Formula D

Formula D, it might surprise you to learn, is a racing car themed board game designed by Laurent Lavaur and Eric Randall. This is another game I first saw on Tabletop, where I thought it looked light with a sprinkling of strategy. Having now played it myself it feels the strategy is massively out gunned by your die rolling skills.

Overview

The aim of Formula D is exactly what you would expect from from a racing game. Cross the finish line in first or, if you have my luck when I played it, try not to crash. Each player starts with their car on the starting grid, and some hit points for different parts of their car (e.g. Engine and suspension). Each turn you can change gear and move according to a dice roll, making sure you go slow enough through corners.

If you do something daft, like speed through a corner or get too close to another car, then parts of your car will lose health. If any car part loses all its health then the car stops working and you are out of the game.

What i enjoyed

The theme was spot on, it felt like you were in a high speed race. You had to take care of your car and you could feel the danger in approaching a corner too quickly. The ability to push your luck at the expense of health gave me satisfaction, particularly on the last corner where I could either go slow and take 4th or chance a crash to make an overtake. Of course I took the dangerous option, with one of my few good die rolls that night I took 3rd and celebrated more than the person in first.

What wasn’t so good

There were two main problems:

• Crashing out of the game is no fun, especially if you crash on lap 1 of 3
• It’s too long for the amount of luck factor

I mainly want to labour the second point as the first stands for itself. I find that the longer a game goes on the more agency I want on its outcome. Take zombie dice, or love letter. They are both heavily reliant on luck but are still fun to play. But if they took half an hour or more then they would be a slog. On the other hand Betrayal at the House on the Hill, which requires frequent die rolls and draws from shuffled decks, takes about an hour but the player choices generally outweigh the luck. This game gets the worst of both worlds - a long play time and high luck factor.

Would I recommend it?

Don’t get me wrong I thoroughly enjoyed playing it, I think you should definitely play it, though probably someone else’s copy.