Heat: Petal to the Metal
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Stephen: [00:00:00] You are listening to Games from the Celler, the Board gaming podcast, featuring authentic board gaming conversations. Tonight I was joined by John, Chris, and Sam playing the brand new game from Days of Wonder Heat: Pedal to the Metal. So unfortunately, Adrienne's not available today, so I'm going to do my best to give you the designer creds and here they.
So Heat: Pedal to the Metal was designed by Asger Harding Granerud, and Daniel Skjold Pedersen. I think I did all right there, right? Sure. Anyway, readily available in 2023. Already. It has an 8.2 rating with 5,500 ratings and is ranked 1 39 overall. It's too early to tell if it'll win any awards, but my money is on Yes
It's a one to six player, light to medium weight racing game that should play in about 30 to 60 minutes. So thank you for joining us in the cellar as we go in depth with Heat: Pedal to the [00:01:00] Metal.
All right, so we got Heat on the table.
John: First time.
Stephen: First Time. This is, uh, this is a new game. Uh mm-hmm.
notably a new game that John has paid for full price.
Chris: Did you kickstart this one, John? Crazy.
John: I, uh, you know, I don't, I don't know if, I don't think this was even a Kickstarter. No. I purchased this at a local retailer. So I, I did it the old fashioned way.
Stephen: yeah. I don't think this was a Kickstarter.
John: Yeah. And this was, this was a little bit, it was getting a little bit hard to get and I kind of moaned about that on the Discord site of a local game store. And they came back literally two minutes later and said, I think we got a copy. I'm like, well, can you check? And they said, yep, we got one. So they set it aside for me.
The next day I ran out and I got it. So I got heat, which of are looking this for right now, but they're due to reprint it, so it's not going to
Samuel: which of our local game stores have a discord?
John: um, that's it's, it's more common than you might think. This is, um,
Chris: third Eye Comics or whatever it is, or what's that one down there?
Stephen: This's? The one in Savage.
John: It's one in Savage, which is Omni It. Omni Omnihedrial is the name of it [00:02:00] out in s No, Maryland. It's, uh, the Infinite
Stephen: Side of Dice or the All Facing, all-Knowing Side of Dice. Oh, yes. I've ever been,
John: it's, it's like exactly midway between Annapolis, Baltimore and Washington DC
Chris: Yeah, but John's not a huge.
Kickstarter. So I really did not think that he kickstarted this one . It's,
John: I'm, I'm a huge fan of giving somebody money and them handing me a game immediately. I just feel good doing it that way. So that's why I want this, and this is a days of wonder game, and I don't think Days of Wonder does anything with Kickstarting.
I think they just sold games, and that's what I did. So I got this game. So anyway,
Stephen: yeah, they make really nice games with really good presentations and fairly decent rule sets. And then they, yeah, say, Hey, guess what? You can buy this.
Samuel: So John, why did you wanna buy? ,
John: you know, I like racing games and uh, one of the questions I ask is a lot of people were saying, Hey, this is kind of a neat racing game.
And one of the questions I ask is, okay, are you playing a driver or are you playing a syndicate where you're building a team? And that kind of stuff. Cuz I like driving games. I want to be the guy in the car driving the car. And everybody came back and said, oh no, [00:03:00] this is, this is a driver's game. and it is.
So that's a good, that was a good fit for me and I got a chance to get it out of the table and just kind of play around with it a little bit. Yes. Chris,
Chris: sir, was the question ever asked, will this piss Sam off? ,
John: that question was not asked, and we were not, we
Stephen: weren't to that yet.
John: But thank you. I'll be quietly to myself.
But, um, it's the, the nice part about it is this plays very quickly. This is not a big, long, complicated game. We're not gonna be playing the, you know, formula D can go on and on and on. This is not gonna do that to you. This is gonna kind of rock and roll. You're gonna get around the lap. You're gonna get around two laps real quick.
So,
Samuel: promises, promises,
John: no, we'll find out in just a minute. So, um, fundamentally is there's no dice in this game. You're playing cards, you pick the cards you wanna play, you play as many as you want based on what gear you decide to put your car in. You get around the track, you just can't go too fast when you go around the turns, just like in real racing.
So you're all set to go. Um, you have to manage the heat that your car starts overheating after a while. So you do need to manage that. Um, couple. , uh, I guess I'll call them clever mechanics. And [00:04:00] there's even the ability to kind of do a little bit of deck building where you get to draft a new card into your deck.
But that's something that we can talk about after we're done here.
Stephen: So like a quote unquote full game is playing three different races where you draft cards in between. Yes. Or is a full game one race?
John: The basic game is. , grab the cards that they recommend in the starting rules. Play your game, play your race.
You're done. Now you've learned how to play. The full game is three races with a draft in front of each one of them. Okay, John
Samuel: Knight. And tonight, are we doing the full game or are we just doing one race?
John: I don't know. I think, let's see how the first
Stephen: race came. We're gonna do one race figured out. Yep. And depending on how that goes, we may do the other two.
Yeah. But one race at least.
Chris: So 20 minutes ago, John and I were sitting here. I was at least exactly like you two are going, how in the world does this work? And we played two turns and it was. We were playing read the, we both understood it was pretty simple. Mechanics.
Samuel: I read the rules before I showed up.
Stephen: Yeah. I've also [00:05:00] read the rules.
Chris: Then why did you need to see the rule book once you showed up? Make sure we were playing by the official rules that john hadn't changed.
Stephen: This just Sam's thing
Samuel: touching rule books.
Stephen: Sam is very comfortable with a rule book in his hand or his lap. He just, he likes to cuddle the rule books.
Samuel: I do. Yeah. Okay. It's, it's like a security thing
Stephen: real intimate with the rule book,
John: you know, it's what they're for. It, it could be drugs or women as addictions go, that's a pretty solid choice as far as I'm concerned. .
Stephen: Yeah. So I, you know, Sam's read the rule book. I've read the rule book when this, oh, okay. So we're all set.
When this came out,
Chris: I had never read the rule book, and I think I know the rules.
Samuel: I'm pretty sure John touched the rule book at some point.
John: I did indeed touch the rule book at some point.
Stephen: So when the, the announcement for this came. , you know, that's when I read the rules. I watched a couple of the, the review videos or the preview videos.
I was gonna get this if John didn't. . Um, I just feel like this was a game that would be perfect for our group. Uh, it's got the racing for John, it's got the kind of deck hand management that, that I'm a [00:06:00] fan of. And then who cares what Sam wants? He's gonna play whatever we tell him. Um,
Samuel: and Chris doesn't even ready to mention,
Stephen: I mean, Chris plays everything.
He's very,
Chris: Chris is gonna win.
Stephen: He's very agreeable. He'll play whatever we put on the table. Yeah. I haven't heard Chris say he dislikes a game well, yeah,
John: good point.
Chris: Imperial Settlers.
Samuel: Yeah.
Stephen: Yeah. Well, but you were doing well,
Samuel: but you still gave it a seven.
Stephen: That's true. All right. So barring imperial settlers, I don't think I've ever heard Chris say that he doesn't like a game.
So, you know,
John: everybody's happy.
Stephen: I think everyone's gonna be happy with this one. Yeah. So, you know what? Let's, let's stop with the hypotheticals.
John: Let's get down to play.
Stephen: Let's put the mics down. Let's get this played. All right.
All right, so let's talk about Heat
Chris: wait, I think I'm still out on the track. . .
Stephen: The lights are out. Chris is still driving. He's got, guys are still, how
John: long ago somebody [00:07:00] left with the cup.
Stephen: He's uh, he's got a small flame coming out of his radiator, . That's why they call it heat.
Samuel: So the game's over. Stephen won quite handily.
Well, pretty handily. Yeah. Quite hand.
John: You, you had, you had a turn to spare. Nobody finished
Chris: on the same turn
John: around that finish line. So yeah,
Stephen: I mean, what did I go seven 19, no, 17, the last turn. Yeah.
John: You, you cleared it with something. Yeah. So you were good. And that's fine. And to clarify, we played the intro game and it took not a lot of extra rules, right?
Not a lot of extra rules. There's four of us and we, and we finished in what was an hour and.
Stephen: Okay. You know, for the first game, uh, I think, you know, honestly, I, I think we kind of jumped into it pretty. pretty readily. Pretty quick.
Samuel: Yeah, it was pretty smooth. Yeah.
John: Yeah. And I, and I'll be honest with you, when, when I tried this out myself just to get a learning game under me, I, I made a fairly big mistake with [00:08:00] the rules that kind of made the game really play weird cuz it had some follow on effects.
This time I think we got. Just about everything. Right. Um, we, for a little while we were missing the rule with the cool down for the, for the gimme spot. But other than that, um, every, everything, I, I think we, we nailed it. Everything works working the way you're supposed to,
Chris: and I really wanted to figure out what happens when you do spin out.
We figured that out pretty early.
John: You did? I think you found out real early. Yeah. And I spun out too. And did you spin out just the once or did you spin out once? Just, just. Yeah, I spun out just once too, and we, and we finished third and fourth, so I'm thinking that perhaps that's not a good strategy Chris.
We should stop doing that.
Samuel: Stephen and I were one space away from spinning out in that last corner.
John: Yeah, and, and to be fair, we were not terribly far behind this. No. I
Samuel: mean, if Steven had pulled a four. Instead of a three,
Stephen: which I wouldn't have done cuz I had, well, chances were very slim because I very slim had two fours in my hand, had two in your hand already.
But if you had, and that's why I took that calculated risk. It would've,
Samuel: it would've thrown things off. It was a very calculated risk. Kudos.
Stephen: Yeah. I was doing my best to. [00:09:00] Knowing that once I got out of that corner, I was trying my best to hold onto my fours and fives so I could just scream across the finish line.
John: So we were playing on the British map where once you get through that little serpentine patch you've got just forever to go before you hit your next turn. And then that turn is at speed 10. So you can just rip around that corner of the track. And one of the mechanics of the game is you end up with, with, you get these heat cards and they get stuck in your hand.
So they aren't any good for you. So you need to find. Burn those off. When you're moving at speed one or two, you have the ability to burn those cards off so when you're down and through that serpentine part and stuff like that, where you need to be moving more slowly anyway, that allows you to burn that heat off.
When you get out into that open space, that's where you want to just be playing all your high number cards. You want to be up to speed three
Chris: or four. What was the name of the other ones that you got? Stress cards. The stress cards? Yep. Yeah. When you spin out, you get two additional ones in a F five three.
Yeah, we got two add. two. It was two. So I You have five now in your hands.
John: We did get a rule wrong. At least I got a rule. Cause I took three.
Chris: You took three. So I [00:10:00] had five of them in my hand. Mm-hmm. going into that twisty turn thing. Right. And I had to play the cards that were in my hand. So I was getting heat and I was getting that.
And there's no option.
John: You, you cannot discard. Yeah. Those cards.
Samuel: In the base version, but
Chris: you can play 'em. But then you draw another card, you don't know what your speed's gonna be and Exactly. And you have goes three across
John: the line. So it adds can play that because it adds on predictability and how you play.
That's some of the nature of the game. So if, if you play very conservatively, you know what you're doing, it's gonna happen. You got some control. The minute you start pushing your luck. Which you kind of have to do if you wanna win, you gotta push your luck in this game. That's when things start getting a little bit more difficult.
You have to start playing those cards that bring random cards up into your play when you're, when you're, when you're getting around the track.
Stephen: Yeah. So you were talking about using your low speed to dump heat. in that real tight serpents team. Mm-hmm. where my strategy was to have all of my heat back on my board.
So I had it to spend while in that serpent.
Samuel: Yeah. [00:11:00] Now you wanted to dump your heat. So the right after and right before
Stephen: like the, the. Two turns before the serpentine started was when I was going slow.
John: Right. Because you've got, you've got, you've got, and there is some space there cause there's, there's that early turn on the British track that you, you are, it's very likely you're gonna get down to speed two anyway.
Samuel: Yeah. I mean that, that last, uh, the last go around the track, I went from last place. I think I actually jumped into first place for a round. Yes.
John: Just, just enough to ruin it for you.
Samuel: Just enough to ruin it for me. Cuz I went through two turns at once. And I had the heat to do that. Mm-hmm. , um, I didn't have the heat to do anything else, but I held on a second
place.
Yeah.
Stephen: Because I, I had burnt all of my heat getting out of the serpentine by going through Yeah. Mm-hmm. two and then, okay. So, and then I knew that I wasn't ever gonna dump it again, so I just went up to floor. Just get, just run it. Yeah. Yeah.
John: So, so the, the, the two parts of the game that I think. , if I can call it controversial, is the [00:12:00] I go last, therefore I get to dump heat for free and get a free space for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
Samuel: John does not like ketchup, mechanics.
Stephen: I mean,
John: it seems pretty arbitrary to me.
Stephen: Yeah, it's so like thematically, if you watch f1, which is what this is based off of, like how thematically is the person in 20th place getting an. Like 10 feet adrenaline boost.
Yeah. Yeah. It just, I mean, to me it's like you should drop back because obviously you're not driving.
I don't know. I just, I find it, I found it a little ridiculous. It's a catch up mechanic. It's a's a mechanic, mechanic. I don't, that's basically,
Samuel: don't mind, it was mechanics. I thought it was fine. It doesn't, doesn't have a thematic justification, but I felt like it was a strong mechanic and I felt like it added to the gameplay.
Stephen: And honestly, I didn't feel like, I mean, I never had to use it, but just watching you guys use it, I didn't think it made that much of a difference anyway. No, it did because [00:13:00] it's a onesie, but you didn't, it's a onesie and then you get to dump the heat, so,
Chris: And that one free space, and then you get to do the slip streaming does help.
Cause you don't have to calculate exactly where somebody else is gonna be,
Samuel: gives you, it gives you a little bit more wiggle room where you can try and stay with the pack
John: and could perhaps move you from last place to first place when you include the slip stream with it. Because the people in the back get to slipstream and the people in the front don't.
Yeah. So the. the other item. So, so I'm, I'm on the fence with that. It's okay, but I, I wouldn't have included it if I had done it that way. The, the, and then the other one is a slipstream where you must move to, and at times, frankly, it's not necessarily an advantage. To be in first place in this game. In fact, really the only time it's an advantage of being in first place in this game is when you're crossing the finish line because you're giving everybody behind you
Chris: a, I don't agree with that always because it's an advantage if you're across a line, then somebody has to, cuz it adds speed to them as well.
So if you make it past a turn and you're getting somebody, they're gonna have to take some heat to [00:14:00] get in around, in front of,
Samuel: well, so slip streaming doesn't add to your. But
Stephen: it could put you across another side. It could put you over the line. Right.
John: But that's, as more often than not, that's a big advantage, not a disadvantage.
It allows you to weasel across the line. So it's, it's giving the people that are farther back. some pretty plush benefits.
Samuel: It, it is another catch.
John: And frankly, and historically F1 doesn't really do very well with slip streaming, so it's, I'm, I'm not sure exactly. Whoa. But it's, it's, it's, again, it, it's a way to tighten up the pack and, and I'm, I'm always a big fan of, hey, gimme a level playing field and, you know, if I suck up the joint, that's my business.
All right. I didn't do as well, and I came in a distant third in this, in this race because I spun out and, you know, that's what happens when you
spun out. Yeah.
Samuel: So, so I. I think thematically the ketchup mechanics might not make a hundred percent sense, a hundred percent sense, but I'm fine with that because I thought they added to the gameplay.
Right? I mean, I'm not normally a huge fan of racing games. I enjoyed this one because there was kind of [00:15:00] a, a rubber banding effect for the back of the. Right when you, when you were in the back, you make, you might get the freebie space if you were actually in last and you probably were gonna be able to slipstream and kind of keep up, right?
I mean, you guys like Chris and John weren't last, but you weren't like a distant third. You were a turn behind. Well, coming out of super tight serpent, uh,
Chris: full term before you. . And then you two finished the race. Yeah, that was just another game, and then we, no, we never take the last turn, so I'm still technically out on the track.
You turn the lights off and I'm still
sitting there.
Samuel: Right. Well, you know it. The seconds behind in a real, but the cars were still close enough together. That interaction was a concern, right? Like the, the turn before Stephen won, he and I were jockeying for position going around the corner.
John: I'm just, I'm just thinking that's in a game that plays as quickly as this.
I, and, and frankly, this was our first game. This is learning game. Get the feeling if we played a second time, we'd be punching this out 10 or 15 minutes faster because you guys had to keep waiting for [00:16:00] me to remember to move my gear and get my cards laid down and everything else. .
Stephen: I think the, the only hangup I had was the barrier, the barrier to entry to learn that iconography was, was really high with this.
John: Yeah, I agree.
Stephen: I think with repeated plays, .
John: Well, but you can argue that about anything. It'll, yeah. Yeah. I mean,
I mean the, the other thing's, that's all I German enough. You'll, you'll, German's German. German too.
Stephen: I'm speaking to what you're saying. Yeah. The next few times we play will probably knock 10, 15 minutes off.
We can get through that. I, cuz we've learned the iconography and we can kind of parse it easier.
Samuel: Right. And I don't mind when iconography is, , like it is hard to parse, right? It's, it can be confusing, whatever. If it's helpful. I don't mind. Yeah. I don't know that this was
helpful. Yeah. I don't think it's helpful.
Useful.
Stephen: So yeah, I get what you, so to that point, if it's hard to parse, are you. , are you actually translating it properly? So like we were looking at some of the, the icons and it's like, okay, here is a trashcan with [00:17:00] an X on it. Does that mean we can never discard this card? Can this card not go into the discard pile?
And what it actually means is it can't be discarded from your hand
John: into the discard pile.
Samuel: Into the discard in a specific step, because that rule is broken in the advanced rules.
Stephen: Yeah. And so it just, It kind of, so that's one example. There's other examples about how,
Samuel: so frankly, so frankly, there are nine steps over the course of the, the turn.
Right on your turn you do nine different things, um, which sounds like a lot because nine is a, is a pretty big number of discreet steps that you take during your turn. My problem. with heat and with a whole bunch of games. It's not just heat is, it's an inflated number. One of those steps is you draw up to seven
Stephen: and the other one, it's one is the one before.
It is discard as many cards from your hand as you want. Right? And then the next step is draw up to seven. Right? I get it. Cuz this is Days of wonder. And
Samuel: then you have, you have choose your [00:18:00] speed and then the next step is play that many cards.
Stephen: Play that many cards. So this is Days of Wonder and Days of Wonder.
Is a company that above, above all else, tries to make family weight games. And I think in an effort to keep this family friendly, they broke it down into all those extra steps to. Make it so that it's very difficult to skip those and little steps. No, and I, I get that. So like for us, we could look at it and say, okay, there's actually five steps.
Yeah. But if, if that, if you go to like, target and pull this all the shelf as like a birthday present, and this is like the first game you buy, okay. You might need those.
Samuel: You don't wanna be looking at like step one part A or, or whatever.
John: So you're, you're missing. . The cross purpose problem with that is you're breaking it into nine steps so that each step is nice and atomic and more straightforward.
But then the board that tells you what those steps are is all arrows and circles and little symbols [00:19:00] and stuff like that. And so that what, what they're doing is they're cross purposes with each other. They're trying to have it both ways.
Samuel: And yeah. Is, is it cheat sheet fine, break it down on into an atomic level, whatever.
Right? But when you're putting it into icon, , especially the like stylized, thematic look at the car dashboard. Yeah. Icons. Mm-hmm. it. It's hard to read. Yeah. Um,
Chris: okay. So that's, I think they could have been clear, like very simple, and then you could look into the, kind of remind you, it's like, okay, if I'm doing a boost, then show me a symbol of a boost.
I don't need to see all the,
Stephen: yeah, that was the other thing. It's like sometimes the only symbol in there is the heat icon. Mm-hmm. and then like the cooling. and it's like, okay, so is this the step where I cool, but why is the heat icon there? And it's like, is there a heat step that I'm missing or is it telling me to like remove heat because I'm cooling?
It was just. .
John: It's, yeah, the, it was kind of weird, the heating and the [00:20:00] cooling. I think they overcomplicated, they should have had one symbol with plus one and minus one on plus two and minus two. No, I don't, I just used color. I, I'm not, and that would've, that, that would've removed some of the load for the stuff that you have.
Samuel: I, I, I'm not sure I agree with that. I, I liked the little fire symbol for heat and the blue thermometer for cold. I think that's fine.
Stephen: Yeah. That, I mean, to me is okay. It was just that combination of symbols with no real explanation as to it's why they're both there. Yeah. It, it's did makes because having the cooling symbol means you take one of the heats outta your hand.
Mm-hmm. . And so why do you have the little heat symbol? I don't know.
John: So why not have a single symbol? Well,
Stephen: that's what I'm saying also
John: that's, it's because
Samuel: it's causes that step was actually where you get to use all of the icons you have on. . That's why there were three.
John: No, but no, my, my, my point is that heat symbol is all over the place in the game.
And the cool symbol is all over the place and not all over, but in, in multiple places. And they, they could have reduced that. I, I mean, the name of the game is heat. The name of the game is
Samuel: heat. I think the problem is like, we're
Stephen: gonna [00:21:00] stop this cause Okay. We're gonna stop too far on this. Yeah. All right.
All that to say, I think both of 'em should be, just not in the same spot together anyway.
John: And, and to be fair, I, I know for a fact that people that are responsible for the rule book and the likes are doing a rewrite. So, so version two of this game is gonna have, uh, hopefully a more clear description of a lot of the symbols that they have.
Samuel: I mean, I thought the rules were fine, it's just the board was confusing.
Stephen: All right. So, you know. All right. Now that I'm thinking about what you're saying, in the rule book. We didn't really see this. There's the whole concept of the inside and the outside line. Yeah. That was a mess. And so in that, I recall there being an issue in the rule book.
Yeah. So they're gonna clarify that. We didn't really mess with that because I don't think it really mattered for us so much. We ne I
Samuel: don't think we ever had anybody. It was a couple places where somebody tied, but it's just if you're closer to the racing line than you're in first.
John: Yeah. So I dunno about you guys, but I, I was making sure we were putting the cars in the right place.
Yeah, that [00:22:00] seems like a pretty basic one. So just, and, and, and those are the kinds of things. I mean, they're little misses and, and I'll be honest with you, we've talked in the past when we talked about. Uh, team manager, we talked about Blood Bowl Team Manager. One of the things we talked about is really good development.
The rules are clear, the symbiology is clear. Everything that is on that board makes sense. It's intuitive, it just runs. And in this game there are places where you say, no, I have to stare at this board. Figure out where that race line is and once you find it, you're good. Yeah. But there is that pause to do that and that's, that's the kind of thing
Samuel: where I, I did have to take like 15 seconds to find the stinking line every time I looked at the board.
Stephen: So the one thing I will say, going back to team manager and development, we didn't really have to like look up for any rule clarifications other than the symbols. Please. No. Yep. It was pretty straightforward. Yep. I mean, the game itself, so it can be done this, the game functions very well. . It's just the symbols kind of get in the way.
Yeah, but not, oh, you mean for heat? For heat, yeah. For heat, yeah. The symbols got in the [00:23:00] way a little bit. Not, no, I mean, but I never, we were never like, well, wait a minute. What does this card mean? Let's go to the glossary. Yeah.
John: Oh, okay. So we were playing the basic game where the cards have virtually no symbols on.
Stephen: Yeah, I was, but I looked advance through the advanced ones, and frankly, I'd looked, not even looking at the advanced rules, I knew exactly what the cards said.
Samuel: Yeah. I, I looked at, at, so I didn't look at the cards. I looked at the advanced rules, and they had a little glossary where they showed all the, Yeah, and those all seemed really straightforward,
John: except those are the ones that are getting all the questions on and they're redoing that page because it is insufficient.
So that's, that's what I'm saying. And, and I, and I, I get it. And second printing on this thing is do like any day now I get the feeling that the new rule book is,
Chris: you can turn that one in, get another one.
John: No,
Samuel: you gotta print it out and like, you know, it took me all tape it over
John: my time to get everything out of that insert so I could throw the insert away.
This game is now perfect. I got my Ziploc bags, I got everything piled into the box room spare in case they do an expansion.
It's perfect.
Samuel: I saw him, he held it up to his ear and shook it really loud just to make sure everything settled properly.
John: I want a nice solid rattle in there. That's [00:24:00] right.
Stephen: And that's how, that's how board games should be.
John: Exactly.
Samuel: Yikes. I want to be able to rattle my board game and have it be silent.
John: Yeah. Well that's, that's the thing is, well, I mean it's the whole Apple. It's the unboxing video era of the game Must delight me when I opened the lid and it's like,
Samuel: so I still remember. So I still remember when we played the Dark Souls Board game.
I don't think I played with any of you guys. Uh, but. Opening the lid is a delight because you open the lid up and there's just a black page that says you died on top. .
Stephen: Which is, that's funny, is
Samuel: great. That's another story. Yeah. That's funny. Getting back to heat, Stephen, you won back heat,
Stephen: so, uh, yeah, I did win.
And you know, I do like this game. I guess we're gonna throw it to the B g G ranking thing. ,
John: we'll use BG G'S ranking. Yes.
Stephen: I mean, if we, it's one to 10, right? That's, that's where we go with this.
Samuel: You're holding the gun to my head, but, okay.
Stephen: So [00:25:00] heat is a game that, it's a lot of fun. It's real pretty to look at and you know, I like games that are deck building and have a hand management element to it.
and that's what heat is. Yeah. It is a racing game, but in essence, I think it's really like a a, a deck card, hand management game because like I said, I think the secret to my success was being able to manage what cards I had in my hand at certain stages in the track, and then managing my heat, which a lot of people, I think at first blush think,
is just something to junk up your deck. But when in actuality it's, it's actually a resource to be used. Yep. Right. And so I think the interplay between using the heat resource and holding onto cards for certain aspects of the board, it, it, [00:26:00] it just, it really clicked with me and I had a lot of fun with it.
So in the end, the heat gets a seven for me because it. All the things that I like in games. And then, you know, the, the F1 was kind of an added bonus. All right. So Sam, you were second.
Samuel: I was second. So I, I do have to say heat, uh, is definitely one of the games of all time.
Stephen: It's a game of all time.
Samuel: It is a game. Yes. So I enjoyed heat. Um, I wasn't sure I would, I, you know, it's a racing game.
John: Sam don't like race game. Sorry, don't racing game. Why you replay these stupid games.
Samuel: It's like the voices in my head have access to microphones. Mm-hmm. . , um, carry on.
John: But she liked this one.
Samuel: I did enjoy it. You know, it was, it was nice.
It wasn't,
Stephen: it wasn't pure racing,
Samuel: so I don't normally like racing games. With this one, there wasn't too much racing. There was a lot of hand management, and frankly, I really enjoyed the [00:27:00] ketchup mechanic. Right. My least favorite part about racing games in particular, and any game in general, is when you just sit there and watch the leader get farther and farther away, and there's nothing you can do. And at least in other games, you can, you know, like build your base or accrue resources or pursue your own thing, right? But in a racing game, the only thing you get to do is just watch as every turn. They just kinda like continue showing how far ahead of you they are.
Um, which I don't particularly enjoy. Um, but in Heat, there's actually two different ketchup mechanics that really influence how you interact with the other cars on the track. It's actually the only way you really interact with the other cars on the track, uh, which I found refreshing. Um, it's definitely not one that I'd, you know, pull off the shelf first, but I would for sure play it again.
Uh, so with that in mind, I have to give [00:28:00] this. , uh, like a solid seven. This is, this is good.
John: And from Sam for a race game, that's a solid, that's a solid endorsement. This is not, that's a in your wheelhouse.
Stephen: I, I gotta ask you though, so in your experience, if we were to say, ask you what your top three racing games were like, if we're like, Sam, go pick a racing game right now.
Which racing game do you think would be winner
Samuel: circle? What was the one where you had a whole team of cars? Thunder Alley. Thunder Alley. Thunder Alley. Probably Thunder Alley. Okay. I enjoyed Thunder Alley
Stephen: and then this one close after that. This is
Samuel: probably up there. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
John: Thunder Alley is hand management.
Samuel: So I remember there's, there's one you guys like to play where the only fun bit for me is halfway through the first lap. Uh, I'm so far behind. I get to try and t-bone, whichever sucker is in front of me, and then I walk away from the table and I think I've done that the last three or four times you've convinced me to play.
Chris: So, and that's why we don't play Bolide with Sam anymore.
Samuel: Yeah, [00:29:00] sorry.
Stephen: We need to play Russian Crush with Sam. He can because then you, then you're allowed because he can actually T-bone somebody. Yes. We just need to play Russian Crush. That's a good game.
John: Maybe we'll put that on the list too. So, so, so heat is a mixed bag for me.
Uh, uh, there, there's a good game here, and I'm gonna be honest with you. One of the things I mentioned a couple times while we were playing is not only is there a good game here, but I think there are all the components for people to really get creative and turn this into some different games as well.
There's a whole bunch of advanced rules cards that you could, you could, you could build your deck. You could, you, you, as it stands now, it's drafting. You don't pull a whole lot of cards when you look at the advanced rules. But people could play around with that. They can make a change. And of course, with any game like this, Like a racing game.
There's a basic fundamental running gear to it. And then you can change things as you see, uh, as you see fit. So, I, I, I'm gonna disagree on the catch up mechanic as being important because I just don't think the game doesn't last long enough for it to be that big a deal. And the fact that somebody has done exceptionally well, it probably means they've burned up their four and [00:30:00] five cards in order to do that.
Which means yours are still in your hand or still in your deck and his are not, so you got a shot at catching up just because of that anyway, but, but in a game that's this short, I don't think it's important. I, it's, it's not a deal breaker for me, but I just, I just don't think that that one in particular, I'm okay with the slipstream because it just makes a lot more sense.
Yeah. The
Stephen: adrenaline one is a little mismatched.
John: It, it just looks oddly placed.
Stephen: The slipstream one makes more sense to me and I'm okay with it because on any given turn up to. N minus one of the people can do slip streaming. Mm-hmm. . So the only person that couldn't potentially do a slip streaming is the first place person.
Samuel: Unless they're lapping somebody. ,
John: you're never gonna lap somebody in this game.
Stephen: So to me it's not really a catch up mechanic. It's more of a just kind of bonus movement that everyone but the the first player gets. Yeah, that's so, I mean, you know, little col, little column A, a little column B, but I don't, I don't have as big a problem with it.
Samuel: I will say, I think I. [00:31:00] Enjoy this more with the advanced rules. I'm a sucker for advanced rules.
Stephen: Yeah, I agree with that too. We'll definitely revisit this with the advanced rules. So, um, do we get a number from Chris? Is he still he the track. Whoa, we still didn't get a number from John.
John: I got a pile of I haven't gotten to yet.
My apologies. My start a stopwatch. So the first thing I'm gonna say. It is worth getting yourself through the rule book and through the iconography in order to play this game, because you're gonna look at it and you're gonna say, oh, where'd this come from? And I gotta figure that all out. And, and we are seasoned gamers.
We've got like 60 or 80 years of long-haired board games. Total experience.
Samuel: I can, I can feel the salt coming off of John.
John: Well, it's, I'm, I'm just saying and. And from what I can tell the publishers are aware, and they're making changes . So, and, and, and, and that's fine. I th so, so I think that problem is gonna work itself out.
And like I said, it is worth getting through it because there's a good game here. Now, I'm not a big hand management kind of guy for something like a racing game, cuz [00:32:00] as far as I'm concerned, you should be thrown dice somewhere. All right. This game has cards. That let you throw dice. They're not real dice, but you get to throw a card down that says, I'm gonna take the next card off my deck that moves me.
And please, oh, please, oh, please don't let it be a four because I need a small number. I need to move a little, not a lot. And I'm willing to take that risk. And that is a catch up mechanic that I'm a lot more comfortable with, where you take risk and you get what you get. And there is a a negative pressure.
That maybe you don't want to do that. And similar we've talked about in previous games where when you're out in the lead, you can afford to be more conservative. You can afford to play a little more safely as long as you don't do it too much because it gives people too much of a chance to catch up. If you're behind, you can exchange extra risk.
Mm-hmm. in order to get extra bonus. And I, I'm more comfortable with that sort of catch up. And this game has that and, and. does it very nicely with a set of cards because cards usually don't allow that. They figure out a nice way to ease that in. It's not [00:33:00] complicated, but there's certainly risk involved and it can end up giving you a real big boost.
Mm-hmm. , um, the, the way the game is laid out. So I'm fine as far as that is concerned.
Stephen: Yeah. The, those are focus cards. Uh, the stress cards. Stress cards. Stress cards are called. So yeah, the stress cards were an interesting. , we're an interesting mechanic. I do agree. Yes. That was, that was a good like, mix of luck into that.
John: Yeah, it was nice. Yeah, and I'm, I'm, I'm just kind of curious to call them stress cards. I might have just called them Push your luck cards, but that's okay. Yeah. Because that's what you're doing. You're pushing your luck.
Stephen: Yeah. Focus makes more sense, right? Like I think focus makes more sense.
Samuel: No, no. The idea is you're, there's, the idea is you, your driver is stressed and so you don't have perfect control over how fast the car is.
Right. That's why when you spin out you gain more stress. Uh, it's a fine name and, and yeah.
Stephen: And I guess because they junk your hand up cuz you can't discard those cards. Yeah. You have to play 'em to get rid.
Samuel: You have to play them. I mean, you know, [00:34:00] it's, it's fine. It's fine.
Stephen: It's nomenclature. It just is a name.
may or may not make sense. I don't know. I can't think of a better, yeah, it, it
John: makes no sense to me, but I suppose everybody comes to it from a different perspective and that, and that's fine too.
Stephen: Anyway, we interrupted continue,
John: but, but I, I, I think there's a good game here. I think it's neat that there's an opportunity to make more good game here.
Uh, they could certainly release some more maps, but I think people out there in the world playing this, and I wouldn't be surprised whether they're doing it right now, are saying, Hey, how about. Everybody gets to draft five cards and we play that way, or, or or you know, whatever. Mm-hmm. find ways to kind of take this as like a kit to create the racing game that you really want or build a map that you're a little more interested in and that kind of thing.
So I think, I think I, from that perspective, I think it's, it's, it's a nice game. Um, I'm gonna give it a strong seven in spite of the thing. I fact that I think it's got a pretty solid entry barrier. Push yourself through that barrier and if you are not an experienced gamer, You're gonna have to do some pushing.
If you are experienced gamer, you're gonna look at it and you're gonna kind of [00:35:00] drum your fingers and go, yeah, you'll roll your eyes. But that's all right. Um, right now it's a little hard to get, but the new new version is coming out, or a new, uh, new printing is coming out pretty soon. Um, it's so, keep an eye out.
Don't pay a crazy amount of money. Don't get a copy that's written in German. Waiting for whatever your language is. Wait for the copy. It's coming. It's Days of Wonder. It's, it's, it's uh, um, um, I forgot just drawing a blank on Days of Wonder's Parent company name, Asmodee who, who of course publishes everything you d This is not a Kickstarter.
That's gonna be hard to find. Give it a couple of weeks. You're gonna be able to get a copy of this game. And I think it's a solid purchase. If you can get it from a discount house, that's great. If not, yeah, I think it's worth a shot. And pay the full price.
Stephen: I mean, this is the company that has sold 5 million copies of Ticket to Ride.
Yeah. So they're, they're printing this game on ticket to Rio Money. Yep. . Which essentially means exactly, it's gonna be an, an infinite supply. Yep. It just needs time.
John: Yep. Yep. If there is a demand, there will be a supply. Yep.
Stephen: Just be patient, make sure you get it.
Samuel: All right. Speaking of being patient, [00:36:00] Chris, I think Chris may have finally crossed the finish line.
Stephen: I don't know. The lights are on. I can't really tell. So he gets a chance to speak. Can you, how do you hook your horn for us? Let us know where you're at.
Samuel: How do you feel about this game, Chris? Well, I think it's
Chris: kind of interesting. This is the first game where it was the first game for all of us and
Stephen: yeah, and I think some, I mean, John had played it a couple times, so, but
John: he said solo.
That doesn't mean it was totally different. Cause
Samuel: we were just solo games, Sam, and don't
Stephen: count. Yeah. Yeah. Sam and. extensively read through the rules.
Chris: So we were so, I was the only one that had no idea what was going on.
Samuel: Full disclosure, I listened to a guy talk about the rules on YouTube on the way here.
Stephen: Okay, so I've read the rules ,
Chris: but I just think it's interesting. We had never played this game before and some of our playing styles did come out, and it worked really well for you and. You did well as as well. And it's like, cuz I took the first turn and I didn't take any heat. I'm trying to avoid it. And like Stephen saying, he's using it as a resource.
Samuel: Yeah, you gotta use that. I told you at the first turn if my car's not on fire going [00:37:00] over the finish line. Something's wrong. Something's wrong. Right. So
Chris: with that, I mean I just, I found it interesting that, like John keeps on saying, there is more of a game to this than what we saw came out tonight. Yeah.
Tonight was just kinda like a trial run, learn everything. I mean, halfway through the, after we finish one lap, Stephen goes, Hey, the guy in the back gets to drop an extra heat with the adrenaline rush for
John: free.
Stephen: That's not what I said. I was like, What does this, what does this mean? What does this
symbol mean? Why is this set of symbols together? What does this mean? So, yeah. And you know, so
Chris: I don't, I, I, I mean, I put this as a good racing game that we can learn more. Mm-hmm. and we'll become more familiar. Hopefully it doesn't come like Imperial Settlers or some of the games where we, um, what was the one with the iconic?
It looked like a tarot board or? The tarot cards, Illimat, where we kind of figure out the game behind that one. Yeah.
John: And we kinda ruined
Chris: changed it. Kinda changed. Yeah. I'm moving two spaces. , you know, , it's like I [00:38:00] can see that kind of us jockeying around. Mm-hmm. . But that's a fun. In game part of it as well.
So there's a lot of different aspects I think, and I think I am excited to play the more advanced rules of it. So if you were to ask me my rating of it, it's, it's kind of hard cuz I'm a person, I like to play a game a couple times before
John: I Yeah. We've weighted into our ankles and, and not a whole lot further.
Chris: Yeah. So, I mean, I give it a flat seven just because my car has four flat tires. But , they're melting, they melted cuz my engine exploded. Um, but it was one thing I. I, there is a catch up mechanic, but once you spin out that kind of, you need that catch up mechanic, which I didn't get until like the last turn.
Right. You kind of followed me through. Mm-hmm. , you took me over at the end. Yep. And you had dumped all your heat, you got that extra move. Yep. And it worked out really well for you. And then I'm still, you know, when we opened up the box again, I'll push my car across the finish line. .
Stephen: All right. All right. So that was heat.
Looking forward to trying [00:39:00] it again with some of the advanced rules. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Cool.
