A Straight Road (2014)

A Straight Road is a car racing game set in a post-apocalyptic future. Inspired by the countless movies of that genre, you race down a long (it almost seems endless) straight, ever-changing highway, trying to kill off all your competitors, run over the most valuable pedestrians, reach the gas station first or a variety of other goals, depending on the scenario you pick. Sometimes you will be on your own, sometimes you will be part of a gang.

There are many cars, drivers, passengers and equipment available that can be combined freely to build the wheeled killing machine of your dreams. However, the scenario only grants you a certain amount of credit to do so, each car only has a limited load capacity and, of course, the better the gear and the driver, the more expensive.

Game play is simple and fast. Each turn you change your speed, drive and take an action. You attack your opponents with your mounted guns, molotovs, rockets and more, lay mines or leave oil puddles for the guys behind you to slip in, ram other cars and wracks out of your way. Your ability to do stuff changes, depending on how fast you are going and what you are trying to do. However, only in very few cases you will need to calculate anything, most of that is taken care of by the layout of the game material; You just check your current value and roll a six-sided die. While you will want to stay on the road, circumstances often will force you to drive on the shoulder, where going gets rougher and steering more interesting…

Most of the game is free to print and play, you will, however, need small models to represent your cars; Micromachines work well, or any other model of roughly that size. If you deem Thunder Road too simplistic and Car Wars too fiddly, this might be a game for you.