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A LEGO Racers board game


RobExplorien

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Long ago when Explore became Duplo again and furry minifigures didn't exist I was drawing LEGO Racers tracks and made some sort of a board game out of them. I simply drew the outlines of the track design and divided the track in sections. Then with a pair of dice and pawns you'd play the game in turns by moving your pawn as many steps as the number you rolled with the dice. Ofcourse this simple concept wasn't very interesting, but I continued drawing more maps nonetheless, as I really enjoyed that, the same way I enjoyed playing them by myself by controlling multiple pawns. That was back in 2004/2005, and the map with drawings really starts to fall apart now.

About five years later, I reviewed my work from the past and thought by myself how I can improve the boardgame and make it more fun/have players engage more in the game. So I came up with a new concept. First off, I drew a few (three) improved maps as the ones I had drawn earlier were often pretty clumsy looking. Below is an image of the general design I applied to these maps.

pHRxjum.jpg

Instead of sections, I used dots. All pawns start at the start-/finishline. From there on you roll the dice to see how many spaces you may move. The black dots are normal spaces, nothing special. If you end your turn on an S-space, then you may take the shortcut route in your next turn. If you pass the 'brick'-space, you receive a power-up (more info on this later), which you can keep as long as you desire. You cannot however receive another power-up when you already have one. Power-ups must be used at the beginning of a turn!

Now the way I intended to make this boardgame more engaging than it was (or actually wasn't), every player would get a real LEGO (race)car composed of a standard chassis with 11 bricks each. See the image below for two exemplary car designs. Ofcourse any design is okay, providing it only consists of 11 independently detachable bricks (chassis not included).

N6wSxFF.jpg

Now the way these cars work in the game is as follows. Whenever a power-up is used against a player he/she may lose bricks depending on the type of power-up. When a player is hit and can't take off any more bricks, that player will lose his/her car. From then on, every time he/she rolls the dice to advance, the number will be halved (round off when you end up with a decimal). Once the 'walking' player passes the purple area, he/she can rebuild the car. Players with a broken car that would still like to rebuild it may also use the rebuilding area.

Since this boardgame is based on LEGO Racers 2, the power-up system is the same. So whenever you pass the 'brick'-space, you have to roll the dice again to see which type of power-up you will receive. If you roll X (or Y), you receive Z:

  • 2 or 8: Invisibility
  • 3 or 9: Missile
  • 4 or 10: Tornado
  • 5 or 11: Drill
  • 6: Frisbee
  • 7: Thunderbubble
  • 12: Indestructible Brick

The power-ups function as follows. The letter is the abbreviation of the power-up, the number tells how many bricks one loses if hit by the power-up:

  • Invisibility (I 0): Lasts two turns. Every opponent the player passes when activated will lose his/her power-up and will be collected by the said player. If the player passes multiple opponents, he/she will only be able to collect the power-up from the first opponent he/she passed. The opponents will however still lose their power-up if in possession.
  • Missile (M 3): Player chooses the opponent to hit with the missile. When hit, the opponent loses 3 bricks. Missile will last for 20 spaces only.
  • Frisbee (F 5): The opponent hit by the frisbee will lose 5 bricks. Lasts for 15 spaces and only impacts at the first opponent it comes across.
  • Drill (D 4): The drill lasts for 10 spaces and hits every opponent in its way, with each opponent losing 4 bricks.
  • Tornado (T 0): Is left behind at the space the player is on at the beginning of his turn. The tornado will last for two turns. Any opponent crossing the tornade will lose his/her turn in the next round. The said opponent may however complete his/her turn.
  • Thunderbubble (Tb varying): When activated, all opponents within a radius of 7 spaces around the player will lose bricks. Opponents in a radius of one space will lose 6 bricks, two spaces 5 bricks, etc... Opponents in a radius of 6 or 7 spaces will both lose 1 brick.
  • Indestructible Brick (Ib 7): Every opponent on the board loses 7 bricks.

Lastly, here's an image of a started game between two generic players on the Express Delivery track.

dvmRLbx.jpg

I have never actually asked anyone what they think of this concept, but I dug it up from my archives and wonder if there is anyone that likes to give his/her opinion on this? Would it be something to post an image of the aforementioned clumsier drawings?

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Looks like a more advanced version of the LEGO Racers: Super Speedway board game. I think you've done an excellent job with your game, and can't offer any improvement other than taking a look at the aforementioned game's instructions and seeing if any other ideas pop out. Although I think you've covered power-ups a lot better.

 

Of course, LR:SS used jigsaw-like track sections whereas you have recreated tracks from LR2, which I think is a lot more awesome. Have you considered printing out an aerial view of the LR2 maps too?

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Looks like a more advanced version of the LEGO Racers: Super Speedway board game. I think you've done an excellent job with your game, and can't offer any improvement other than taking a look at the aforementioned game's instructions and seeing if any other ideas pop out. Although I think you've covered power-ups a lot better.

 

Of course, LR:SS used jigsaw-like track sections whereas you have recreated tracks from LR2, which I think is a lot more awesome. Have you considered printing out an aerial view of the LR2 maps too?

I think I may have seen that game once, but I'm really not sure. I do know that I didn't copy the idea from that. I have not considered printing out an aerial view. What exactly do you mean by that?

 

 

I like these but you should add minifigures for the cars :)

Indubitably.

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I think I may have seen that game once, but I'm really not sure. I do know that I didn't copy the idea from that. I have not considered printing out an aerial view. What exactly do you mean by that?

I wasn't accusing you of anything, rather just pointing out that it reminded me of a previous game that you could take inspiration from. Not that you need to, it seems pretty good as it is.

 

An aerial view, more commonly known as a "Birds-Eye View", is just a view from above. Just like the maps you drew already, I suggested taking screenshots from that viewpoint in-game and using them instead.

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I think I may have seen that game once, but I'm really not sure. I do know that I didn't copy the idea from that. I have not considered printing out an aerial view. What exactly do you mean by that?

I wasn't accusing you of anything, rather just pointing out that it reminded me of a previous game that you could take inspiration from. Not that you need to, it seems pretty good as it is.

 

An aerial view, more commonly known as a "Birds-Eye View", is just a view from above. Just like the maps you drew already, I suggested taking screenshots from that viewpoint in-game and using them instead.

 

I didn't take your comment as an accusation, I was just pointing out as well.

I know the definition of aeriel view, I wasn't sure what you exactly meant by printing out such a view. Now that you clarified, using such screenshot views as maps might be an idea, but I rather enjoy making them myself (well, I used to, I'm not really into it now). Was making such screenshots actually even possible before LR2 modding?

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if there is anyone that likes to give his/her opinion on this?

I WANT THIS. Even though I'd rarely play it (:P) I still want it.

This is a fantastic idea.

 

Someone mentioned minifigures - It looks like there's space for them in the cars, and perhaps you could add some extra functions with them.

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MaelstromIslander

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this is a great idea, but what if you made the track bigger and used bigger paper so that the cars could be used as pawns? :P

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minifigures
perhaps when you run out of bricks, you switch your pawn with a figure?
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Was making such screenshots actually even possible before LR2 modding?

It still isn't really possible with MODDING, but with HACKING (see my LR2 Cheat Engine hacks) it is.

But before that, no. It was not possible.

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"Long ago when Explore became Duplo again and furry minifigures didn't exist I was drawing LEGO Racers tracks and made some sort of a board game out of them."

 

*Cough*Fabuland*cough*.
 

As much as I hate to admit, Fabuland precedes most of our favorite "Classic" themes.

 

More on topic, I should say your boardgame looks cool. It sounds like an analog LR2 rpg board game thingy. 

 

I'd expand on it.

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"Long ago when Explore became Duplo again and furry minifigures didn't exist I was drawing LEGO Racers tracks and made some sort of a board game out of them." *Cough*Fabuland*cough*.

The Minifiguris Fabulis has evolved from the Minifiguris Brickana, as well as the Minifiguris Minifiguris (also known as our beloved minifigure), caused by multiple chromosome abrickerrations. The two different species coëxisted for roughly a decade. As Darwin described it as a 'survival of the fittest', the Minifiguris Fabulis went extinct due to their furryness and the vast domination of the set territory of the Minifiguris Minifiguris.

 

To summarize, the figures used in Fabuland belong to the same genus as the minifigures but are not classified and also not considered as the Minifiguris species. So no, furry minifigures did not yet exist at the time I implicitly referred to in my blog.

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