Pyramid Review
Formula Dé Mini
Published by Jeux Descartes/Eurogames
Created by Eric Randall & Laurent Lavaur
Illustrated by Bernard Bittler
Graphic design by NEXUS/Guillaume Rohmer
Edited by Ron Magin
One double-sided mounted map board, one 20-sided die and five specialty dice, eight cars and eight spoilers in four colors, eight wooden gearshift pawns, eight "dashboards" with jig-cut ends, 200 Life Point tokens, 16-page full-color rulebook (German, French, Spanish, and English rules); $24.95
It's not as though Formula Dé was all that tough a game to get into to begin with, but perhaps Euro Games needs a way to pull in more raw recruits. To introduce fledgling racers to the larger game, they now offer a slimmed down version called Formula Dé Mini.
The game runs, in most ways, identically to its parent system. Players take the role of a driver in charge of one or more little plastic racecars and run laps around a track. Dice are thrown to see how many spaces you move, and higher gears offer more spaces. When the flag waves, the driver must consider how best to strain his car to get into, and keep, the lead. Cars zip past each other from one lane to the next, taking dangerous hairpins by making sure their playing piece stops in each turn before entering the next straightaway. You can make a pit stop to repair the wear and tear suffered by your vehicle thus far, but you risk losing the lead as you do so. The first person to cross the finish line after the third lap is the winner.
Most of the . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: August 22, 2003
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