Here comes the two stopper

Racing games are always fun. Well pretty much always. I like a good racing game I do. I rarely win a racing game but then again I rarely win lots of games

We played an old classic at Gael con. The original Formula De. Every time I play this game there’s a shout of “we’ll only do one lap”, this was no different.

There’s a real charm to Formula De. It’s simple, it’s German. I’m not sure how well it simulates a formula one race and I’ve never played the advanced rules but I’ve always enjoyed myself with it

It’s best played with six or more (as long as you don’t have slow players) and if you have time do play the full two laps. It’s a much more tactical game and doing a pit stop is pretty much essential.   If you have five or fewer players take two cars each and it’s dynamite.

The game is essentially about getting your gears right. There we six dice from a lowly two sides to the mighty footballesque one that sports over twenty plus sides.

The trick is the higher dice have a Range of numbers. So for example fourth gear goes from 8 to 16. Fifth goes from 14 to 20 and so on so your guaranteed to be in a particular range of numbers when you roll it.

The track is laid out as a long grid and you move your car the number of squares indicated on the dice roll. So far so simple. To make it more interesting the track has a number of corners with a clump of squares you have to stop in as you pass through so it’s a gamble. Do I drop a gear and for sure make it into this corner or do I roar ahead and hope I get the dice roll I’m after? A limited amount of Brakes and Tyre points allow you to adjust the dice roll but mess up too much and you’ll spin out and have to restart in first gear.

So it’s a push your luck game and if you take It nice and handy you will make it very neatly around the track. Of course since everyone else is breathing down your neck it becomes just like real racing a white knuckle ride.

It’s a fun game, not to be taken too seriously and there is a reasonable chunk of random in there.

There’s a newer version of the game out since the one we played and it does play a bit different.  I only played that one once so I couldn’t gauge  if it was better or worse, my feeling was worse but it needs a replay.

There’s a number of race games out there but this one really is a classic and well worth a spin.  It comes with two tracks but there’s a bunch of add ons for it and a big set of both official and unofficial rules for Grand Prix season, weather, car design and so on.

Certainly worth considering as it’s suitably different.

Huzzah!

 

Vic