Cardboard Corner: Quirky Circuits

I would not describe my family as a “board game family”, but certainly we have a small collection which gets played a couple of times per week. Cooperative, competitive, and otherwise, we look for fun experiences that we all enjoy, and, if dear ol’ dad has a say, experiences which might secretly develop my little ones’ minds. In rather typical online fashion, I saw a recommendation for Quirky Circuits (2019) that seemed interesting. I had a look at a couple reviews. It seemed to be something which fit my family—and their development potential, and so we picked it up. Let’s have a look.

Quirky Circuits is a cute little cooperative game that sees players working (silently) together to program robots to perform a wide variety of tasks. Gizmo is a cat vacuum looking to hoover up dust bunnies. Rover is a robo-dog looking to dig up old bones. Lefty is a sushi-line chef. And Twirly is a backyard bee, helping you with your gardening. Each robot having its own special deck of cards and own scenarios, on their turn players are dealt five random cards. Working within the limitations of the scenario, players silently play cards from their hand face down, trying to guide the robot through a grid to accomplish the scenario’s objective. The trick is, the amount of information available to the other players is limited, meaning some mind reading is needed. Let the robot’s battery run out, you lose. Good at estimating what cards were played and what cards need to be played, you have a chance at winning—and you don’t need to be silent about that.

Quirky Circuits is a game from Plaid Hat’s adventure book line, meaning each page presents players a different scenario, including the victory objective and any special rules. Each robot having five scenarios that become progressively difficult, there are an additional five advanced scenarios at the end, for a total of twenty-five challenges for players to work through. The plastic robot figures begging for your kids to paint them, and the adventure book scenarios colorful and engaging, Quirky Circuits looks and feels great on the table.

The rules clear and the scenarios also clear, Quirky Circuits allows players to focus on working together strategically and “telepathically”. Thus while silence is the norm, it doesn’t mean communication, or at least active thinking communally, are not happening. Because communication is happening non-verbally, the degree of connection among players is stronger, making for an interesting game. Dare I say it reduces disagreement—and certainly the alpha gamer!

Quirky Circuits will not go down as the Greatest Co-op Game of All Time. But it is a solid, fun little game that my family played through all twenty-five scenarios, several more than once as we were not always successful, but always enjoyed. When looking to spend $25, what more could you ask for? My children loved the robots, indeed painting them, and equally loved the gameplay. My son would not stop playing until we’d met the objectives of the scenario we were playing. The art colorful and fun, the rules easy for kids to understand, and the adventure book concept fitting the game perfectly (or vice versa), this is a nice little package for families.