RogerBW's Blog

This Meetup-based boardgames group remains on-line for the moment; as usual we got together on Jitsi and then played some games online.

First we tried out Downforce, a Restoration Games reimplementation of the Wolfgang Kramer design Niki Lauda's Formel 1 from 1980 (via 1996's Top Race). This is the first Restoration Games title I've found to have solid gameplay, and I strongly suspect it's because it's the first one where they started with a well-designed game that they could pretty up rather than having to reinvent it from scratch. (I don't regard Rob Daviau as a genius of game design for inventing the profoundly expensive and wasteful Legacy game format.) All right, the play is mostly about blocking and corners are only there to look pretty (as in Flamme Rouge) but there is a genuine if somewhat abstracted race going on; the betting element is very simple, just a prediction of which car will cross the line first at various points along the track, and if there's a clear leader (which we had) doesn't make a great deal of difference to the outcome. Still, enjoyable, and I'll play it again.

Then back to The Crew, where we took four or five tries at a single mission. Made it in the end, but these are definitely getting harder…