READY SET BET
A game that will make you shout so much you’ll become a little hoarse
Designer: John D. Clair | Publisher: AEG
We forget, sometimes, when we sit down to our regular games, that these things can be events. They can have the pupil dilating impact of the big top. They can encourage all of those warm trembles that happen when you bathe your brain in delightful enzymes.
Interface with any kind of art regularly enough and the majority of your time spent with it becomes normal. A gentle satisfaction rather than a blazing reverie. Then, sometimes, a game comes along that blows the bloody doors off. That rubber bands you back to those nerve-jangling days of the neophyte. All laughs and serotonin, wonder and grace. They remind you of why you got into these things in the first place, before calluses formed on your fun receptors and you became jaded.
Ready, Set, Bet did that to me. From the first round of play I was catapulted, head first, into what the best games make you do. Laugh and remonstrate and care altogether too much about something utterly inconsequential but not enough that it ruins your day.
Ready, Set, Bet is incredible fun and as moreish as a pferdeleberkase semmel (look it up).
In Ready, Set, Bet we play punters at the kind of race track that features in 60s Disney movies rather than the ammonia drenched depression holes that are most British bookmakers and we try to fight the forces of chance and idiocy to make the most money.
That’s what most of the players are doing but one brave soul will be the race caller and the whole game revolves around them as they manipulate mechanisms that are so straightforwardly effective that game designers everywhere cry in despair that they didn’t come up with them first.
Two six sided dice are rolled and the possible results correspond to a horse in the field. There is a number seven horse and so on but the numbers eleven and twelve and one and two straddle a single horse as these outcomes are exceptionally rare. If the number of the horse is rolled the horse moves forward a space. If the same number is rolled again the horse receives bonus movement based on how likely that second appearance is. The number seven horse gets no bonus but the eleven/twelve horse gets a bonus of three. The race caller announces this to the players who get suitably hysterical.
This is because the players are laying down chips on a betting board as the dice are being rolled. This board offers rewards for the placing of horses in the field and penalties for wrong guesses. The players can place their chips until three horses have crossed a red line two thirds along the track then all betting ceases and the players bite their nails to nubs until the race is over.
In addition there are exotic bets for specific placements and every round the punters will get special powers that yield them greater betting power or the ability to win small amounts if certain numbers are rolled. When the race is over players collect their winnings, pay their debts and move on and after four races the person with the most money can think they’ve had one over on luck. They’ll learn though...
This game is always a riot. It does a wonderful job of modeling concepts that we are all familiar with in a gracious and easily graspable way. The tension at the end of the race is palpable and the potential rewards and penalties are enough to keep you invested all the way through. Have one good race and you could be catapulted from last to first. Such is the allure of gambling. Also the confined spaces on the board guarantee loads of that wonderful interaction between players that is the bedrock of quality experiences.
This is the thing about Ready, Set, Bet, it turns game night into an occasion. So many of our most enduring memories are those times when we laugh uproariously with others and every game of Ready, Set, Bet ensures this and I defy anyone not to be drawn in by its charms.
There is an app that will run the race for you but in any group there will be one person who loves taking that role and if they’re good at it they will elevate the experience far higher than a few lines of sterile code ever could. This is a game about humans and their irrationality and any intrusion of the silicone seems to detract from that. The fact that this player doesn’t actually “play” the game is not to take anything away from the game at all. A good race caller makes this game. They can turn it from very good to special.
Ready, Set, Bet achieves everything a great game should. There is no effete opacity here. You play this game and you feel brilliant. That makes this a must-play for me.
BEN MADDOX
WE SAY
This game is pure excitement in a box and dies what games were meant to do.
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
◗32 VIP Cards (standard)
◗28 Prop Bet cards (mini)
◗ Race Track Board
◗Bet Board
◗152 Money Chip tokens
◗52 Bet tokens
◗6 House Bet Tokens
◗2 Six-sided dice
◗9 Wooden horse Meeples
◗8 Result Arrow Tokens
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED WAVELENGTH...
This is a true party game and is perfect for large gatherings…