Formula D Second Opinion

I wouldn’t say I was a keen racing fan at all, but I love board games and Formula D is fantastic! I’ve played a few different racing games and this one tops the lot for me, it is incredible with non-stop action from start to finish.

Start Your Engines!

Formula D - a game for 2-10 players, (That’s right, 10!) with a lot of depth and replay ability.

Your box contents consist of 10 racing car playing pieces. Within this you have 5 pairs of colours, but to differentiate the fin is a different colour. What this means is you also have an option for team races…

The base set consists of 2 tracks to race on. The classic Monaco track and another generic city street race track.

With 10 cars, 10 player dashboards are required where you can clearly see all aspects of your car. This is from the gear your car is in to the wear and damage happening from the race (unless you are incredibly lucky here).

Then the dice, 7 dice in all. 6 dice representing the car gears, these dice get progressively bigger, starting as a D4 for 1st gear and building up to the immense D30 for 6th gear. I personally love it when I get to roll that dice. Then there is the event die, the dice that can generally only cause you problems when you have to roll it.

Go Go Go!

You may not be so surprised to learn that the first player around the track and crossing the line in Formula D is the winner. Seems simple enough (and quite obvious), however, how much are you prepared to push your luck to get the win?

When you’re set up, the first task for the game is to determine race conditions (1 lap or more, weather conditions, etc) and then you determine grid starting positions. This might be the only time the event die cannot harm you, but if you roll high, you will be starting near the back of the pack as lowest rolls get pole position.

You are now ready to race! Order of play is determined by who is leading the race. This means turn order changes every turn as over taking occurs. Pole position starts the race. Pop your car into first gear (always important to consider your gear and speed for the turn) and start the race. Move the allotted distance, and as you progress through there are rules on how you are allowed to move. As players overtake/and fall behind, perhaps spin out of control, the race order constantly changes so at the start of every new turn, you need to determine a new racing order each time. In the event two players are side by side and level, the player in the highest gear gets to go first in the sequence. Same gear? Then the player that got to the level position first takes priority in the next turn.

You have 3 lanes on a track full of squares for moving along. First gear allows movement of one or two squares, second gear is two to four squares. Working this up to sixth gear means minimum of twenty-one squares or as many as thirty squares, you are flying now.

Up one gear a turn only, down one gear safely but you could crash down more than one if required, causing a bit of car damage if you have to do this. You cannot just work up to 6th gear and stick there, you do need to slow down for corners and there are a clever set of rules to navigate here. Ultimately, pending on the bend you have to navigate, your car has to spend so many turns within it. So, you will need to look at your possible route through and work out the odds based on the potential movements of each different gear die. Obviously if you are going too fast, you will end up crashing and your race is over.

There are other aspects to consider when playing Formula D. Do you finish a move next to another race car, you have the possibility of colliding with them and taking body damage, too much will lead to a crash. If you are in gear 5 or 6, if anyone rolls the high number in these gears, all players need to take an engine check, the potential of engine damage. Too much of that as well will lead to a crash again. There is plenty to consider during the race.

There is a bit of skill needed and forward planning, but equally you need to adapt to those die rolls as well. It can go magnificently well and you hit everything you need, sometimes you fall short and that is where your car can start to take damage, pick up some issues. Also, where you finish your cars movement and how that can impact the other racers around you….

A Championship?

As alluded to earlier this game has depth. You can keep it simple and go for just a single lap race. You can go for more laps and consider the additional requirements for your car in a larger race. There is also the gaming option for pit stopping as well, adding another challenging dynamic.

You can throw in some weather conditions which change your racing tactics with more to consider.

You can have a solo mode on this game. There are options for time trials, or like in classic formula 1, do a time trial to determine grid positions. I feel this is for the hardest racing gamers as doing 10-time trials won’t happen quickly. It could be very exciting though.

You have different tracks available. 2 in the base game but you can pick additional tracks to change the racing conditions, all the tracks are substantially different. This allows also for a racing championship within your gaming group and scoring points after each race. You can also team up with someone and add a constructor’s championship on top of this. There is plenty of options for differing contests in this game.

Final Thoughts

I think Formula D is the best racing game available still. Like I said previously I’ve played a few and none of the others are coming in close to this one as it feels like a proper race when you play, with plenty of jeopardy every time you take to the track. The fact that you can also get 10 players around the table is also quite special as there are not loads of games that get to this level of participation. If you have chance to play this game I can highly recommend it.