Designed by: Eric Randall,Laurent Lavaur
Formula D is a racing game that takes the conventional roll-and-move from games of yore, and adds some tactical finesse.
The board shows the racetrack, through Monaco, broken into lanes and spaces along each lane. Players start with a car each on the grid, and a control panel in front of them showing which gear they are in, and how many wear points their car has. You proceed by rolling a die on your turn, and moving your car the matching number of spaces. However, which die you roll depends on which gear your car is in – in first gear, you’re only going to move one or two spaces, but if you get your car up to sixth gear, you can move up to thirty!
But it’s not a matter of sitting in sixth gear, because you need to slow down for corners. Each corner has a requirement of how many times your car must end a turn there (often only once) and if you overshoot the corner without stopping, you lose wear points. If your wear points hit zero, you’re out of the race.
That’s pretty much the basic game, but there’s also an advanced game too, where the wear points are split over several different parts of your car – tyres, brakes, engine, gearbox etc – and different scenarios (overshooting, changing down more than one gear, over-braking) cause you to lose different wear points. There are also rules for slipstreaming, and optional extras such as character cards and obstacles on the track. You can also choose to go around the course twice, and incorporate a pit stop to repair wear damage.
The player in front always rolls first, and first to cross the finish line wins.
Blocking can happen - causing your car to take damage if you have to over brake - but it's not the predominant feature of the game.
Varies with player counts. But not high.
There's not too much to think about, but there will be times where you need to work out your best route around a corner in order to avoid over-shooting.
It's always a race, but you can try different characters to 'play' and for enthusiasts, there are different courses to be found sold separately (some have another course on the back of the Monaco board)
2-8
Players
8+
Years
30-60
Mins
Sam says
Formula D has taken the dull roll-and-move mechanic and evolved it into something more engaging. That said, you are rolling dice and moving cars along a track for the duration, so being a fan of race games or Grand Prix helps. I wouldn't recommend it for two, or even three players - the game comes into its own with a crowd, when there's more blocking and over-taking and general drama on the track. Even then, I think there are more interesting racing games (the tactical Flamme Rouge or the hidden-betting of Downforce, where your car can lose but you can still win the game) - but my kids like Formula D a lot, and as a game for 'the whole family' it certainly ticks a box.