BAROUDEUR
Baroudeur is an abandonned project form my friend Yann (from Paris). Baroudeur, actually, was an unfinished but playable set of rules to be played in almost any board. (even in a game-of-goose's board). However, Yann changed his mind and devoted his energies to his fantastic PBEM Tour de France game (http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/jeutdf/).I am not really sure if Yann wants his rules posted here, so I keep them to myself for the moment :-(
BIKBIK: by Jaime Munárriz and Esther Berdión
An unfinished game by the creators of La Serpiente Multicolor. Very good ideas in here, but quite unlikely to be developped in the next few years :-(
BREAKING AWAY CUSTOM MADE BOARDS
Breaking Away is a cult game for which lots of variants have been devised. Similarly, some people have made their own boards.
Non-velodrome-shaped board by Dale Addy (picture taken from BoardGameGeek)
Huge board to play with 1:43 riders. This one belonged to the late Geert Lagrou.
Children tend to modify or create games. (Well, at least some do). I wish I could find some of my childhood designs, but I am afraid most of them are lost forever.
If you look closely at these Montaplex cyclists, you will see words written on some of them .I can read "llano" (flat) and "sprint" on the picture, but I still have the cyclists at home and there is also a "Mont" (Montaña=uphill) and some riders marked "*" and "+". This is my own handwriting (I must have been 12 years old when I marked them) but I can't remember how the game went.
This one was in the box of a game I purchased (Mattel's Il Giro d'Italia). If you recognise it (if you made it or know who did), drop me a line ;-)
I received these pictures from Fernando Campo, from Valladolid, along with the rules index. All I can say is that the game is quite complete and, of course, beautiful. I wish I knew a little more about it.
This one is scheduled for 2011. Check BoardGameGeek for details.
CYCLING LEGENDS, by Giovannini-Giusti-Baldazzi
Francesco Giovannini sent these pics. Unfortunately, he has not sent the rules yet, but the game looks fantastic!!!
CYCLO PRESTIGE, a cyclo cross game by Jan Moerman from Gent
I played this one in the fall of 2004 at Geert Lagrou's place. Though the game was in a quite embrionary state, and I had to struggle with the Dutch-only tactical cards' text, I can remember that I won the race!
As you can see, the prototype had cardboard riders (well, if you see one made of plastic... it was a substitute since we were more players than cyclists), fences, even a ramp!
I found this one while browsing the game (here: http://jvgec.skyrock.com/) I don't jnow much about it, not even if it is a board game exactly, but I liked the self-made riders. By the way, JVGEC stands for "jeu de vélo et gestion d'une équipe cycliste".
In search of more realism, Daniel Kazaniecki has added so many variants to Leader 1 that he feels he has almost a new game. He has called it "Leader 2". The rules can be downloaded from Boardgamegeek.
Just have a look at the appendixes to see how far things have gotten: :
Appendix 1: additional concepts
Appendix 2: cobbled races
Appendix 3: individual time trials
Appendix 4: team time trials
Appendix 5: stage races "fame counter"
Appendix 6. other classifications in stage races
Appendix 7. simulating real races
Appendix 8: peloton AD 2009Up to you to judge if it is a different game, but the variants are interesting in any case.
MERCKX & GIMONDI by Donato Pompei
A very nice project by my good friend Donato. You can click here to see the current state of the project.
RETRO (Peter Frissen/Jack Habets)
This one is quite a weird one I found while browsing the web.
These are two dutch guys who had been playing this game since they schoolyears. In summer 2007 they resumed playing. Peter Frissen, he is the designer, and Jack Habets, is the statician.As Jack himself says: " The game we play is a spin-off from Homas Tour, we use the basic rules of it, but made our own, since we don't play against each other, but let the dices decide which rider is gonna win, we call it 'God-play'. We play all the great classics and a compact version of the rounds of Spain, Italy and France. Peter did draw all these tracks and I have made a ranking method to come to an overall ranking. Together we made the riders of 1978, since we are Dutch we would like to have some Dutch glory ;-) This winter we are riding the Tour de France of 1980, the Tour with the most Dutch win's ever"
There is a lot of work here!See all the pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Felix.Levitan/
And the tracks here!!!: http://picasaweb.google.com/knightrohan4/RetroBanen#
RETRO ZESDAAGSE (Peter Frissen/Jack Habets)
What's even better is that these guys have made a fantastic 6-day race game with an incredible wooden track. Jack's words again: "Besides this road-racing we are enthousiastic Six-days viewer. We've also been playing this in our schoolyears and after a visit to the Six days of Hasselt last februar we have made our own Six Days-game. We find this even more realistic and wonderfull than the road-racing game! One of the great parts is the track Peter made! "
You can see the making of the track here: http://picasaweb.google.com/knightrohan4/Zesdaagse#
"THE RIDER" GAME
The following is extracted from Tim Krabbé's novel "The Rider" (Bloomsbury, London, 2002, p. 44-45). The original Dutch edition of the novel, "De Renner", is from 1978. By the way, I absolutely recommend this book. I am not going to say it is "one of the best novels I have read lately", not because it would be untrue, but because it would not add much, since I very seldom read fiction. It is probably "the only novel I have read lately" and might remain so for some months. I'd rather say "the best cycling book I have read in years", which is equally accurate and probably much more meaningful.
(By the way, in case you wonder about my possible illiteracy... I read mostly essays, mostly about music or related arts, and I even wrote a couple of books about music, but that was a long time ago.)
ROBERTO PIETRANGELI'S BOX
Roberto Pietrangeli had an unfortunate bike crashb which has kept him at home for a while. To kill time he has made this fantastic "Free Cycling Games Compilation Box". The games included are La Serpiente Multicolor, Criteriun de Figueres, Homas Tour Pro, Pistard, Road Cycling Tour and Helden In Het Veld. Amazing!
ROULEUR
Posted 21/07/2005.
Another of my games. This is just a set of rules for advancing a bunch of riders. They work quite well, which does not mean I ever try to make a complete game out of it. Here is what I have:
This is a game for any (reasonable) number of players. You can play alone, as long as you don't mind running time-trials all the time. You can play a single race, but these rules are ment to care about energy, and about the energy left after the day for the following day. This rules are meant to represent a multi-stage race. What I do not have are mountain or sprint rules, but probably they could/should be included.
Elements of the game:
Teams of 5 cyclists, numbered 1 to 5. (Take it from any other game. You can even use the ones in PISTARD). Each team has one control board like the one on the rightmost picture. The color of the pins matches the color of the team, in case you wondered. (Of course they don't need to be pins. Anything will do).
Energy cards. A deck of cards numbered 1 to 5. In fact, the number of cards is not that important, as long as there are enough of them. I used around 200 cards. The proportions were:
- 35 per cent of the cards are number "1"
- 25 per cent of the cards are number "2"
- 16 per cent of the cards are number "3"
- 12 per cent of the cards are number "4"
- 12 per cent of the cards are number "5"But now I think the easiest way is to get four regular card decks and read them like that:
- A,K,Q,J mean "1"
- 10,9,8 mean "2"
- 7,6 mean "3"
- 5,4 mean "4"
- 3,2 mean "5"(I admit it's not the same proportion, but as I said the game was on the testing stage). Jokers can be adscribed to "1", or may be used as jokers, or may be used for such things as the mountain rule or the sprint rule (see end of text).
The dice. That's the important part of this game mechanics (along with the cards). We have four different dice (see leftmost picture), and I am afraid you will have to paint your own (at least that's what I did):
- 1 YELLOW die with the faces marked 2 2 2 2 3 3
- 1 ORANGE die with the faces marked 2 2 3 3 4 X
- 1 RED die with the faces marked 3 3 4 4 X X
- 1 BLACK die with the faces marked 0 0 1 1 2 2The road. Since I have not implemented rules for mountain, sprint, &c you can use the board of any other game as long as the cyclists fit in. You do not need lanes.
The game went like this:
You decide the lenght of the stage (around 60-70 squares worked, if I remember well). Every team receives the same number of cards (That I don't remeber. Maybe I never reached a number. You can experiment by yourself. I would say 20).
One important rule of the game is that, in general, a rider is able to follow the pace of the peloton he is in. If the first rider of the peloton id fast enough, everyone may follow him without throwing their dices. (That part of the rules is not finished, there might be more exceptions. At the moment the only exception is the use of the black die).
All the riders start the game with the YELLOW die and therefore mark the square "O" on their pin board for all the riders. (The "X" square is for the ORANGE die and the "XX" square is for the the RED die; the BLACK die is not included on the pin board).
The first rider in the order of the race (ok, just put the riders in any order, this is just a test). Throws his die. At this point he can decide to keep the current die or change to another die). Let's examine the three coloured dice:
The YELLOW die (2-2-2-2-3-3) is quite slow, but safe. With it you advance an average of 2.33 squares. It may take long to reach the finish line, but you do not spend energy cards. If you want to run faster, you have to pay an energy card with the number of the rider and this rider will use the orange die. If you do, you change the position of the pin in the pinboard to "X", and you will use the orange die for that rider until this changes.
Of course, since there are more ones than fives in the deck, the rider 1 is generally your stonger rider. But you cannot really tell if how your rivals' riders "feel". Maybe they have a hand filled with fives and their rider 5 will give us all a surprise!
The ORANGE die (2-2-3-3-4-X) is a little faster than the yellow die, but has an X on it. The average advance is 2.8 squares but every time you throw an "X" you must decide between paying another energy card (with the number of the rider on it, of course) or shifting down to the yellow die (and keeping it until you change again). If you pay the energy card, you throw the orange die again to advance the rider. (Of course you could throw another "X" and still have to decide whether you pay ANOTHER energy card or shift down to the yellow die).
But of course you may want to run faster. Before you throw the orange dice, you can pay another energy ard and shift to the RED die. You change your pin on the pinboard and grab the fast but exhausting RED die (3-3-4-4-X-X), which has and average advance of 3.5 but two "X". Well, you can imagine how it works, you will advance 3 or 4 fields in every throw, as long as you are lucky not to get an "X". If you do you will have to spend an energy card to keep the red die or shift down to the orange die (which still has ans "X" on it).
If you still want to go faster, and you have the energy cards to do it, after throwing any coloured die you can pay one extra energy card and throw the BLACK (0-0-1-1-2-2) die ONCE. If you are lucky you will advance two fields, if you are not you might even stay where you are. The black die is not marked on the pinboard, so you do not keep it. A rider can't use it more than one time per turn (even if he threw a "0", aven if he has a lot of energy cards...). On the other hand, the black die can be used after any coloured dice, including yellow (although it does not make much sense, probably). It can even be used after following another rider (without throwing a coloured die).
Since the use of the black die is a sudden burst of energy, the follow-the-peloton rule does not apply to a rider using the black die (even if he throws a "0"!). A rider using the black die is supposed to try a breakaway.
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Well, that's all I have (or can remember) about this one. The rest of the rules can be quite similar to those in many games. The game is meant for a multi-stage race (maybe 5 or 6 stages, including a time trial, either a team or an individual one). The second day the players receive new energy cards (maybe less than the first day) but keep the ones they have. So the big issue of the game is about when you should use your energy. The weakest riders of the team can still do a very useful work since they can lead a peloton and spend all their energy on a red die. As a result, a peloton can ride much faster than a single rider (much more energy to spend) as long as there is a good cooperation between the riders. (though the rules for shifting places inside a peloton aren't clear either, I know).
The development of this one stopped when I started thinking about TAKTIK TOUR. Then I discovered that TAKTIK TOUR would take too long and I shifted to ARC-EN-CIEL, and even did PISTARD. So ROULEUR has been in the limbo for a while, and might stay there quite a long time, though I think these mechanics are quite strong for a cycling game. Needless to say, I'll be glad to cooperate with anyone who wishes to use these ideas (or part of them).
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Possible mountain or sprint rules: Let's assume cyclist "2" is a climber and cyclist "3" is a sprinter. The mountain rule would be something like "the joker cards can be used by the climber only in mountain sections, otherwise they will be used by the team leader" (of course, mountain sections should be marked on the road). Moreover, no aspiration rule in the mountain sections. Possible sprint rule: "near the finish line, a joker can be used by a sprinter to get an additional throw of the black die".
DIE RUNDFAHRT, by Peer Sylvester
Peer Sylvester, from Berlin, is a game designer who is making his first attemptat cycle racing games. I promised him I would give him my opinion in depth, but I have been very busy. I still can't say much about this one (I am sorry...), except that it will be an interesting one.
SPRINT / L'AUTOBUS, by Tony Reeves
Click here for more info on this one: Smiffy's Rules BankSomeone called Tony Reeves wrote the rules for these two for a games fanzine. I find these rules quite interesting, but (a) "Sprint" does not really work (the second player always wins if he plays the correct strategy - a very easy one to find); and (b) "L'Autobus" looks better but this set of rules is not complete (for instance, how many cards are dealt to each player?).
I tried to contact Mr. Reeves but I could not make it. Can anyone help?
Sprint - a game of nip and tuckA game for 2 players 5 to 8 turns
This game has been in my head for some time now and I think it’s worth a playtesting. It is very loosely based on Sprint Cycling. When I was young this always struck me as a daft name because they don’t (sprint, that is) at least not until the final 200 metres or so. The bulk of the contest is taken up by an elaborate battle of wits in an attempt to hang behind the opposing cyclist until the last possible moment.
1.Each player has 6 cards, three 2’s, two 4’s and a 6.
2.One player starts on square 1, the other on square zero
3.Cards are revealed simultaneously and the players move the stated number of squares. Those cards are then lost with the exception described in Rule 4.
4. Any player who commences a turn exactly one square behind his opponent and plays exactly the same card as his opponent retains that card. The leading player can never retain a chosen card
5. The winner is the player who moves the furthest when all cards are discarded.I’m really not sure that the game will work but would be grateful to anybody who can playtest it or is willing to sign up and give it a go. I would run 2 games between opponents simultaneously, swapping the positions on the starting grid.
If it does work, I’d like to extend the idea to cover more cyclists. There would be a real Prisoner’s Dilemma element to the idea of mutual co-operation. We’ll see.
L’autobus - Sprint grows upL’autobus a multi-player game which has evolved from the 2 player game of Sprint. In practice, Sprint has been found wanting in terms of strategical and tactical options but I think that the basic "conservation of energy/movement cards" mechanism is interesting and is worth persevering with. Thus the element of taking back into the hand a card which is the same as that played by a cyclist on a space immediately in front (ie the next space ahead) is retained. The crucial difference comes from the increased number of cyclists and the effect of playing a card that would bring a cyclist into a group. The term L’autobus, I am lead to believe, is used for the group of cyclists who have no great aspirations in the mountain stages other than to stay within the qualifying times and therefore form a safe bunch in which they can all "travel".
The rules:
0. The object of the game is to travel as far as possible given limited resources.
1. There are 5 teams of cyclists per game.
2. Each player manages a team of 5 cyclists.
3. The cyclists start in 5 groups, each group separated by one space from the preceeding group. This means that the last cyclist in group E starts at space 1, the last cyclist in group D starts at space 7 and so on. The leading cyclist starts at space 31.
4. Players simultaneously reveal their card choices for each of their 5 cyclists.
5. If a cyclist is not in a space immediately behind another cyclist then the card is discaded and cannot be used again.
6. If the cyclist is immediately behind another cyclist and the card matches that played by the cyclist immediately ahead then the card is retained for future use. The trailing cyclist is assumed to have slipstreamed the leading one and saved his energy for later use.
7. In carrying out movement, the cyclists are moved in race position order. Note that two or more cyclists can never occupy the same space.
8. If a cyclist’s movement takes him to an empty space then he simply advances to that space.
9. If a cyclist’s movement takes him to a space where he would land on the same place as another cyclist then he moves to the next available forward space. It is therefore possible to overtake a continuous group of cyclists by playing a movement crd that would place a cyclist on the same space as a cyclist at the back of the group. This (sort of) simulates a rider moving up to join a group but being forced to move to the front of the group (taking the bulk of the wind resistance) for his audacity.
10. Their are 2 "Special" cards which can be played at any time except turn one. They can only be played ONCE and cannot be recouped into the hand as in rule 6 even if the conditions for doing so are otherwise satisfied. They are: (a) a ZERO card (b) a SPRINT card. The ZERO card results in no movement for the cyclist in question and may be useful in allowing another cyclist to pass by. It can only be used ONCE, even if the cyclist immediately in front plays a zero. The SPRINT card results in that cyclist playing ALL their remaining cards in one move to give an aggregate movement equal to the sum of the remaining cards. A cyclist may want to do this to break away from the remainder of a group, particularly towards the end of the race.
11. If a cyclist plays all his remaining cards before the SPRINT card then the SPRINT card turns into a movement card of value 1. This movement card behaves as a normal movement card as outlined in rules 4 to 9.
12. The race ends when all cyclists are void of cards.
13. At the end of the race, the 3 leading cyclists receive movement bonuses as follows, prior to the calculations of team scores:1st - moves forward 3 spaces
2nd - moves forward 2 spaces
3rd - moves forward 1 space14. The (penalty) scores for each cyclist are calculated as follows: One penalty point for every empty (i.e. unoccupied by cyclists) space between that cyclist and the winning cyclist. Thus, all cyclists in a group are judged to have the "same time" as there will be no additional empty spaces between the front and back of a continuous group. The bonuses in Rule 13 are intended to reward the 3 leading cyclists and to emphasise the difference between them.
Note that the winning cyclist will always have a penalty score of zero, the 2nd place cyclist a minimum of one, the third a minimum of two. It is possibly, but very unlikely for the remaining cyclists to all have a score of three.
15. The winning team is the team with the lowest aggregate of penalty points for its 5 cyclists.
16. Variant rules for mountainous terrain are in the alpha playtesting stage.
TakTik Tour is closer to become a reality.
First draft of the rules completed (may 2010).
Beta tests starting soon.
This one is by Peter Davis from Exeter, Devon. Not exactly pro cycling.
TOUR DE FRANCE DICE GAME (Bernd Brucker, 2005)
In his book Die schönsten Würfelspiele (Heyne, München, 2005), Bernd Brucker describes a game called "Tour de France". I would hardly classify it as a cycling game, but... I am sure there must be more cycling-oriented dice games.
TOUR DE FRANCE, by Gael Giraudeau
Another game I found browsing the web, made by a guy from Lyon. Looks nice. (http://giraudeau.googlepages.com/societygames)
An unfinished project form my friend Richard Glanzer, from New York. He worked quite hard on it, as you can see from the cards.
1st version:
2nd version:
Last time Richard mentioned the game he looked quite disappointed about it not being such a good game as he had thought.(which is good: game inventors tend to think their game is the best game in the world, and even reality won't make them change their minds).
I hope Richard resumes working on this one. For the moment, here is a draft of the rules. If you feel you have something to bring to the game, drop a line and I will put you in contact with Richard.
Not really a game but an idea from the Dutch online magazine SPELMAGAZIJN to play the different stages of a race with different games. If my Dutch does not betray me, the mountain stages were played with HOMAS TOUR, the flat stages with DESR AUSSREISER and the time trial with some computer game. A nice idea!
This one has a website: http://www.tour-game.com
Tim Krabbé (author of "The Rider") has been kind enough to send me a text he wrote back in 1987 for Elsevier Magazine. The text is called TOURS and recalls the memories of some adults who used to play cycling games in their childhood. Some of them played their own board games (like Tim Krabbé himself, see "The Rider" game), others played dexterity games. Since the text is in Dutch (and even though on-line translations do marvels these days), it will take a while for me to post them here...
US Patents are freely available on-line. This game has Patent number 4,634,128. By the way, I seldom include Triathlon games on the website, I have to draw the line somewhere...
I have recently purchased this one in Italy. It's a plywood board with some Salza riders on it. It did not have any rules, of course.
John Weber mentions this one on BGG: "Another one I have seen and actually played that was pretty good was a game called Velo or Velox that was an unpublished prototype. If I recall correctly, the game was designed by a Swiss and I was shown it by a Frenchman who happened to be in the USA for the World Diplomacy championships."
On a private email, he added: "Each stage was broken down into a number of turns, that could be flat, sprint, high mountains, or lesser mountains, then you had the peleton working at a particular rate of speed, breakaways, cyclists falling off the back, etc. It had a fairly realistic feel to it -- and hey, I won the race! -- and a cool feature was you could slip the yellow jersey on the cyclist's back (these were paper cyclists printed out on a desktop -- nothing fancy) -- but the game was pretty good, sorry not to see it make it into production."
Thanks, John!
