Sentient: Doing Math To Score Your Bots

There’s a misconception among a few people (namely some men I’ve dated) that I’m horrible at math. But in reality, I’m actually pretty decent at math; I just can’t for the life of me do it in my head. Give me some writing utensils and/or my cell phone, and I’ll be able to calculate things and cruise into board-game victory any day.

The first time I encountered Sentient from Renegade Game Studios was late last year, and I was so blown away by it that it immediately made the list for my top 10 games I played for the first time in 2017. Sentient is a clever set-collection, area-control, dice-manipulation game that sometimes involves math. I seriously squealed and said, “That’s FOIL!” when one particular card came out in that first game.

Sentient is a 2- to 4-player game that plays in about an hour, set in a future technological revolution. It’s played over three rounds, in which each player has four actions total.

In each round, players will place four new cards, which are called bots, into their network from those displayed in the factory. The bots will be scored at the end of the round. The round begins with players rolling their dice and placing them across the top of their player board.

The factory is set up at the start of each round. The factory display contains four bots, and five investor tokens and 1 VP chits sitting in between the four bots. There are five types of bot cards: military, industry, service, science and transport. Each player then gets their agent and assistant pawns.

When players take their turns, they place their agent and any assistant pawns they want above a bot in the factory, in between investor tokens. The player then moves the bot into his or her player board. As the bot is placed, symbols on the card can manipulate the dice to the left and right of it, either increasing, decreasing or not changing the dice value. Players can also use any unused assistants to turn off this effect by covering the symbol on the bot card.

And this is where the math comes in. I absolutely love this part of the game; it’s super clever! Across the top of each bot card is an equation. At the end of the round, and after all the dice have been manipulated, the bot card is scored based on if the equation is fulfilled. I can’t think of another board game that has such in-your-face math other than Leaving Earth, also an excellent game.

So now let’s go back to the factory. After everyone takes their four turns, you look to see who has the majority sitting in between the investor tiles. The person who has the most pieces combined between the agent and assistants will get the investor tile. Your pawns count for majority on both investor tiles they’re touching. The second player with majority will get the 1 VP chit. At the end of the game, the investor tiles will be multipliers for however many cards of that same bot card type you pick up.

So in addition to ensuring the bot card will manipulate your dice toward a favorable outcome, you have to decide which bot card at the factory to pick up to boost end-of-the-round scoring from a specific investor tile. If you’re picking up a bunch of military bot cards, then you should place your agents to get majority of the military investor tiles. But then maybe the card next to the military investor tile won’t help your dice? Tough decisions all around! Lastly, each player board already has a built-in investor tile to start with, which gives you a direction to go toward.

For a game that plays in about an hour, Sentient is mathy, crunchy and one giant puzzle; it’s totally right up my alley!