After the seasonal lull of December, gaming was back with a vengeance in January.
Different games played was doubled as was total games played! But first plays quintupled! Yes it only went from 1 to 5 but's still an increase.

First plays: 5
Different games: 33
​Total games: 48

​Sunday 29th on Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers - 59
Can't Stop - 37
Roll'n Bump - 9
Railroad Ink - 44
Just One - 12
Forbidden Island - 17

Saturday 28th Wogglecon 6
Skulk Hollow - First Play!
Point Salad - 4
Ligretto - First Play!
Dominion  - First Play!
The Great Dalmuti - 2
No Thanks! - First Play!
Switch & Signal - 2

Friday 27th Woking
Cascadia - 6

Sunday 22nd on Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers - 58
Can't Stop - 36
Via Magica - 13
Cloud City - 17
Carcassonne - 12
Sushi Go! - 16
Just One - 11
Forbidden Island - 16

Thursday 19th Aldershot
The Lost Expedition - 4
Furnace - 2

Tuesday 17th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
My Little Scythe - 2

Sunday 15th on Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers - 57
Loco Momo - 16
Parks - 16
Railroad Ink - 43
Forbidden Island - 15

Tuesday 10th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Akropolis - 3
It's a Wonderful World - 6

Sunday 8th on Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers - 56
Can't Stop - 35
Roll'n Bump - 8
Stella: Dixit Universe - 13
Forbidden Island - 14
Just One - 10

Thursday 5th Aldershot
Scout - 3
HeroQuest - 9

Tuesday 3rd at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Rolling Realms - 3
Heat: Pedal to the Metal - First Play!

Sunday, New Year's Day! on Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers - 55
Can't Stop - 34
Potion Explosion - 15
Azul - 10
Cosmos: Empires - 2
Just One - 9

28th January 2023

It's Early in the year and a Saturday morning. Wogglecon 6 is here a day of is taking place at the Bisley scout hall with the Woking Gaming Club.

During the day, I played the following games.

​Skulk Hollow - First Play!
​Point Salad
Ligretto - First Play!
​Dominion - First Play!
The Great Dalmuti
No Thanks! - First Play!
Switch & Signal

28th January 2023

Wogglecon 6, a day of gaming at the Bisley Scout Hall continues and the next game of the day is Skulk Hollow.

I didn't know that it turns out that little anthropomorphic fox dudes and giant stone creatures seem to really hate each: Which is what Skulk Hollow is all about in this asymmetrical strategy game!

What's in a game?
Skulk Hollow is a 2-player game where one player takes on the role of a 'Foxen' hero who leads a band of Foxen warriors against a lone guardian who is a literal colossal stony force of nature.
​Each player has their own unique decks, components and gameplay.

• Board: Skulk Hollow uses a modestly sized square board which is divided into a 3x3 grid. Unusually, during play the board is rotated 45' diamond configuration, this all the spaces are actually diamond shaped.
  Each of the 9 grid spaces sort of have their own visual theme. Additionally, 2 opposing corners are the 'start spaces'.

• Green wound tokens: These wooden tokens are used to track damage on the guard board.​
  ​

The component quality in Skulk is excellent.
The tokens and meeples all feel solid and look great. Obviously the massive guardian meeple is the notable standout component, yes, perhaps you could call it a gimmick but it fits thematically.
The use of card boxes is a nice touch of presentation.

The art is equally high quality. Skulk Hollow uses a coloured line illustration somewhat cartoonish style that's colourful, bright, detailed and suits the games slight whimsical (At least as whimsical as 2 factions battling each other can get!) nature.
I've found that anthropomorphic art can be divisive as a style but I think the anthropomorphic character art on card looks pretty good regardless of what your stance is.
The game board also looks great and I like how compact it is.

With regards to iconography, Skulk Hollow uses fair amount but it all seems pretty self-explanatory. Icons for movement are easily understood, as are the icons for actions such melee, leap, etc.
I don't imagine players having any problem understanding the game.

How's it play?
Setup

• Roles: First determine who will play the Foxten hero and guardian.
• Board: Put out the game board, as stated earlier, it should positioned in a 'diamond' orientation.
• Guardian player: The guardian chooses a guardian card box of their choice, then they take the relevant guardian player mat and guardian board.
  The player mat will tell the player how to set up for the game.
  Finally the guardian player takes their action deck and shuffles it into a face-down deck and draws cards to their hand limit - which is determined by the guardian player mat.
• Foxen player: This player now chooses one of the Foxen Leaders takes the Foxen player mat.
  ​The Foxen leader and Sentinel cards are immediately put into play and their respective meeples should be placed on their starting spaces.
  Then all the hero unit cards and order cards should be shuffled into a face-down deck, the Foxen player should then draws up to their hand limit - as determined by their Foxen hero mat.

On to play
Being a 2-player game, Skulk Hollow uses a very traditional turn order with one player completing their turn before play moves over to their opponent and continues alternating between them for the entirety of the game.
Additionally, the Foxen hero player always starts.

During their turn, the player will have a number of actions points (AP) available to them which is determined by which Foxen hero/guardian they chose, although typically this is 2-3 APs.

• Actions: The active player can choose from the following actions.
  • Play card: This is the most common action in Skulk Hollow and there  are a wide variety of actions that can be performed, some common to both players and some unique to each. 
    Gain power: This action is available to the Foxen hero player but only certain guardians. Functionally, it works the same for both players. The player will gain power cubes as listed on the played card. These cubes do not go directly on to either any heroes cards or guardian board, instead they go into a central 'reserve'. More on power later.
    Move: This action allows the Foxen player to move one of their units or the guardian player to move the guardian 1 space. Arrows on the card will indicate how the movement can occur.
    Play hero card: This action is only available to the Foxen hero player. If they have a hero unit card in their hand, they can spend a AP to put it into play. When the card is played, it's pertinent meeple should be placed on the board.
    Use power: This is only available to the guardian player and it allows the guardian to use the power listed on the card and as per it's description on the guardian player mat.
    Guardians have a range of powers but generally they involve dealing wounds to the Foxen heroes.
    Hero actions: Only the Foxen player can use these 3 actions for their units.
    When playing a card, the player choose from the action at the top of the card or the bottom, not both. furthermore, only heroes with a symbol matching the action can use it. Thus, a hero unit must have a boot symbol on their card to use the leap action.
    • Leap: If the hero unit is on the same space as the guardian, they can use the leap action to jump on it! This means their meeple is moved on to the guardian board. Additionally, if a hero unit is already on the guardian board, they can use the leap action to move to a different location, following one of the dotted lines.
    • Melee: A hero unit that is on the guardian board may use the melee action to inflict 1 wound on their current location
    • Missile: This action allows a hero with the missile icon to make a ranged attack on the guardian and they do not need to be on the guardian board to inflict wounds. There are some restrictions including:
      Fire: If a hero has the 'fire' tag, they can only launch a missile attack from a space on the board adjacent to the guardian's space.
      Hurl: This tag allows a hero to launch a missile attack while on the same space as the guardian on the game board.
  • Prepare: This action requires an AP and either player may perform it. It allows the player to discard a card and draw 2 new ones.
  • Spend power: This action does not actually require any APs. Instead it uses a power cube that has been allocated to either a hero or guardian.
    Each cube spent this ways grants the respective player an additional action to the unit/guardian that spend the cube. This allows them to perform an action as displayed on their respective card/board, or to move.
• End of turn: Once the active player has used all their APs, they must do the following.
  Draw cards: The player should draw cards to reach their hand limit. If their current hand is equal to or above the limit, ignore this step.
  Allocate power: If the active player had gained power cubes during this turn, they now allocate them to their units/guardian as they see fit.
  Opponent's turn: Play now progresses to the active player's opponent.

​Additional rules

• Wounds: There are some rules regarding how wounds are manged, which is slightly different for each player:
  • Hero unit: If all the heart spaces on a hero unit's card are filled, that hero is eliminated, it's meeple is removed from play and it's card is placed into the discard pile. Potentially that hero can come back into play if the discard pile is shuffled into a new deck.
  • Foxen leader: If the Foxen leader has all its heart spaces filled, it's pretty bad news for the Foxen player. However, there is something the Foxen leader can do to avoid damage, which is called...
    Banding: Basically, if there are other Foxen hero units in the same game board space as the leader, then the unit(s) take the damage instead, presumably as they throw themselves into harm's way. Thus the leader cannot be targeted when not alone.
  • Guardian: Wounds affect the guardian in 2 ways.
    Powers: On the guardian board, each power's location will have several heart spaces, if all  wound spaces on a power's location are filled, then the guardian player can no longer use that power until they somehow heal at least 1 wound.
    Full wounds: If the guardian board has all it's heart spaces filled, then it's bad news for the guardian player...
• Depleting action deck: If any time a player empties their action deck, they then simply shuffle their discard pile into a new deck.

​Endgame
There are 3 ways the game end can be triggered.

• If the Foxen leader has all the heart spaces on their card filled, they are defeated and the guardian player immediately wins.
• If the guardian board has all it's heart spaces filled, the guardian is defeated and the Foxen heroes player immediately wins.
• Each guardian has their own unique victory condition. If that condition is met, then the guardian player immediately wins.

Overall
Skulk Hollow has asymmetrical and card driven gameplay which presents players with some challenging, meaningful choices and options.

Players will instinctively want to play cards with maximum efficiency to inflict maximum damage but sometimes because of their hand of cards, players won't be guaranteed having the card to make the move they they need and they'll be forced to adapt.
This can be a little frustrating but also makes hand management quite important, sure a player can use a strong card now but sometimes it's worth keeping hold of it for perhaps a more effective use in a later round. It should be mentioned that some of the guardians have smaller hand sizes, meaning they are trickier to play.

Of course, players will also want to watch their opponents, paying attention to which cards they play and when. - There's a bit of higher level play here about tracking opponent's actions, essentially a bit of card counting.

Otherwise it's quite tricky to describe gameplay; with 4 Foxen leaders and 4 guardians, the various combinations will at least to some extent dictate player tactics - as will the actions of opponents. Skulk Hollow feels like it's about playing the player as much as playing the game.

Finally; Skulk Hollow is a 2-player game and I'm always a bit wary of 2-player games as they can revert to a traditional 1-on-1 directly confrontational game, this is definitely the case with Skulk Hollow. While the game is not particularly chess-like, with moving pieces about a board to eliminate your opponent, it does provide something of a chess-like experience and to be honest, it's a playstyle that I'm not personally overly enamoured with. Your mileage will of course vary.

Having said all of that; I like to think that I can recognise a well crafted game when I play one and that's what I think this is.

Thematically, Skulk Hollow is quite strong.
The 'numerous weaker units vs a single giant enemy' gameplay draws inspiration from some classic older games.
While, with its climbing on to, running around and stabbing bits of a colossal monster, it's undeniable that Skulk Hollow also takes some thematic inspiration from a certain videogame and it makes for a entertaining concept to add to a board game.
It adds up to an interesting game, both visually and mechanically.

it is a mid-weight, asymmetrical game that features a lot of player interaction and conflict with moderate tactics and touch of luck. The various combinations of the 2 battling factions also provides a fair bit of replayability.
If you want a 2-player game with those elements, Skulk Hollow is worth a look.

28th January 2023

Our day of gaming with The Woking Gaming Club at Wogglecon 6 continued with Ligretto.

I don't know what Ligretto is meant to mean but it gets shouted a lot when playing this real-time, abstract card game.

It's time to begin the blog so without any further ado... LIGRETTO!

What's in a game?
There are 3 versions of Ligretto; red, green and blue. They are functionally identical except for the backs, which indicate which decks they are and which set they come from.
A single set of Ligretto is enough for 4 players, having all 3 sets means there's enough for 12 players!
​

• Cards: A set of Ligretto comes with 160 cards, which is 4 decks of 40 cards each.
  Furthermore. each 40 card deck has cards numbered 1-10 4 times, once in each of the game's 4 colours.
  Backs: Each 40 card deck has a slightly different back to differentiate it from the other decks

Well that's it for components.

The cards are the standard quality you'd expect for a modern game.

Ligretto makes great use of colour, the 4 colours are all bright, vibrant and distinctive. Otherwise, there's no illustrations and minimal art for Ligretto, just some detailing. This is by no means a bad thing. Ligretto is an abstract game, trying to fit a theme to it would just feel like shoehorning.
I do have one small criticism that is directed at the backs of the cards which could have have been more distinct from each other.

Ligretto also has no iconography other than numbers, players will have no trouble understanding the game.

How's it play?
Setup

• Decks: Give each player a deck of 40 cards, this should consist of cards numbered 1-10 in each of 4 colours. Thus each player should have all the cards with an identical back.
  Each player should shuffle their cards into a face-down deck.
  Ligretto stack: First, each player should now deal 10 cards face-up into a stack. This is their Ligretto stack.
  Row: Next, each player should deal 3 face-up cards into a row alongside their Ligretto stack.
  Hand: Players should now keep all their remaining cards (There should be 27.) in their hand.

On to play
Ligretto is played simultaneously by all players in real time which means there are no turns or any turn structure.
The purpose is to play as many cards as possible (An as quickly as possible.) before the round end is triggered, which occurs when any player's Ligretto stack is emptied. How is this done - read on.

• Start: To start a round, someone must shout "Ligretto,".
• Objective: Players are looking to play cards to create stacks of the same colour numbered sequentially from 1-10. There are of course some rules and restrictions for this.
  • The first card in a stack must always be a '1'.
  • The next card played on a stack must be the same colour and also the next number in the sequence. I.e., only a green 5 can be played on a green 4.
  • Any player may play a legal card on any stack.
  • Once a stack reaches 10, it is completed, no further cards can be played on it.
• Playing cards: There are several ways a player may play a card providing the criteria mentioned above are met.
  Row: A card may be played from a player's row. When this is done, it is immediately replaced by the top card of their Ligretto stack.
  Ligretto stack: Alternatively, a player may play the top card from their Ligretto stack.
  Hand: If a player cannot play a card from either their row or stack, they must discard 3 cards from their hand face-up into a discard pile. The 3rd card (And only the 3rd card.) they put into the discard becomes available to play.
  If that card cannot be played, then the player must continue discarding cards, 3 at a time until they get a card that can be played.
  If a player's hand of card empties, they must shuffle the discard pile into a new hand.
• Round end: As soon as the last card from any player's Ligretto stack is played, that player must shout "Ligretto stop!" and the round immediately ends.
  Points: Now points are calculated.
  Only cards played into stacks and cards remaining in all players' Ligretto stacks are used for scoring, all other cards are put aside for now.
  • Stacks: Take all the stacks, sort and separate the cards according to their backs. This will indicate how many cards each player has played. Players gain 1 victory point (VP) per card they played.
  • Ligretto stack: Now each player counts how many cards they have remaining in their personal stack. Players lose 2 VP per card they have remaining!
• Next round: All cards are returned to their respective owners.
  All players shuffle their cards then deal a Ligretto stack and row in preparation for the next round.

Endgame
As soon as any player has scored 99 or more points at the end of a round, the game ends.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Speed and reflexes drive gameplay in Ligretto. The objective is pretty simple - play as many cards as possible while emptying the Ligretto stack.
Not only will players have to pay attention for opportunities to play cards, they'll also want to think ahead.
Canny players will keep a sharp eye out for stacks which are 2 numbers lower than cards they want to play so that as soon as an opponent adds a card to that stack, they can immediately add to it themselves.

As a rule, I'm wary of dexterity, reflex or reaction based games and to be honest, it's not why I like or play board games. In fact, I like board games because they generally do away with those elements.

Which brings me to Ligretto; a real-time, twitch game. This should irk me but because this is essentially a party game and not to be taken seriously, the relative simplicity of the gameplay and brisk playtime prevent it being frustrating.
Ligretto is a fun filler game and its light touch can provide some low intensity entertainment after a more demanding game. It also works as a good crossover game, it can easily be played with families and more casual players. We never played it with it's max player count of 12 but I imagine it would be a quite boisterous affair.

If you don't mind the reflex based gameplay, Ligretto provides a fun experience and something a little different. Worth a try in my opinion.

28th January 2023

It's a Saturday afternoon and we're at Wogglecon 6 for a whole day of gaming fun!

​The second game of the day was No Thanks!

Do you want to play a bad game? No Thanks!
Do you want to play a game with a long play time? No Thanks!
Do you want to play a game with complex rules? No Thanks!

​That's right, No Thanks! is none of those, instead it's an accessible family or party game.

What's in a game?

• Cards: No Thanks! comes with 33 oversized cards numbered 3-35.
• Counters: The game also comes with 55 counters.

Due to their size, the cards feel a little flimsy but I'd say they're of an average quality.

There also no iconography on the cards, only numbers. ​

How's it play?
Setup

• Cards: Shuffle the cards into a face-down deck and discard 9 cards.
• Counters: Give each player 7-11 counters depending on player count.
  During the game, it is prudent for all players to keep their counters secret the easiest manner to keep them in a closed hand.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
The objective in No Thanks! is to score the lowest score, that is; acquire the least number of cards during the game. Each card will score its face value at the game end.
No Thanks! uses a traditional turn order with the active player taking their action before play progresses to the player on their left.
The game starts with the first player who begins the game as the active player.

• Reveal: The active player starts a round by flipping a card and placing it in front of themselves.
• Choose: The active player must now chose from 1 of the 2 following options.
  • No Thanks!: The active player may choose to pass by stating. "No Thanks!", in this case they must place one of their counters on the card.
    Next player: The card is then passed to the player on the left who now becomes the active player (Who now must choose whether to pass or take.).
    No counters: If the active player has no counters, then they must choose the other option...
  • Take: The other option is to take the card. The active player takes the card (And any counters placed on it.), adds it to their playing area and ends the round.
    New round: After the active player has taken a card, they start a new round by flipping another card, then decide whether to take it or not.

Endgame
Play proceeds until the deck becomes empty.

Scoring: This is where the game's wrinkle comes in, remember the objective is to get as low a score as possible.

• Counter: Each counter a player has in their possession will deduct 1 from their score.
• Cards: ​Every card a player has acquired will score its face value.
• Sequential: However, if a player has any cards in numerical sequence, then only the lowest card in that sequence scores.
  I.e., if a player has acquires 12, 13 & 14, then only the 12 scores! The 13 & 14 are tucked under it.

Points are tallied, lowest score wins!

Overall
There's not too much that can be said about No Thanks!

The game's rules and options are rudimentary; take a card or pay to pass.
This is a game about playing the other players and not the game because everything everyone will do depends on everyone else is doing!

Basically; taking a card is bad but acquiring counters is good. Players will need to balance these outcomes with their choices.
E.g., getting counters early not only can deduct from a player's final score, they can be used to good effect to avoid cards later in the game but this at the cost of also getting a card.

Where No Thanks! is really clever is the mechanic for sequential cards because this creates an asymmetrical value to certain cards.
For the most part all players will obviously want to avoid taking cards but when a player has taken a '5' and then later in the game a '6' appears during a round, taking it would essentially have no affect on their score but for all other players, it would increase their scores.
This means players will suddenly have different motives during that round and one player can happily take the card that everyone else wants to avoid, the rules even recommend not taking the card immediately and letting players pass to pile up more counters on it before taking it!

But there's another factor in play, because cards are discarded at the game start, everyone is playing with imperfect knowledge. A player may have a '14' and '16' but there's no guarantee that the 15 will appear. Creating sequences of cards is generally prudent but by no means a guaranteed thing.

This kind of dynamic between players keeps the game interesting.

No Thanks! is quick to learn, quick to play and makes a good filler game or ender to night of gaming. It's accessibility also makes it a good party or family/crossover game. It's a fun little game with lots of player interaction and definitely one to try.

28th January 2023

Wogglecon continued with Dominion the deck building game. A game I've played a few times in the past but not since starting this blog.

Rule your kingdom in Dominion by recruiting bureaucrats, moneylenders and spies and others or creating festivals, gardens and more.

How's it play?
Setup

• Base cards:
  Treasure cards: Put out the treasure cards face-up in their 3 denominations.
  Victory cards: Next put out the victory card face-up in their separate decks, the number of cards in each deck will be determined by the player count.
  Trash card: Put the trash card into the central playing area.
• Kingdom cards: Each game of Dominion uses 10 sets of the kingdom cards.
  The rules provide a number of predetermined thematic sets of kingdom cards which can be used.
  Alternatively, the randomiser deck can be shuffled info a face-down deck and 10 cards drawn from it, these will be the 10 sets used in the game.
  Finally, players can collectively choose 10 sets to use if they wish.
  Generally 10 cards from each set are used, but the number of victory cards uses will depend on player count.
• Player cards: Each player takes 7 1 gold treasure cards and 3 1VP victory cards, shuffles them into a face down deck and draws 5 cards for their starting hand.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
Dominion uses a traditional turn order with the active player completing their turn before play moves on the player on their left.

A turn in Dominion is easy as A, B, C - quite literally too. The phases are Action, Buy and Clean up!

• Action: The player player may take 1 action, that is play an action card from their hand. Action cards have a wide variety of uses and can provide gold, more cards and so on to the active player, too many to be described here.
  It should be noted that even if the active player has 2 action cards in their hand, they still only get to perform 1 action unless the action card they play grants them 1 or more extra actions!
  Treasure cards do not count as an action so can be played as needed.
  Victory point cards cannot be played as they have no function other than to score VPs at the game end and clutter up a players hand during play.
• Buy: Once the active player has perform their action(s), they can buy 1 card from the central area using treasure cards or coins on action cards.
  Again, unless an action card that has been played grants the active player more 'buys', they can only buy 1 card.
  Any card bought, goes directly into the active player's discard pile.
• Clean up: Cards that have been played are not immediately put into the active player's discard pile instead they are considered still 'in play' even if they've been resolved until this phase occurs. 
  During this phase, the active player discards all cards played and also all cards still in hand which were not or could not be played. Then the active player draws a new hand of 5 cards.
  Next player: Play then progresses to the next player.

Additional rules: There are a couple of extra rules that need explanation.

• Reaction: Card with a 'Reaction' descriptor can be used during another player's turn. If an opponent plays an attack card, any player who has a reaction card in their hand may reveal it to counter the attack.
  Cards revealed this way are not discarded and are considered not to have been played.
• Reshuffle: If any time a player needs to draw cards but does not have enough or any cards in their deck to do so, then they draw whatever they can and shuffle their discard pile into a new draw deck and draw whatever cards they still need to draw.
  Remember, if the active player has to shuffle a new draw deck from their discard pile in the middle of their turn, any cards in play or in hand are considered still in play and not part of the discard pile.

Endgame
Play continues until one of the following 2 criteria are met.

When the pile of Province (6VP) victory cards has been emptied.
OR
Any 3 of the 10 stacks of cards in the central supply have been emptied.

In either case, when the turn of the player who triggered the endgame is over, the game immediately ends and goes to scoring.
Players then calculate their scores from all victory cards they have acquires.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Dominion has been around for a few years and one I've played in the past but only finally have gotten to blogging about it.

It is the deck builder game, the one that started it all and to honest, it pretty much got everything right the first time.

The only quibble I could argue is that the rules regarding only 1 action and 1 buy per turn unless other cards increase them, forcing players to track their card plays throughout their turn are little fiddly but this is minor and doesn't effect the game's quality.

Otherwise Dominion provides players pretty much everything they could want from a deck builder. 
It provides players with the classic early/late game challenge of creating their engine in the early stage and then exploiting that engine to acquire VPs in the late stage.
Players will look to optimise their card actions, maximise the efficiency of their decks and find effective combos and exploits. This is especially true in Dominion since, victory cards actively hinder player and acquiring them too early can slow a player's deck down.
​Dominion provides a number of predetermined setups that can be used but also has provision for randomising setup, which can give player some unusual, interesting and challenging setups.
It's also worth adding that there's loads of expansions for Dominion which increase its replayability and longevity.

If you like deck builders and for some reason you've not played Dominion, then you should definitely play this. Dominion is one of the best examples of it's genre. In fact, unless you actively hate deck builders, then this is one to try regardless. It's a classic for a reason.

3rd January 2023

It's the first Tuesday of the year and we're with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns for an evening of gaming goodness

“You might not think that’s cricket, and it’s not, it’s motor racing.” - Murray Walker.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal is a card hand management, push-your-luck game about F1 racing. Intriguingly it's themed after 1960's F1.

Advanced components: Heat Pedal to the Metal has introductory and advanced rules. The advanced game adds more components.
These are broken down into 'modules' which players can pick and choose to add to their game as they see fit.

• Championship module: This allows for a season of races during the 60's in which players score points in each race, culminating in a final score to see who wins.
  Event cards: Each race in a season has its own event card that can affect the race in some manner.
  Press corner standee: There are 2 standees which can be placed at certain corners.
  Sponsorship cards: These work somewhat like upgrade cards and are added to a player's deck but when they are used, they are discarded out of the player's deck instead of going to the discard pile.

First; a bit of a criticism. The game has no tokens to track the usage of adrenaline (More on adrenaline below.). It's only a minor oversight and in no way a gamebreaker but it's still something that would have been nice to include.

The player and module mats feel a little flimsy compared to the other components but to be honest, unless the mats are mistreated, it shouldn't matter. Otherwise the components are all good.
The tiles and tokens all feel satisfyingly thick and sturdy while the cards and standees are of the usual acceptable quality.
The gearstick pawn is plastic as are the little cars, which are the standout components, they have enough detail to look cool on the track.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal features excellent art through out, in the particular the speed cards with their illustrations of F1 cars hurtling along are evocative and because it harks back to the F1 cars of yesteryear it lends the art a timeless quality.
There's also a lot of variation in the art for the upgrade cards and while the illustrations are good, pictures of brake discs or suspension coils are not as exciting as speeding sportscars.
The race tracks are also well depicted on the gameboards with some excellent illustrations.

Iconography found in the introductory game is not particularly complicated or overwhelming and players won't have any problems quickly understanding them.

The same cannot be said for the advanced game.
There are a large number of icons in the advanced game, icons for weather, icons for track conditions and so on but the main culprit is the upgrade cards since there's a lot of them, they contain a lot of varied icons that will require looking-up in the rule book.
Normally, I'd be a bit critical of this but as they're part of the advanced rules, it's fairly likely players will start with the introductory game and work up to the advanced modules. So I don't see it as a serious obstacle.

How's it play?
The following describes the basic, introductory game.
Setup

• Race track: Choose a track, this will determine how many laps will be raced and what heat and stress cards each player will receive.
• Players: Give each player the player board, gearstick, car and cards in their player colour.
  Deck setup: For the basic game, players should use the base cards and starter upgrade cards. Player should also be given heat and stress cards as dictated by the chosen racetrack.
  The heat cards should be placed on the player board space for heat cards while all the remaining cards should be shuffled into a face-down deck and placed on the deck space.
  Finally, players should put their gear stick on the 1st gear space on their player board.
  Players should then draw a starting hand of 7 cards.
• First player: Starting positions should be randomly determined and players should place their cars in the pertinent position on the starting grid.

On to play
Before explaining the rules, it would be a good idea to explain some of facets of the rules beforehand.

• Boost: There are several ways a player may gain a boost and several may occur at the same time (Due to stress cards.) but they are resolved the same way.
  For each boost being resolved, the player flips a card from their racing deck: If it's a base speed card (Speed 1-4.) it is added to the player's total speed and that boost symbol is resolved. If it's any other type of card, that card is placed in the discard pile and other cards are drawn until the boost symbol is resolved.
  This is repeated for as many boost symbols need to be resolved.
• Heat: For a game called Heat: Pedal to the Metal, you'd think that heat cards would be important and you'd be right!
  Pay heat: The game has several ways to make players pay heat (Or gain heat cards really.) and they are all resolved in the same way.
  For every point of heat a player has to pay for, they must take a heat card from the engine deck and add it to their discard pile (Not their hand as I've done accidentally.). If player does not have enough heat cards available, then, depending on the situation, they cannot perform the action that requires they pay heat for it or they spin out!
  Cooldown: When cooldown occurs, it allows the player to return 1 or more heat cards from their hand (Not their racing deck or discard pile.) to the engine deck and every point of cooldown allows the player to return a heat card.
• Speed: It's important to remember that a car's speed is the total numerical value of all the cards played face-up by that car's player at the end of their movement.
  This includes from using adrenaline - which is why a token for it would have been useful.
  This does not include slipstreaming.

Right with that out of the way let's get on with it.
It's fairly obvious but the first player to complete the required number of laps and cross the finish line is the winner!
Each turn in Heat: Pedal to the Metal consists of 9 phases which may sound like a lot but not all of them are required or mandatory and in practice is generally easily managed.
Heat: Pedal to the Metal does not use a traditional turn order. Instead the order of play is determined by position on the track. I.e., the player in 1st position on the track goes first, the player in 2nd goes second and so forth. This means the turn order is very likely to change from round to round.
The first 2 phases are resolved simultaneously whilst others full resolved by the player during their turn.   

• Change gear (Mandatory): This action is performed simultaneously by players and in this phase players may choose to stay in the same gear or change gear.
  A player may increase or decrease their gear 1 step without issue, or they may increase or decrease their gear by 2 steps by immediately paying 1 heat.
• Play cards (Mandatory): This is done simultaneously by all players.
  In this phase players play cards face-down and the number of cards played must be equal the gear their car is in. E.g., if a car is in 3rd gear, 3 cards must be played.
  A player may play any of the cards in their hand except heat cards.
• Reveal & move (Mandatory): This phase is resolved one-by-one during the active player's turn.
  The active player reveal the cards they played and must move their car a number of spaces equal to the total value of the cards played. Thus if a player was in 2nd gear and played a 2 & 3, they must move their car 5 spaces.
  Some cards such as stress cards use the boost action and must be resolved.
  When a car moves, it is not blocked by other cars, however a car cannot end it's movement on the same space as another car.
  If a car moves to a empty space, it should be placed alongside the racing line, if there's already a car there, then it should be placed on the other lane in the same space.
• Adrenaline (Optional): As well as being an optional action, this action only applies to the 1 or 2 back markers in the race (Depending on player count.). A back marker has 2 actions available to them.
  Speed increase: The active player may increase their speed by 1.
  1 cooldown: The active may gain 1 point of cooldown.
• React (Optional): If the player has activated any icons due to what gear they're in gear or cards they've played, they may choose to resolve them at this time, in the order of their choosing.
  For the base game, this only applies to the gear. Upgrade cards may contain other icons.
  The player can use a boost action in any gear.
  In 1st gear they gain 3 cooldown and in 2nd, 1 cooldown.
• Slipstream (Optional): If the active player has moved their car directly behind or alongside another car, they may choose to make use of slipstreaming.
  Slipstreaming allows the active player to move their car an additional 2 spaces, this is also without increasing their speed - which can prove very useful sometimes.
• Corner check (Mandatory): If a player's cars has crossed any corner lines in this turn then they must do a corner check.
  The player compares the speed of their car with the speed listed for the corner, if the car's speed is equal or lower than the corner's speed, the it's all good. If the speed is higher, then the active player gets a point of heat for each point over the corner's speed limit.
  Spinning out: If for any reason the active player cannot pay the cost for heat because their engine deck is empty, then they spin out.
  If this occurs, the player moves their car to before the corner that caused the spin out, pays all the heat they can and adds 1 or 2 stress cards to their hand from the supply (Depending on what gear their card was in when it spun out.) and puts their car into first gear.
• Discard (Optional): The active player may discard any cards in their hand into their discard pile except for heat and stress cards.
  Only cooldown allows a player to discard heat cards and stress cards must be played to get rid of them.
• Draw (Mandatory): The active player refills their hand until they are back up to a hand of 7 cards. Whenever a player's racing deck is emptied, they simply shuffle their discard pile into a new racing deck.
• Next player: Play proceeds to the next player in the turn order.
• End round: Once the last player has taken their turn, the current round is over.
  A new turn order is set according to the current positions of all cars with whoever is now in 1st place going first and so on

 

• Advanced rules: What is written above pretty much explains the entirety of the game and I'm only going to briefly touch on the advanced rules, some of which actually just change the parameters of the game.
  • Championship: This adds a sort of career mode to the game and adds events that alter the basic rules.
    Press corners: Each track will have press corners and by performing specific actions at them, the active can acquire sponsorship cards. talking of which...
    Sponsorship cards: These work a bit like upgrade cards except they once they are played, they are discarded out of the game and not into the player's discard pile.
  • Garage: This module provides a wide variety of upgrades that player's can use. Generally they can be very useful.
    E.g., a upgrade card might be 1/3 upgraded brakes and when play means the player can choose the card to have a speed of 1 or 3 which can be very useful.
  • Legends: Not really additional rules but a way of providing bot players to increase the number of cars on the track.
  • Weather: There are 2 ways this module can affect the game.
    Weather tiles: The weather tiles generally alter the starting number of heat and stress cards.
    Track conditions: These tokens change some element of the game for a stretch of the track or on a particular corner. It might be possible to use the boost action a straight for free, or a corner's speed might be lowered and so on.

Endgame
Who ever crosses the finishing first after completing the required number of laps is the winner. Remaining players may of course continue playing to determine the final finishing order.

Championship
If playing a championship, all cars should finish and their championship points for that race should be recorded.
Additionally, if the garage module is also being used. Players should keep their upgrade cards from race-to-race.
Once the championship is over, whichever player has acquired the most points wins the championship!

Overall
Heat: Pedal to the Metal gives players several obstacles to wrestle with and sometimes several ways to approach that obstacle.
Players need to navigate corners, manage their hand and by extension also manage their heat cards. The game also has a push-you-luck element to contend with but not necessarily in the way you'd think.

The game also requires players to think a turn ahead, especially in regard to corners. Managing the current round is not so hard, players will know how far away the next corner is and how far their cards will get them (With the exception of stress cards.) but will need to think about where they end their move. A player be may end its turn right in front of a 4-speed corner in 4th gear, will they have the heat to go down 2 gears, do they have low enough speed cards to get through the corner unscathed or will have to hope to draw the cards they need, which is one way they can push their luck.

Discarding cards is also something to think about, players will sometimes have to resist the urge to discard low speed cards on occasion as they can prove useful in  upcoming corner and of course, some cards cannot be discarded.
When players have heat cards in their hands, they need to dip into the lower gears to discard them.
Stress cards though, have to played.

Stress cards is the other way of pushing your luck in Heat: Pedal to the Metal. If a player is on a straight, it's not too much of a risk but if they're going into a corner and need a specific number, there's always the chance that they card they least want!

Having said that, sometimes players will want to be a bit too fast! Going through corners effectively is a bit of an art in itself. Sometimes it pays to deliberately go through a corner just a little bit too fast and take the heat, especially if the corner goes into a long straight as it leaves the player free to blast down the track.

Slipstreaming is also a interesting mechanic as it creates a 'jostle' between players and I'm sure that's how it's intent.
It also creates a higher level to player where players will try to anticipate where their rivals ahead of them will move to and exploit it with slipstreaming.
Conversely, if a player is ahead of their rival, they may want to position themselves in such a way that their rival cannot slipstream them. However, there will be times that it's unavoidable that an opponent will slipstream you and it can feel a little punishing. Conversely, if a player is ahead of their rival, they may want to position themselves in such a way that their rival cannot slipstream them. However, there will be times that it's unavoidable that an opponent will slipstream you and it can feel a little punishing.

​Finally, lets talk about heat cards. They are a very important resource and can provide significant bonuses when utilised correctly.
Heat cards can be used to push a car harder than usual, go up gears faster or go through corners quicker. There's a risk though, unless a player can discard (Usually by dropping gears in corners) them they'll just clutter the player's hand up.
Players should try and the best of this; crossing the finish line first with a empty engine deck and a handful of heat is still first.
Finishing second with a full set of heat cards in the engine deck still equates to finishing second.

All of this is good stuff because it provides players with meaningful decisions to make, sometimes what might seemingly be a simple decision can have significant outcomes and a lot of these may be contextual.

E.g., while going through a 4-speed corner a player may want to be in 2nd gear and play a 3 & 1 speed cards, keeping a 4 for later.
Or, they may want to drop to 1st and play the single 4, which will allow them to discard 3 heat cards instead of 1. However this would mean they start the next round in 1st gear, which may be a bad thing depending on what is up ahead.

This kind of contextual gameplay keeps Heat: Pedal to the Metal fresh, it also helps that it has 4 tracks and various modules.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal is a fun game that plays well at a higher player count without having a too long a playtime and worth trying.