Holy Grail Games | Rallyman: GT | Strategy Board Game | Race Cars with Dice | 1 to 6 Players | 45 Minutes | Ages 10+

So here's the deal... I love playing board games. Ideally with a group of friends. But sometimes no one is available (such as, oh I dunno, in the middle of a global pandemic when everyone is practicing social distancing) and you want a solid solo gaming experience.The problem is, there are very few games out there that can "play both sides of the fence," so to speak.Most often what happens is that games have a great multi-player mode, but wind up becoming cumbersome for solo play (looking directly at you, Zombicide Invader). To date, one of the only games I've found for which the game play is practically identical in solo mode, without any additional complications placed on the solo player, is Dungeon Quest, a game from the 80's. I own the original game and the reissue (which isn't as good only by virtue of adding too many additional gameplay components), but sadly all versions of this game are out of print now.For the longest time, Dungeon Quest held my top spot for favorite solo game. The only problem is that the game is incredibly frustrating. It should have been titled "Screw You" -- and I don't mean that maliciously. The game is still incredibly fun, even if your chances of actually winning are incredibly small. It's just that the entire game is much more luck-driven than skill driven. So it doesn't provide much of an intellectual challenge.Right now you're probably wondering what any of this has to do with Rallyman GT. I get it. I'm rambling a bit. But I just wanted to drive home (see what I did there?) the point that finding a board game that is great at BOTH multi-player and single-player has been a quest of mine for some time now. I won't pretend to be a board game expert who has tried every game out there -- and there may likely be other solid options -- just that my experience has often left me wanting in one direction or the other.I missed the initial Kickstarter for Rallyman GT, but caught a game play video on YouTube. My initial thought was "a board game based on race car driving? Why would I have any interest in that?!??"But then the more I watched the video, the more intriguing the game looked. So on an impulse, I bought it.So one of the things I find frustrating about a lot of modern board games is that I feel like the rules are often overly complex. I feel like it often takes multiple play-throughs to get a solid grasp of the concepts, and usually the rule book needs to be kept nearby. Some games even require almost immediate releases of FAQs and addendums to clear up issues (once again, I'm looking right at you Zombicide Invader).With Rallyman GT, I read through the rule book one time. And it was so clear that I felt I had a strong grasp on how to play. I set up the board and went through a quick solo game, and everything made sense. I had one question about the rules that I had to look up, and it turned out that I had been correct anyway in my interpretation.I honestly can't think of any other game short of something like Checkers for which the rules were so elegant and clear right from the start.I have a neighbor family that I have been sharing quarantine time with and we played a full 6-player game. All of them fully grasped the rules, so much so that they were able to develop play strategies, within the first couple of turns of the game.Somehow the developers have managed to distill the very complex notion of automobile racing into an incredibly efficient rules system that just gets out of the way of game play, allowing players to really be creative and strategic with how they "drive" around the board. What's more, the game is equally exciting in both solo and group play.It also lends itself well to simple customization. For example, out of the box, solo play is time trial based. That is, your goal is to simply race around the track as quickly as possible, then race again to beat your time. However, several people have developed "AI" rules to allow solo players to actually race against other cars. And the elegant nature of the rules system makes it so that even these so-called AI cars can still pose an exciting challenge.The actual game components themselves are well thought out and of very good quality. The core box includes tiles that are used to build your race tracks. You can use layouts suggested in the rule book, or make up your own. All of the cardboard components, from the track tiles to the tokens, feel solid and durable. The plastic cars each have just enough detail to distinguish them even if they weren't all different colors (also, I've heard that Micro Machines are a small enough scale to be usable on the tracks). The included dice are solid and feel really nice. The developers even included plenty of plastic baggies to allow you to sort and store all of the tokens, cars, and car "dashboards." Finally, just the design of the game itself is gorgeous. The box art, the art in the rule book, and even the artwork on the track tiles is all just stunning.If I had any complaint at all, and this would be the most minor of nitpicks, it's that the box doesn't have a great way to organize the track tiles -- no separators or dividers too keep them from just sliding around all over the box. Again, this is a completely minor complaint and really isn't even worth knocking the rating for. Also, the lack of extra inserts in the box may be intentional by the developers in order to allow room for the additional track tiles from the expansions.I know this is a rather long review. So if you've come this far, thanks for bearing with me. All in all, I just can't express enough how much I thoroughly enjoy this game. I know that it's been immensely popular since it's Kickstarter launch, so much so that the expansions have been hard to track down. But as soon as production is able to catch up, I look forward to expanding this game and I have no doubts it will remain in regular play rotation for quite some time.

As with most of my impulse buys, I was scanning Boardgamegeek.com when Rallyman GT caught my eye on the side of the screen where Amazon advertises. So I quickly did a search on BGG to see what this one looked like. At first glance in the images section my interest was further piqued. A nice looking interchangeable tile track, small little cars, and dice…what more could you ask for right!? So, me being me…acquisition disorder and all…I clicked on that Amazon ad and quickly purchased the base box.The game is quite simple at its roots…after all you are just racing cars…first one to the finish line wins! However, the strategy involved takes this one to a whole different level. I’d go so far as to say this is a simulator…its not an incredibly fast racing game…its more about the planning and strategy of how far to press your luck, and where you want to end up on the track.So how does it work? Well…glad you asked. All cars will start at the starting line in the basic setup (you can play with a running start as well, but we went basic), at speed 0. The base cars in the box come with 6 gears (you have a die for each of these gears) they can traverse up and down as they travel the circuit. The various dice that you have available to you are your 6 black gears dice (each one has that gear number on it as well as a ‘hazard’ emblem), some red break dice (have a ‘hazard’ emblem on them), and 2 white cruise dice (which have a ‘hazard’ emblem them). On your turn you will take those gears, breaks and cruise dice and assign them to each square on the track that your car will move through…(your gears must always go up or down sequentially, meaning you can’t skip from the 1st gear to the 3rd gear). Your break dice are the only way you can skip a gear while decreasing your speed, and the cruise dice allow you to stay in the same gear for the assigned space. So for example, from the starting line you might assign this sequence…1st, 2nd, cruise, cruise, 3rd, 4th, 5th gears. This would advance my car 7 spaces on the track IF I don’t wipeout. Now comes the press your luck…you have a choice of rolling all the dice together or rolling one at a time. If you roll all together (you are considered to be moving ‘flat out’) you’ll get to collect a focus token (which can be used to skip a dice roll if you are rolling one at a time in a later turn)…and as long as you don’t roll as many ‘hazards’ as your car can handle you are ok. If you roll your wipeout number of ‘hazards’ you crash. Whereas if you decide to roll 1 at a time…you get to see if those hazards are accumulating and how close you are getting to losing control of the car. Knowing this allows you to use one of those aforementioned focus tokens to skip a roll but still advance your car into the next square…convenient! You’ll continue this until you have completed the predetermined number of laps…first to cross the line is the winner (with some built in tie breakers).There are various rules for passing other cars, and how to handle corners (small numbers on the turns represent the MAXIMUM speed you can have on that part of the track) etc… But even adding those to your games are not too complex. They even have rules for weather …and you pick what types of tires to use at the games outset ... and weather can change during the race!!Overall my group really enjoyed this game. While we would probably never dream of going more than one or two laps, its a very enjoyable experience. It becomes even more fun when racers are willing to truly press their luck…then you get lots of wipeouts and racers scrambling to catch up. Nice quick game, easy to pick up, and FUN. Glad I picked it up…and even picked up one of the other car expansions!! Thumbs up from me.

My husband and I love board games and enjoy playing in the evenings after our kiddos are in bed. My husband loves F1 and all things racing so I did a fair amount of research in hopes to find a fun racing themed game for us to play together. This is now his favorite game to play. I love the customizability of the track and the strategy is simple at face value but challenging at the same time. Very, very fun! I wish there were more expansions more readily available.

Kind of complicated but it was still fun. Roll dice and use the results to move your car to the front of the pack

The concept of using dice to mark out your car's path is unique. Careful thought must go into each move. But this means each player's turn can be slow.

I’m so glad I saw this. It has high quality materials though I am paranoid about losing some of the small pieces.My 10 YO likes to make his own tracks. I appreciate how it really does mimic racing dynamics. It does take some explaining how to play for new players as it is quite different than what most people have played. Once explained, our guests/first time players seem to have no problems keeping up (no pun intended)😀

I've tried many of the most popular car racing board games; Formula D, Downforce, Heat, and now Rallyman. Rallyman is, for me, the first one those games to truly scratch the itch of using push-your-luck to simulate car racing.It's also the most complicated of the games listed above. If you're looking for something more accessible, or something you can play with non-gamers, you might prefer Heat or Formula D.