Racing
RowBot Rally
Staff note: A boat-racing game that has a clever use of cranking to row your boat in the right direction.
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Description
Staff note: A boat-racing game that has a clever use of cranking to row your boat in the right direction. It includes a cute animated story to give you a nice break between each intense race! Team up with a mechanical pal and row for the gold in the annual Fish Bowl! So, you wanna enter the big annual boat-racing competition! It's quite an important event, you know. Alas, evil “RowBots” have torn the whole tourney from the hands of human — (err, animal?) — racers, and the competition’s only getting worse. By tandem-rowing with a defective junkyard RowBot of your own, it’s your goal to defeat these baddies…but soon you may realize, that these waters go deeper than you thought. Can you put a stop to the nefarious Robo-X corpo-conglomerate led by the mischievous Shark Boss, put the evil RowBots in their place once and for all, and win back the spirit of the Fish Bowl (and, perhaps more importantly, that big golden trophy) ? With a lengthy story mode across seven stages, loads of hand-animated cutscenes, competitive on-line leaderboards, and more; RowBot Rally is a tremendously fun top-down boat-racing game for Playdate!
- Crank: Required
- Tilt: Not used
- Microphone: Not used
Collections and awards
Credits
Playdate Community Awards 🥇 2025 WINNER! — Outstanding Visuals (SDK) 🥇 2025 WINNER! — The CRANKY Award 🏅 2025 Nominee — Best Launch Experience 🏅 2025 Nominee — Accomplishment in Accessibility 🏅 2023 Nominee — Most Anticipated Accolades 🎖️ Featured in Catalog's Staff Picks ! Spotlights 👀 Seen at XOXO , PAX , & PRGE in 2024! 🎥 Spotlit in Playdate Update #5 ! Reviews ⭐️ A nice review from Playdate Unofficial! Art and code — Rae Music — Kevin MacLeod SFX — pixabay.com Addtl. art — magPlex and NickNack Addtl. code — Voxy, Toad, superfunc, The3DPrintist, and TheMediocritist Addtl. music — nexusnecromance Pedallica font — Neven Mrgan Kapel font — Font End Dev PDV conversion tool — Dave Hayden Tanuk library — Toad and Schyzo Achievements library — Playdate Squad Bugsmashers — NickNack, orkn, Toad, superfunc, Omikron, budpikmin, Lavender, Yadis, dwfp, Zel, Soinksters, and The3DPrintist Playtesters — AidenKT, magPlex, kiwi, puttheyarndown, sourencho, and ThatWontCompute Thanks — Panic, the Playdate Squad/devlog members, all my friends, SquidGod, and YOU!
Accessibility
This game uses the crank, and requires dexterity in the form of precise, repeated rotations. Alternate button-only controls are also available. This game respects Playdate's Reduce Flashing setting; dampening heavy flashes and screen shakes if enabled. Some cutscenes may contain brief flashing sequences (such as explosions).
Screenshots
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Watch before you crank
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gameplay
Gameplay and impressions / Ballerama - Pew Pew & Other Things
RowBot Rally - Great Playdate concept that made me want to rip the Crank off
gameplay
Gameplay and impressions / Destination Playdate
RowBot Rally - Playdate gameplay + impressions
gameplay
Gameplay and impressions / rae
RowBot Rally - Playdate Update Showcase
Elsewhere in the community
Independent write-ups / not member ratings
Playdate: The Unofficial Website
RowBot Rally
Nick Simberg
2025-01-11
Boats, boats, boats!
Scoreboards
Rankings are read from the public Catalog page. CrankRank does not submit scores.
Short Circuit — Best Times
- 1 hekhound 2,276
- 2 JimmyPlacid 2,283
- 3 RPDev 2,291
- 4 orkn 2,299
- 5 midairmatthew 2,334
- 6 @jsit@social.coop 2,343
- 7 Lyman2012 2,358
- 8 Redd_Panderson 2,374
- 9 NickNack2 2,381
- 10 2DArray 2,382
Short Circuit — Best Times (Mirror Mode)
- 1 hekhound 2,343
- 2 Lyman2012 2,351
- 3 8_bit_BEAR 2,450
- 4 SHiLLySiT 2,486
- 5 andyific 2,542
- 6 5065119321429953 2,589
- 7 orkn 2,633
- 8 dwfp 2,685
- 9 scratchminer 2,691
- 10 midairmatthew 2,966
Surf Sanctuary — Best Times
- 1 hekhound 2,950
- 2 RPDev 2,967
- 3 Lyman2012 3,037
- 4 orkn 3,080
- 5 midairmatthew 3,129
- 6 Avion 3,180
- 7 dwfp 3,190
- 8 rae 3,207
- 9 toad 3,217
- 10 Lav_JuiceBox 3,234
Surf Sanctuary — Best Times (Mirror Mode)
- 1 hekhound 3,036
- 2 Lyman2012 3,043
- 3 orkn 3,224
- 4 dwfp 3,299
- 5 scratchminer 3,369
Paddle Beach — Best Times
- 1 hekhound 1,922
- 2 orkn 1,983
- 3 Lyman2012 2,030
- 4 dwfp 2,088
- 5 fletch 2,109
- 6 TheGabe 2,206
- 7 Lav_JuiceBox 2,262
- 8 btap 2,282
- 9 rae 2,304
- 10 Fenggrosso 2,390
Paddle Beach — Best Times (Mirror Mode)
- 1 hekhound 1,965
- 2 Lyman2012 1,986
- 3 dwfp 2,362
- 4 scratchminer 2,385
- 5 orkn 2,453
Lake Labyrinthus — Best Times
- 1 hekhound 1,048
- 2 orkn 1,064
- 3 btap 1,080
- 4 dwfp 1,082
- 5 Avion 1,134
- 6 rae 1,145
- 7 Lyman2012 1,147
- 8 Fenggrosso 1,182
- 9 TheGabe 1,221
- 10 Mustachute 1,230
Lake Labyrinthus — Best Times (Mirror Mode)
- 1 hekhound 1,074
- 2 Lyman2012 1,087
- 3 orkn 1,286
- 4 dwfp 1,293
- 5 scratchminer 1,443
- 6 Mustachute 1,758
Roguebot Jungle — Best Times
- 1 hekhound 2,882
- 2 Lyman2012 2,911
- 3 orkn 2,989
- 4 5065119321429953 3,292
- 5 btap 3,471
- 6 Fenggrosso 3,626
- 7 dwfp 3,681
- 8 GinFogOwl 3,702
- 9 DTKofoed 3,712
- 10 Mary0709 3,783
Roguebot Jungle — Best Times (Mirror Mode)
- 1 hekhound 2,875
- 2 Lyman2012 2,908
- 3 Lav_JuiceBox 3,156
- 4 orkn 3,367
- 5 dwfp 3,892
- 6 scratchminer 3,899
Cavern Canal — Best Times
- 1 hekhound 1,229
- 2 orkn 1,243
- 3 Lyman2012 1,354
- 4 scratchminer 1,382
- 5 Fenggrosso 1,461
- 6 dwfp 1,470
- 7 SHiLLySiT 1,478
- 8 btap 1,478
- 9 Mustachute 1,496
- 10 Puttheyarndown 1,559
Cavern Canal — Best Times (Mirror Mode)
- 1 hekhound 1,336
- 2 Lyman2012 1,372
- 3 orkn 1,471
- 4 dwfp 1,473
- 5 scratchminer 1,480
- 6 Lav_JuiceBox 1,483
Robo-X Factory — Best Times
- 1 hekhound 1,456
- 2 orkn 1,460
- 3 Lyman2012 1,512
- 4 Fenggrosso 1,679
- 5 dwfp 1,681
- 6 btap 1,694
- 7 scratchminer 1,703
- 8 5065119321429953 1,720
- 9 Mustachute 1,794
- 10 Puttheyarndown 1,852
Robo-X Factory — Best Times (Mirror Mode)
- 1 orkn 1,464
- 2 Lyman2012 1,501
- 3 hekhound 1,560
- 4 Lav_JuiceBox 1,670
- 5 dwfp 1,676
- 6 scratchminer 1,690
Robo-Shark+ — High Scores
- 1 Mary0709 154
- 2 0292951992264061 78
- 3 bryanmick@gmail.com 69
- 4 1642753733581772 44
- 5 tanimayto 40
- 6 rae 37
- 7 5065119321429953 34
- 8 NueaSamut 27
- 9 DTKofoed 26
- 10 SpiderKiss 26
Speedrun Mode — Best Times
Live rankings could not be loaded. The board is still listed on the Catalog page.
Age note: We think this game is appropriate for everyone. There's some mild cartoon violence, like slapstick humor and exploding robots. (Don't worry, they're the bad guys.) This game supports English; basic reading skills may be needed to fully enjoy this game.
AI: This game's developer created it without the use of generative AI.