Whirly Derby

Whirly Derby is a marble-racing game that takes about 20 minutes and plays up to six people.

In the plastic-free box are a set of different-coloured marbles for each player, a ‘paddock’ to keep them in and a cardboard pouring device. Across eight races, each player simultaneously chooses how many of their six marbles they will enter. All racing marbles are dumped onto the pourer, which is then (carefully) shaken and poured into the ‘whirl’ of the title: a concave metal tray with a hole at its centre. The pouring style is critical – it’s best to dump them all in reasonably quickly, just not so fast that they bounce out! And then the marbles finishing in first, second and third places get to claim prizes.

The prizes are in the form of cards, laid out before each race. You can play the simple version where each has a point value, or a (marginally) more complex version where collecting sets of cards has more potential value. The marble coming last in each race returns to its owner as a kind of wooden spoon: everyone else’s are thrown back in the box. But with six marbles and eight races, you’ll run out sooner or later, so twice during the game you’re allowed to refill your paddock from the box.

That’s pretty much it – except the optional extra of the larger marble, the Thunderball. If you play with the Thunderball, then in two of the races the player in last position adds it to the pourer (on top of the other marbles is best) – they will get to draw a number of cards depending on how many normal marbles the Thunderball prevents going down the hole when it blocks it (it’s too big to go down). This is sort of a catch-up mechanism to give players in last place a bit of hope, although the game as a whole is quite silly and not one where fixating on winning is the best avenue to enjoyment!

After the eighth and final race, players score their prize cards, and most points is the winner.