Machinate Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Machinate, an auction and race game published by Mahraan Qadir & Zach Johnson. In Machinate, players are racing to build their robot the fastest by bidding on robot parts.

Auction games and race games are two of my absolute favorite types of games, so when Mahraan Qadir & Zach Johnson reached out to offer up their title Machinate for review, I knew I had to jump at the chance. Advertising itself as both an auction and race game at once grabbed my attention immediately. So does it live up to its hype and promise? How does a game dance with what seems to be diametrically opposed mechanics? Let’s find out.

Players in Machinate are working towards building a fully functional robot. For it to be complete, a robot must have six body parts: two legs, two arms, a chest, and a head. These body parts are randomly flipped up each round for players to auction off. The player to get all six body parts first wins the game.

But it’s not that simple. See, each body part has some rulebreaker, some special power on it. These range from an influx of cash, to destroying your opponent’s robot parts, to increasing the income you receive at the start of each turn. Partnering these special powers with Utility cards that players can purchase and (usually) activate on their turns leads to a ton of chaotic variety that spices up the simple “bid on the card that’s up for auction” turn structure.

Bid carefully, spend swiftly, and fight tooth and nail to outcompete and outpace your opponents in Machinate.

Machinate is a chaotic time. I know I’ve described it as such already, but there really is no better word for it. At times it can make a game like Cosmic Encounter feel like Chess. And to be clear, I don’t feel this is inherently a bad