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Sentient box art
2017 Ranked #1,299

Sentient

Robot-programming strategy game where competing companies acquire bots and optimize their abilities for the future. Limited drafts and evolving scoring demands force players to decide which machines will work together most effectively.

Strategy Games Industry / Manufacturing Math Area Majority / Influence Open Drafting

Players

2-4

Play time

30-60 min

Age

12+

Complexity

2.2/5

Rating

7.20

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.4/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 4.0/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.7/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.0/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.6/5

Deep strategy

See all 5 specifications

How it plays

How does it play?

Description from the publisher: The next great technological revolution is here. Sentient robots for information, transportation, industry — all at our fingertips.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

Description from the publisher: The next great technological revolution is here. Sentient robots for information, transportation, industry — all at our fingertips. Building them is now the easy part. Programming them has proven to be more complicated. A handful of companies have emerged claiming to pull it off, but only one will win out. Your mission is clear: Procure valuable bots and plug them into your network. They'll have an effect on your systems. Anticipate it correctly, program your bots effectively, and attract the right investors to win and lead the sentient revolution. In Sentient, players are tasked with choosing from available robots to program in their factory. Each robot that is added modifies your board and attracts the interest of investors for your company. Program your bots efficiently and collect the support of your patrons to build the most formidable operation. Description from GTS article: Sentient is a dice-manipulation game by J. Alex Kevern (World’s Fair 1893, Gold West). As with his other games, Sentient is filled with smart, simple, and rewarding choices. Each turn involves choosing an available bot, adding it to your factory, and deciding how to divide your resources between optimizing your bot and wooing investors. Players who enjoy a satisfying puzzle will appreciate the difficulty in adding the chosen bot to their factory. Each slot has a die on either side that will be modified based on the chosen bot card. But, adding another adjacent bot the next turn will modify the dice once again. The dice at the end of the round will determine how efficiently your bots were programmed and will grant you varying points based on the dice numbers. You may have everything perfectly sorted out — that is, until the last bot you choose changes the adjacent dice. Your plan can crumble and points can easily be lost with an errant decision or wrong choice!

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Editions

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Edition Year Language Publisher / Region
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Player resources

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Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
2–4
Best with
2–4
Play time
30–60 min
Age
12+
Complexity
2.2/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

1
J. Alex Kevern

Artists

2
Chris Ostrowski Gordon Tucker

Publishers

1
Renegade Game Studios

Linked items

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