From Rallyman:
After drawing your rally-track (by connecting sides of 1, 2, 3 or 4 boards that are each double-sided, one side with asphalt, and the other side with snow) you begin the race.
The movement system is simple : each die rolled, you advance one space. So you have 5 dice for each of the speeds and 2 of ‘gas’ to continue moving without changing your speed. Each die is playable once and only once each turn. When you stop your movement, you take a card corresponding to the last speed that you started: the higher your speed, the lower your time.
The track has obviously straight lines and turning areas require a certain speed that you can pass with different manners (by skidding, sharp turning, …).
You must roll the die because it determines the speed selected, but may show a “!” which will put you in danger. The 3rd “!” displayed, your car will risk going spinning off the road, resulting in loss of time (1’00”instead of the scheduled time on your card) but sometimes also damage to the vehicle as the landscape in which you go (grassland, mountain forest : loss of 0 to 2 of speed used in each round.
At the end of each round, each player adds his times for his total time. The winner is the player who accumulates the least time in total.
The ability to take risks to scrape a few seconds (and then release them to ensure a tricky) or the tire management (is it better to take slicks on the short portion snow tires or snow on the portion asphalt in a special joint ?) adds more to the simulation.
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Rallyman?! I love Rallyman. It has a very different vibe than Formula D.
In FD you move the number of spaces based on the die you rolled. In Rallyman, you move one space per die and each die represents a different gear. You need to plot out how you’re going to use your dice each turn as certain corners have to be taken at a certain gear.
You have the option of either throwing all your dice at once (and earn bonus seconds to reduce your overall time at the end of the stage) or roll the dice one at a time (like a wuss) to play it safe.
The danger is that if you roll three caution symbols you suffer a loss of control, which can result in you going off track. Happened to me twice last night and I was beaten by an eight year old. Not my best moment. 🙂
The higher the gear you finish the turn in, the fewer seconds you accumulate during your total time. So, in a perfect world you’d end each turn in 5th gear. But because there are jumps and corners that restrict your movement and you can only go up shift or down shift during a turn, you can’t always work it that way.
Another positive for me is that this game plays very well solo (so you don’t have to be beaten by your children) where you attempt to beat your best times. It also lends itself well to Play By Forum type competitions on BGG or the publisher’s site (where they run an annual rally … just be prepared to brush up on your French for that one though).
Probably the best feature of this game is its modular boards. One of the drawbacks of FD to me was that it only came with two tracks and additional two track map packs were $30 USD a pop, Rallyman offers a near limitless number of track configurations. I think all racing games should feature a similar design.