Command Cute Robots in Quirky Circuits: Penny & Gizmo's Snow Day

Command Cute Robots in Quirky Circuits: Penny & Gizmo's Snow Day
Have you been looking for more opportunities to tell robots what to do?

If so, you're in luck as Quirky Circuits: Penny & Gizmo's Snow Day is coming from Nikki Valens and Plaid Hat Games. This standalone game features gameplay similar to 2019's Quirky Circuits, but with new scenarios in a smaller box and a lower price (US$20 vs US$50).

Board Game: Quirky Circuits: Penny & Gizmo's Snow Day!

In case you're not familiar with the gameplay of Quirky Circuits, here's my write-up from a preview at the 2019 Toy Fair New York:
Quote:
The gist of the game is that you need to clean house. Dust bunnies are everywhere! Remove them! Thankfully you have a cat, Gizmo, riding an automated vacuum device to guide around the room and suck everything up. The problem, though, is that every player is controlling this device at the same time, and you don't know what they're doing when.

Board Game: Quirky Circuits
In game terms, everyone has a hand of cards, and these cards show directions or speeds: turn left, turn right, go ahead 1-3 spaces, reverse 1 space, etc. Gizmo starts in one corner of the room, and at the start of a round players start playing cards face down in a row without saying which cards they played. Once you've played at least five cards — with each player contributing at least one card if I remember correctly — you can decide to stop playing cards, reveal them, then move Gizmo. Turn, move, turn, move, move! If Gizmo hits a wall, it automatically turns left. Sometimes you want this to happen since you don't have a turn card in hand; sometimes you guess that someone turned instead of moving and you guess wrong, so Gizmo heads off in an unexpected direction. At the end of the movement, you drop the battery one level, refill your hand, then play another round. If you suck up all the dust bunnies before the battery goes dead, you win.

In later rounds, you start adding complications, such as small vases on tables. Hit the table, and the vase falls on the floor and breaks, giving you more to clean up in order to claim victory. You have different room layouts to contend with, special movement cards that must be the first card you play in a round, and different cleaning robots with varied abilities.
And here's the pitch from Plaid Hat for this new release:
Quote:
Help Penny and Gizmo have the best snow day ever in Quirky Circuits: Penny & Gizmo's Snow Day, a co-operative programming game for the whole family.

Board Game: Quirky Circuits: Penny & Gizmo's Snow Day!

All players must work as a team to complete unique scenarios across a 20-page game book, with each scenario being quirkier than the last. Chase down naughty dust bunnies around the house with Gizmo! Slide into action and collect all the flags with Penny, a snowboarding penguin and the newest resident robot in Robotopia. Use movement cards to program robots across each map, but be careful! Players have only limited information as to which cards their teammates have played. Program wrong, and your robot could be left spinning its wheels in a corner. Move too slowly and your robo-friend will run out of battery!
Is Gizmo riding that automated vacuum in the snow?! That will not end well.

Plaid Hat Games notes that this game is available for pre-order through Barnes & Noble in the U.S., and the game has a general retail release date of March 9, 2022.

Board Game: Quirky Circuits: Penny & Gizmo's Snow Day!

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