Black Friday: Racing Auction Game

Black Friday: Racing Auction Game It's Thanksgiving week in the states! A time for plenty and gratitude for food, friends and games! Alas, most board games take up a lot of space on the table, leaving little room for the bountiful meals. Here's a racing auction mashup that should only take up a narrow sliver of space in the middle of your table.

The theme is that you're racing along a store aisle on Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. Taking time to gather the best combinations of gifts can score big points, but reaching the finish line can double or triple that score!


You'll need
2-4 players
A unique meeple for each player.
5 sets of uniquely colored chips, 15 chips in each set.
The boards and cards in this PDF.
Each player gets a 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 card, as shown above.


Setup
Place the meeples at the start of the track.
Place a stack of randomly drawn chips beside each space of the track.
Each stack should have one more chip than the number of players.


Play
Each turn proceeds simultaneously. Each player reveals and discards one card from their hand. Each player MUST move her meeple forward on the track that many spaces. If you reach the end of the track, stop moving.

PIVOT: When a player reaches the end of the track, all players can now return to a full hand of cards. All players also now have the option of moving her meeples forward or backward along the track. Don't dawdle! The first-place finisher gets a really big score bonus.

BOOSTS: The parenthetical numbers below 1, 2, and 3, show the number of spaces you may move if this is the only 1, 2, or 3 played in this turn. For example, if you played 1 in this turn and no other player played that card, you may move two, three, four, five or six spaces instead of just one.

GATHER: Once everyone has stopped moving, you may take one chip from your landing space. If two people occupy the same space, whoever played the lower card takes a chip first. If tied, the player with the lower score takes a chip first. If still tied, the younger player takes a chip first.


Score
When two players have returned to the starting area, or used all their cards, that is the end of the lap. Score points for the chips you collected as shown on the board.

If you collected the most YELLOW chips, earn 5 points. If you collected the second most, earn 3 points. Tied players score the same number of points.

The MAGENTA chips earn more points the more you collect. Collect one to earn 1 point, two to earn 3 points, four to earn 6 points, ten to earn 10 points, and five to earn 15 points.

Every pair of GREEN chips earns 5 points.

Every trio of BLUE chips earns 5 points.

Collecting a set of all five colors earns 15 points.

If you finished this lap in first place, or closest to the starting area, triple your score. If tied, each player only doubles their score.

If you finished this lap in second place, or second closest to the starting area, double your score. If tied, neither player gets a bonus.


New Laps
After each lap, players return all but their white chips. Randomly redistribute the remaining chips along the track and begin a new lap.


End of Game
After three laps, whoever has the most white chips earns 5 points. Whoever has the fewest white chips loses 5 points.

The player with the most points wins!


Notes
Still hungry? The set-collection scoring mechanics in this game are shamelessly lifted from Phil Walker-Harding's excellent SUSHI GO!, now available on IndieGoGo. Go back it now!

Comments

  1. Steven DavisNovember 21, 2012 at 1:38 PM

    Do you have to make the full lap? The way its written, it looks like you would benefit by "dawdling" to stay near the start and then sprinting back to the end?



    Interesting design.

    ReplyDelete
  2. DanielSolisNovember 21, 2012 at 1:50 PM

    You might indeed, but there are a few impediments to that strategy:

    Because you *must* move your card's number of spaces, you have less control over whether you can camp close to the starting line. And because movement cards are discarded after each use, you'll eventually reach the big distances anyway.

    It is possible that someone else reaches the end of the track first, thus advantaging anyone who is closer to the starting line, but they might not have the best scoring combination so the triple-bonus may not be that great.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mac LaurenNovember 29, 2012 at 3:32 AM

    An interesting game. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete

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