No	No	Yes	No	No
Grenades	1	1	1	1	1	No
Mines	No	No	No	No	2	No
Heals teammates	No	No	No	No	No	200% a match
Self-destruct	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

Walls and cover

Cover on the board: a brick wall, a car wreck, a tyre stack, a container, a half-wall, bushes and a destroyed robot.

Two heights, easy to read

Full walls and containers block movement and sight. Half-walls and car wrecks block movement but not sight. Sit in a ring of tyres, sandbags or garden planters to take half damage. Bushes hide you; a destroyed robot leaves a wreck that is cover for the rest of the match. Tall things have long shadows, low things short ones.

Three robots behind half-walls: standing, crouched and in full crouch.

Stand, crouch or get down

A half-wall only protects the robot hugging it. Standing, it fires over and takes less damage. Crouched, it can't be hit from afar, but can't fire either. In full crouch it can't see or be seen across the wall. Lower stances are harder to hit and take less damage, but crouching is slow and full crouch can't move at all.

Cover works both ways

Rounds aimed at a crouched robot behind a half-wall strike the wall, unless the shooter stands within 3 tiles and fires down over it. Missiles arc over half-walls from any distance.

Over the top

The Light and the Stealth jump half-walls (and wrecks) in a slow, high leap, where everyone else walks round. Tap a tile beyond the wall and the route goes over it when that is faster.

Robots hiding inside a bush, tinted and half covered by leaves.

Bushes

A robot in full crouch in a bush is hidden until an enemy comes within 4 tiles, or it fires. Once it has given itself away it stays spotted while it stays put. A bush also makes a robot harder to hit, though a hit does full damage.

High ground, low ground

Up a scaffold

Stand up and climb a scaffold (slowly), and your gun reaches 3 tiles further. From up there you see further and shoot over half-walls, so they give no cover against you. But you get nailed up there: everyone sees you from further off, shots hit you more often and every hit does half as much damage again, and you can only stand.

Dug into a foxhole

A robot in a foxhole has cover on every side and can't be seen from more than 3 tiles away until it fires; once seen there, it stays seen. It sees as far as anyone, but only over open ground: half-walls block its view. A grenade still hurts in full, and climbing out is slow.

Fog of war

You only see what your robots see. Sight has no range limit, but walls block it, heads look one way at a time (a 180° view, with only the middle 90° firing by itself), and a still Stealth is invisible. The same moment, seen by each side:

Red's view of the moment: one enemy in the open; the missileer behind the wall and the still Stealth are hidden. — **Red sees** the Heavy Machine Gun in the open. Not the Missileer behind the wall, not the Stealth standing still.

Blue's view of the same moment: Red's robot in the open; the Light crouched in the bush is hidden. — **Blue sees** Red's Rifle. Not the Light crouched in the bush, more than 4 tiles from any Blue robot.

Online, the server only ever sends you your own view: hidden enemies' positions, orders and mines never reach your device.

Every shot is real

Friendly fire. A round can hit any robot in its path, whoever's it is: the more exposed, the likelier, and rounds mostly pass over a robot keeping low. Mind your fire lanes.

Smoke. Every robot carries a smoke bomb. Nobody sees into, out of or through the cloud, and throwing it gives nothing away.

Grenades. Every robot but the Medic carries one, lobbed over walls onto robots you can't see. It blows up a 3×3 square a second later, friends included, and gives the thrower away to anyone watching it.

Self-destruct. Any robot but the Medic can blow itself up. A red light blinks for two seconds, then it's gone and everything next to it takes a heavy hit, friends included. Destroy it before the light runs out and nothing happens.

Mines. The Light lays up to two. Only your team knows where they are, and they go off under anyone, yourself included.

The Stealth's zap. Its main weapon: step next to a hidden Stealth and it zaps you, hard, from any direction.

A Medic healing a damaged teammate next to it. — **The Medic** heals the teammate next to it, about 10% a second, from one supply for the whole match.

Out of juice. When its supply runs dry, the Medic rockets off the board, seen by every enemy within 12 tiles.

Moving repairs. Every robot repairs itself as it walks, 1 health for every tile, up to full. Standing still repairs nothing: keep moving to recover.

Shots are projectiles with a travel time: fast rifle rounds rarely miss, slow missiles are aimed where a moving target is heading, so stopping or turning dodges them. Robots aim worse on the move, and better at a still, uncovered target: a robot that keeps moving is harder to hit.

Maps

Ruined streets, outposts and scrapyards, each quarter laid out differently and balanced by measurement, plus a small symmetric Arena for quick games. Or play on a random map, made fresh for each game so nobody knows it.

The Arena map. — **Arena** 15×15
sandbag rings

The Suburb map. — **Suburb** 24×24
garden-planter rings, scaffolds, foxholes

The Fortified Outpost map. — **Fortified Outpost** 24×24
sandbag rings, scaffolds, foxholes

The Scrapyard map. — **Scrapyard** 24×24
tyre rings, scaffolds, foxholes

The City Block map. — **City Block** 36×36
sandbag rings, scaffolds, foxholes

A random map, made for one game. — **Random** 15×15 or 24×24
A new map for every game, checked for fairness

Ways to play

Two, three or four sides. Against the computer or in pass & play, up to four teams fight at once, everyone against everyone, each from its own corner.

Vs computer

Three personalities and three difficulties, against one, two or three computer teams. The computer plays fair: it only knows what its own robots have seen, and picks its team without seeing yours.

Online, in your own time

Create a game for two, three or four players and send the invite link. Plan, press Done, close the app. The turn plays out once everyone has planned. My games lists what each game is waiting for, and notifications tell you when it's your move.

Pass & play

Two to four players, one phone or computer. Each plans in secret and hands the device over, and each watches every turn alone, seeing only what their own robots saw.

Build your team

Before every match, pick your line-up in secret. You know the size of the enemy team, never its mix, until your robots see it.

Ready, set, Done.

A match takes 20 turns at most. The first one takes about a minute to plan. The full rules are in How to play.

Play now