I love playing games.. and if I don't have the time/group to play games, I definitely think about them.

Maybe my thoughts on the games could be of interest to others. You might find an old or a hidden gem that you missed.. or you might dodge a game that you were on the fence... I hope our posts will help someone with a purchase or by making you save some money.

 

Steampunk Rally Fusion:

Designer: Orin Bishop
Published: 2021
Players: 2-8
Playing Time: 45-60 Mins
BGG Rating: 7.5
BGG Ranking: 1796
Mechanics: Drafting, Dice Rolling, Race
Sleeves: STN 57,5x89mm

 

Game Description:

Take on the role of ingenious inventors from history. Draft cards to invent your racing contraption. Power your creation's abilities with combinations of steam, heat, electricity, and Fusion dice. Use cogs to augment bad dice rolls and upgrade certain machine parts.

Smashing through damaging terrain spaces may cause parts to fly off your machine, constantly forcing you to adapt your strategy and discover new card synergies. Fortune favors the brash, so get ready to Gear Up, Overcharge your machine, and remake history!

 

Quick play overview:

1. DRAFT PHASE: A round starts with a draft where each player will get up to 4 cards. Each card that is drafted has to be used right away to:

• Improve your machine by adding it to the board and making sure the connectors match
• Discard it to gain dice (for this round only) or cogs
• If it's a BOOST card, you can discard it for above gains or draft it for later use (each BOOST card tells you when it can be used)

2. VENT PHASE is where you can spend cogs to cool off the dice placed on your machine. Each discarded cog can lower the pips of a die by 2, or two dice are lowered by 1 pip each.  If a die is lowered to zero pips, it is removed from the machine and the space is ready for a new die in the next phase.

3. RACE PHASE is the meat of the game, where players create their dice pools by rolling all the dice that they got in the DRAFT PHASE or by using BOOST cards. These dice can be then assigned to the different machine parts to get effects like moving, shields, more dice,...

Players can also spend cogs in this phase to reroll one die per cog or increase/decrease a die by 1 pip per cog.

Use the LIGHT BULB that activates your scientist special effects and some other machine parts that show the lightbulb icon.

4. DAMAGE PHASE: If players suffered more damage than they have shields (shields persist from round to round and are only removed when you take damage from terrain hazards or from some machine effects), they have to lower the damage to zero, by discarding one machine part for each damage. If they got more damage than they have machine parts, their invention explodes and they are moved one space behind the last player.

5. UPKEEP PHASE: Players flip their LIGHT BULB token back to »on«, return all the unused dice to the general supply and turn the drafting direction token to the other side.

 

There are some advanced options like Secret Projects and special zones on the maps...

 

Final thoughts:

The game sounds like a luck fest but it's not. Yes, you can try to take the high reward machine cards but they also need the high rolls, which are much harder to vent and will be used more sporadically than the weaker parts.

The combos where you place dice to get more dice that are placed elsewhere to remove some dice from your machine, which opens space for repeating the combo... it is an amazing game.

 

POSITIVE:

A beautiful production

An interesting puzzle/racing game

Difficult drafting decisions that really matter

Dice rolling with a lot of options to mitigate it

NEGATIVE:

It can (rarely) happen that someone drafted bad and it's followed by a bad roll that will put them into a bad mood that will last for the rest of the game... It was their fault for the bad drafting decision but you will still feel bad for them.


Vote: 10/10