This weekend I was lucky enough to get a bunch of games to the table. I played Dig Deeper, Sonora, Deranged, and Downforce. And after Downforce we played Downforce again. This was the first time getting it to the table, so is Downforce a good game, or because it’s fast, did we just play it twice?

Downforce

Downforce is a racing and bidding game where players are bidding for ownership of cars, and then betting on those cars, or any of the cars to win the race. The game has three different points as the cars move along the track where players bet.

Cars move around the track as players play down cards in turn order. Each card will have the cars moving some amount, and it might not just be your car that moves. A card might move the blue, green, and red cars, 4, 2, and 1 spaces respectively in that order. The trick is that the track can bottle neck in some places, and cars can’t go through other cars, so the order cars moves matters, either to block some cars or to get them through.

The winner is the player who has the most money at the end of the race. You lose money for how much you paid for your cars. You get money if they place and for your bets. We had people in the negatives in the first game and in the second game someone had $28 million. So massive range in scores.

What Doesn’t Work?

I like this game, let’s start with that, but I think out of the base box there is one thing that doesn’t work too well. And that is the car powers. The car powers are cool and something to keep track of. So players forgot them. But the issue I have with them is less remembering them more so the fact that there are six of them and six cars. That means that every power is going to get used. I want more powers, I want there to be eight to ten in the base box. If you use all, you can wait to bid on your favorite power. With ten, there would be question to which would show up.

What Works

This is a very light and fast game. I know there are bigger ones out there, but I like that this is a racing game that wants to feel like a race. A lot of racing games give you moments of adrenaline rush but this one, everything that happens matters and is fun to play around with. So I could see pulling this out, auctioning off the cars and then doing a few races, almost NASCAR style, see who wins the most money but also who does best overall in the races in an evening.

I also really like the card play in this game. The fact that you do every movement on the cards is great. And they have to go in a certain order makes it a puzzle. There are cards that only move one car 5, or the special card that allows for a movement of 8. But then there are cards that move all six cars from six spots down to one spot. So you can create traffic jams if the order is right.

I also really like the powers in the game. I just said that they didn’t work for me, but really, it is just the number of them that doesn’t work. What I want is more of them. So I will probably get the expansions, if they add them, but also for the added in tracks. But something that makes you feel unique is great.

Who Is Downforce For?

Honestly, this is a game for everyone. The game play is simple and fast. People who don’t get gaming will likely get this. The trickiest thing to understand is that you don’t only think about your own cars. In fact, I rarely bid on my own cars. But even when you are done racing, you still care about all the cars on the board. So this is just a great game in my opinion for families, or as a filler for gamers.

In fact, I think the idea of turning it into a cup, or series, is great for gamers. Add some more to the game, play on all the tracks and just enjoy it. It falls into that category of with Formula D and Pitchcar where since they are racing games, might as well do them a bunch. But Downforce is the most accessible of all of them because Formula D adds in more to keep track of Pitchcar is dexterity.

Final Thoughts

This is such a fun game and I had such a fun time playing it. I am going to be getting the expansions, I just want more maps and more fun for this game. I don’t think you need more maps, but I want to do a 6 race series just because that’s going to be fun. And really, my negative item for this game is barely a negative. It’s just, like I said, I want more. I wouldn’t even mind if the different color cars had a special ability, so a car ability and a driver ability or something like that, though, that might make the game more complex than it should be.

Last thing I’ll say is that Downforce isn’t so much a racing game as a betting game. Or maybe more it’s equal racing and bidding. And the bidding, especially early on is just luck. But maybe there is more than luck to what you are doing.

My Grade: A
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: B+

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