Andrea “Liga” Ligabue - First Impression: Bolide

by Andrea “Liga” Ligabue
December 22, 2005

Publisher: Ghenos Games
Designer: Alfredo Genovese
Players: 2-8
Playing Time: 60-90 minutes
Rules: Italian, English, German

I’m going to give you my first impression of Bolide, a car race game from Ghenos Games, a new Italian’s publisher. I think still few peoples outside Italy know something about this game and this company that first appear in November at Lucca Games & Comics fair.

The first time I hear about Bolide I was thinking just another car race game. The graphics of the track, the cars, the dice ... always the same soup cooked in a different way ... but that’s not true. Last week end I have had the opportunity to play it and I must admit that it put something new in the genre.

The game is all around the very clever mechanic of the movement. The track is all divided in squares by a grid. The car are placed not in the square but on the grid. Every time you move you put a pawn on the track in the position that, starting from the position you reach with your car, duplicates exactly the movement you have just done. The next turn you can just move your car in one of the 25 position on the grid that are in the 5x5 grid space centered on the pawn, and than move the pawn! That is very simple, quick but really realistic. To change direction and making turns you have to plans very well your moves because the inertia of the car is strong. In that way you can easily see that you can change your speed by no more than 2 (quicker or slower). The dices are not used at all for movement.

Of course, like in every car race game, you also have pit stops, brakes, burst, collision and, in the advanced rules, also weather and car personalization.

The game is funny (it takes the best from the old paper and pencil car race game you are use to play in the school and put it in a new board game style) ... you have few time to make your moves and you are not allowed to count during other players turn ... so it really become a quick race where is important the perception you have of your speed and of other players positions. Like most car race games it works better if you play with many players and cars on the track.

I’m not really a lover of car’s race games but I think it could be a nice game for people looking something new in this genre. The box is nice and the materials are quiet good. 

In the box: 8 cars, 8 movement pawns, 2 tracks, 1 hourglass, a d12, strategy notepad, 1 ruler, 1 pencil, 1 rulebook (Italian, English, German)

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