Designed by: Pascal Hugonie
It’s a dice-based cycle race, so of course it’s called Dicycle Race!
The game takes about 10-15 minutes and involves players racing their bikes along a track made up of cards – see pictures above. The cards have three different difficulty levels relating to how you navigate each one, so you can lay the track randomly or custom-design your own.
There are three ways to play the game, starting with the simplest: lay 12 cards in a row with the cycles on one end and the finishing ‘podium’ card at the other. Players take turns clockwise: on your turn, you choose six from the pool of red/yellow/blue dice and roll them up to three times, choosing how to allot them to cards as you do so. Each card on the route shows both the numbers needed and the colours required to get your bicycle onto it: an easy card might just need a yellow 2, wheres a tricky one might ask for a run of four using all three colours. However many cards you get past – if any! – you move your bicycle at the end of your turn, and naturally the first rider to reach the podium wins.
But! Dicycle Race’s clever little catch is that if your bicycle doesn’t succeed in moving, or doesn’t move as far as any of your allotted dice, the next player can choose to keep your allotted dice where they are as part of their ‘six dice’ – meaning their is a risk you are opening up a path for someone else!
The game continues until any one rider reaches the final card, meaning they win the race – and the game.
None - except the inadvertent gifting of dice to someone else.
Low to moderate. Each player only gets three rolls so you're never twiddling your fingers for too long, but with 5-6 players especially there will be noticeable lulls.
Low - it's a matter of assigning dice to matching cards. The decision-making is about what colour dice you take, and how safe you play it.
The three modes of play offer variety and it's nice that every card has unique artwork. But we wouldn't say there is loads to explore here - essentially, it's Yahtzee engineered into a racing game.
2-6
Players
6+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
A fun little escapade with quirky and (to me) attractive artwork. In terms of the play it's not especially gripping but it's diverting enough and the 'assigned' dice rules can make for the occasional comeback. I wouldn't recommend with more than four players though - Dicycle Race is at it's best as a breezy 15 minutes - any longer starts to feel too long for what it offers: because player input is fairly minimal - not absent, as you can go risk-heavy or risk-avoidant. But not dripping with options or agency once that initial choice is made, and somehow not quite as compelling as we wanted it to be.