FORMULA DE ROUNDUP!

I won, I won, Neener neener neener!!

Ahem. I won the 7th Annual Formula De tourney this year, and I couldn't be happier! It's also National Games Week 2004, an event worth celebrating no matter who you are. Dave got us signed up as an official NGW event, so all of us who played are eligible for some pretty amazingly nerdy prizes (a set of polyhedrals made out of fossilized mammoth bone--how cool is THAT??) I've posted a vast number of photos of the event on my Flikr account, and will be putting a brief blurb on my main blog... but for the board game nerds I know, I'm doing this more detailed post in case anyone wants to know how this amazing event works each year.

First off, Formula De is a racecar themed board game. However, it has a phenominal game mechanic that makes it one of the most exciting combinations of strategy and luck I've ever played. I won't go into the rules here, you can go to Boardgamegeek if you want to know exactly how it's played. But basically, each player has a car, you start in staggered positions on the track like a real race, and on the turns, you have to stop your car "in the turn" a certain number of times depending on how tight the turn is. You roll different dice depending on what gear you're in; the higher the gear, the bigger #'s you'll roll, but the more likely you are to blow through a turn, which may damage or wreck your car.

To establish pole position at our yearly tournament, each year Dave and Stephen will design a Pre-Game Game to sort out who's first. One year it involved steering a remote control boat around an obstacle course in Stephen and Francie's pool. Last year it was blowgun darts at a target.... This year, we played speed rounds of another race car game called Caribande, where you flick little wooden disks around a slick wood track. To add to the silliness, we had to wear huge "safety goggles" while doing so. (pictures of that on flikr.) Naturally, I placed second-to-last. But it doesn't matter, we change places rapidly during the main tourney.

For the first few years we played full laps of Formula De; however, this made the tournament take ALL DAY. The mechanic we've used for the last three years is, I think, excellent. We set up multiple boards, 4 players per board. We then play randomly timed races, anywhere from 2 minutes to 15 minutes in length--the times are drawn out of a bag, and only the person in last place (who sets the timer) knows how long this particular round will be. Everyone else is clueless. So players 1-4 are on board 1, 5-8 on board 2, and so on. When the timer goes off, whoever's in first and second on each board moves "up" onto the next higher board; the two in third and fourth move "down" to the next lower board. (We only had three boards going today with 11 players, so the Last Place board only had 3 people on it.) Obviously, the two winners on board #1 get to stay put, and the loser on the Last Place board stays there for the next round. Ordinarily, when you play Formula De you try hard to keep your car in good shape--not burning too many tires or brakes in the early turns, because you might need them later as you're coming up to the finish line. But in this speed tournament version, it's pretty tempting to just blow all your points to grab the lead when you can, because you never know when the timer might go off!

As I said, I started #10 of a field of 11. I moved up to board 2 pretty quickly, and hovered between board #2 and #1 for most of the tourney, moving up and back....finally we were on the last timed round, I was in the lead on board #2--hoping to move up to board #1 for the Final Non-Timed Full Lap Round, so that I'd be eligable for the first place trophy. But ALAS! I overshot a turn, blew out all my tires and spun out (ie, had to stop cold.) Everyone else caught up, and the next die roll would take Dave past me--and the timer went off. Amazing. I won despite my car being completely stalled--saved by the bell! Dave and I moved up to fight with Ryan and Donna for Places 1-4. I quickly fell into last place and stayed there as Dave and Ryan got about 2 turns ahead of me, Donna at least 1... so I concentrated my efforts on catching up to Donna and placing third. I just barely caught her on the last turn, and thought woo hoo! Third! If she doesn't pass me! I hadn't really been paying attention to Dave and Ryan's moves at this point. That is, until Stephen (whose game was over at this stage) pointed out that both of them had been forced to downshift into 2nd and 3rd gear on the final turn to not wipe out. Since my car was still in perfect shape due to my poor rolls and conservative play, I was cruising in 4th gear, and only a few spaces behind them. I sped through the last turn, burning all my extra tires and brakes to pull into first; I immediately got to go again, since the turn order goes in order of position. Shifted up into 5th, zoomed toward the finish line with them trailing....Shifted up into 6th for good measure and BLEW THROUGH TO THE WIN!!! From 4th to 1st in two turns! What an awesome game. Never give up, that's the moral. Wowee. Well, check out my photos--no pic of me with the trophy, the one on my camera is a pretty bad photo so I'm waiting for one from Stephen to post. Woop woop woop!