Long Shot: The Dice Game is live (Place your bets)
Update: Long Shot: The Dice Game is live on Kickstarter and the campaign will run for 25 days. You may pledge for a copy of the game or order it together with Roland Wright.
Our preview post below was published on March 24.
Long Shot: The Dice Game is a 1-8 roll ’n’ write game in which you place bets on the outcome of a horse race to make as much money as possible. The game comes with personal player boards and dry-erase markers. It will launch on Kickstarter on March 30.
Eight horses are partaking in the race. Each of these horses has its own card, featuring a special ability, a cost if you want to buy that horse, and eight squares (corresponding to the eight horses) that can be marked in the course of the game.
On each turn, you roll the dice, one d8 to determine which horse will move, one custom d6 to see by how much this horse advances. All the horses marked on the moving horse card (potentially including itself) will then move by one more space on the track.
Then, you can take an action. These actions include buying the active horse (which allows you to use their special ability), marking a concession (a bingo-grid on your personal board that unlocks one-time bonuses when you complete a row or a column), and placing a bet on the active horse (from $1 to $3) if this horse has not yet moved past the ‘no bet’ line. You can also mark one of two symbols for this active horse: the Helmet, which allows you to bet on this horse even past the 'no bet' line, and the Jersey, to mark an additional square on the active horse card.
Once three horses have crossed the finish line, the game ends and the score is tallied up. You earn points if the horses you own are on the podium and for the bets you placed on the winning horses. You also gain an additional $5 for all horse-specific sets of Helmet and Jersey symbols you marked during the game, and for the money you may have left.
In the solo mode, you play against an AI with its own billboard on which its possible actions are displayed. Once the dice are rolled for the horse movement, and once you have taken your action, the AI takes its action according to the action slot determined by the dice roll. The AI buys horses, marks cards and places bets, earning points as normal. At the end of the game, you compare your score against that of the AI and win if you beat it.
That does sound as though it has a great deal in common with Wolfgang Kramer's system most recently incarnated as Downforce (also Top Race, Tempo, etc.) – although that has no official solo mode, my podcasting partner Lee Broderick has come up with one.
That's a crazy list indeed!
I actually think the rules were easy to follow, and it seems indeed to be a fun game. If I hadn't an aversion for Roll'n'Writes, and a complete lack of interest for horse races, I would be interested as it looks rather exciting. There are plenty of ways to bet and invest your money, some mitigation, player interaction, it even reminded me some of Knizia's mechanisms (but it's not as minimalist). I wouldn't be too keen to try the solo mode, though, but it seems well fleshed-out.
Looking at this game on BGG, it listed these mechanisms:
Looking at that, I said, "Ahhh, that's a lot of mechanisms". Seemingly too scary for me, but the game itself didn't look that spooky.
I watched the Boardgames and Bourbon Review, and he thought it was better with more players, but it looked more interesting than I originally thought it was.
There doesn't seem to be too much actual "writing", either. Mostly just an "X" here and there.
Thanks, Z.
P.S. Not that anyone would give a crap, but I used to live in a city that had a horse racing track. I went a few times... Rockingham Park, Salem, NH, USA.