Designed by: Friedemann Friese
Full Throttle! is a game of scooter racing where the players don’t actually race, but bet on the winners. No real money changes hands, of course, but betting on a scooter, unfortunately, weakens it’s potential to win…
The board is double-sided: use either side and line up all six scooters on their starting spots randomly. Shuffle the deck of cards and you’re ready to go!
In every round, two things happen. First of all, the player with the spark plug piece flips a number of cards (how many depends on the number of players) and moves the scooters accordingly: the movement values are 1, 2 or 3, and racers can move through occupied spaces, but not share a space: if a card says to move the green scooter two spaces but the second space is blocked, it only moves one. Some spaces on the board may bump riders further on when a rider stops there as well.
When X number of cards have been flipped and the matching scooters – where possible – moved, then the starting player gathers up the cards and chooses one for themselves: the number on the card you choose is now irrelevant; you’re just betting that this rider will finish in the top three. The movement cards are passed around the table, with all players taking one as their ‘bet’, and the reminder go at the bottom of the deck. Then the spark plug is passed to the left and a new round begins!
That, believe or not, is the entire game: laps are counted in the middle of the board and as soon as any one racer finishes their third lap, that racer wins and whoever holds the spark plug simply keeps drawing cards until second and third place are also claimed. Players reveal their bets, winning 4 points for every card the colour of the winner, 3 points for every bet on second place and 2 points for every bet on third. The player with the most points – wins!
None really, although as last player to choose you sometimes end up with not much choice of whom to bet on!
Low - the game moves quickly
The inherent catch at the heart of Full Throttle is when you bet on a scooter, you deprive it of potential movement, so managing that dynamic is really what the game is all about
It's not a game where the overall experience changes much - at all - from game to game. But if the build-up can be a little repetitive, the line-crossing finale is usually pretty dramatic - and often funny!
2-6
Players
8+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
This is an oddball game. Every time I've played it players have been looking at each other asking 'Is this it?' because, for a race especially, there is a somewhat processional feel to a large part of it. Does the ending - dramatic, funny, full of surprises - sufficiently counter-balance the repetition of what precedes it? Is there any real control over the sense of chaos? I'm not entirely convinced of either - it feels like a bananas ten minute game that can stretch out to three times that length! But I can't deny that I'm always chuckling by the end of it.