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. What's in a game?
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.
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
On to play Before explaining the rules, it would be a good idea to explain some of facets of the rules beforehand.
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.
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.
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