HEAT: PEDAL TO THE METAL
A true engine game
Designer: Asger Harding Granerud & Daniel Skjord Pedersen | Publisher: Sidekick Studio, Days of Wonder
Racing games get a bad rep. I blame Snakes and Ladders, dredging up rainy days of rolling dice to simply kill time.
There’s so much potential for games that capture the pulse pounding, cascading decisions which make up motorsports, such as triumphs like this achievement.
Heat’s premise is simple: get your car over the finish line first. To do this, players drive; first setting their car’s gear then playing that number of cards from their hand to move that far forward, drawing from a personal deck.
Whilst there’s a desire to play your biggest cards to speed through sectors, players must be travelling equal or less than a set speed as they pass through each corner, spending heat cards for every single digit they exceed it by. If you can’t pay (or don’t want to) your car spins out, dropping you to first gear and sending you back to the start of the corner. It also adds stress cards, which in later turns can force you to play cards drawn randomly, making corners even harder to navigate.
The key to victory is to always be pushing just against the limits, but rarely exceeding them. Taking stress cards doesn’t mean you’re immediately out, instead further increasing your risks with every subsequent turn, encouraging players to hold off until they must go all out to overtake their opponents on the final bend.
These fundamentals are the backbone that ensures Heat is an enjoyable experience at every level, letting play groups use the additional modules to shape the game to what they most enjoy.
Wanna personalise your vehicle? Garage mode lets players swap out three cards with an array of different upgrades, great for tailoring your car to suit your playstyle or to better match the demands of the next race.
For those who’ve played the tracks so much that they know them better than their local area, the Weather and Road Conditions module randomly modify each track, tweaking corners and sectors, whilst simulating effects like rain or high temperatures that modify car set-up and make changes to the core rules.
These modules greatly expand the game’s replay potential, as players can rely on their past experiences of the game and its fundamental mechanics to further embrace the changes and challenges each module provides.
The solo and campaign modes are perfect for those looking to extend the game’s playtime to fill up an entire lazy weekend. The Legends mode perfectly simulates competing with human opponents (albeit good ones who frequently infuriated me with their deft driving skills) and even lets you add AI cars to games with less than four players, should you and two friends want to get outpaced by cardboard.
The Championship mode strings several races together, with three racing seasons to select, each comprising three races. This mode adds elements like sponsorship cards which offer one-time powers, incentivising planning for future races as well as the current one.
I love that each module can be combined or removed as players desire, but to get the most out of Heat, you really must be ready to dive deep. The box inlay is already prepared for future expansions that will no doubt add more tracks, cars and cards, but for the price you’re already paying you could pick up several great games that don’t require the same time investment to feel that you’ve fully been rewarded for your financial investment.
If you’re a racing fan or looking for a competitive game to bring out time and time again to your regular game nights, Heat is a gold medal winning game.
MATTHEW VERNALL
WE SAY
It’s a big commitment in both time and money, but for those willing to invest both there’s a rich game of challenging decisions with plenty of variation available to reward time spent playing again and again.
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
◗2 Double-sided game boards
◗8 Game mats
◗20 Cardboard game tokens
◗6 Plastic race car tokens
◗6 Plastic gear pawns
◗312 Cards
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED FLAMME ROUGE…
Asger’s previous racing game wowed audiences with its innovative deckbuilding system that simulated the struggle of cycling, in many ways Heat feels like the perfect evolution of this design that also widens the variety of play options and player count.