Fzzzt!

Fzzzt! "A futuristic robot auction game with some dodgy mechanics".

It's a new-fangled modern age, a brave new world, of extraordinary, strange and crazy robots; designed and built in a crackpot factory by the Master Central Processing Unit version D (or McPUD, for short).

McPUD has recently been suffering from a number of software bugs which affects the speed of robot production, the types of robots produced (each has one or more symbols) and, occasionally, their life-expectancy.

You are a mechanic, competing to buy robots as they become available on the factory's conveyor belt. Each game consists of five auction rounds; during each round, eight robot cards will be individually auctioned to the highest bidder though you won’t necessarily get to see all eight of the robots in advance - it all depends on how fast McPUD is running the conveyor belt!

Mechanics pay for these cards using the power allocations on cards in hand which include, as the game progresses, robots they have already purchased.

After each round, and at the end of the game, mechanics can also allocate some of their cards to Production Units (special cards requiring sets of robots with particular symbols) for bonus points.

The winner is the mechanic with the most points.

"Fzzzt! - Yesterday's men building tomorrow's world today".