Image Courtesy of zombiegodThis review continues my series of detailed reviews that attempt to be part review, part resource for anyone not totally familiar with the game. For this reason I expect readers to skip to the sections that are of most interest.
Summary
Game Type - Racing Game
Play Time: 1-2 Hours
Number of Players: 2-6
Mechanics - Racing, Dice Management, Route Calculation
Difficulty - Pick-up & Play (Can be learnt in 10 minutes)
Components - Very Good
Release - 2008
Designer <PERSON> - (BasketBoss, Champions 2020, Factory Fun, Factory Funner, Gipsy King, Habitats, Leelawadee, Meltdown 2020, O Zoo le Mio, Powerboats, Powerships, Roll to the Top, Samara, StreetSoccer, Sun, Sea & Sand, Tweeeet)
Overview
I first heard of Powerboats thanks to the post Essen reports of 2008. The concept of Powerboats got me mildly interested, the fact that it was a racing game upped my heartbeat, then I heard it was designed by <PERSON> and I began to perspire with anticipation. The final straw was the fact that it used innovative 3-sided dice and the players had a fair degree of control over the movement of their boats. By the time I had read about it in 3-4 different Geeklists, I knew I had to have it and onto the Wish List it went.
Whilst a racing game, Powerboats plays nothing like a game such as Formula De/D, which is perhaps the most widely recognised racing game on the market. Powerboats offers its players a more calculated experience, where the play is all about getting the racing line right and then managing your speed to hit that next turn. In this respect the game can feel more abstract in nature rather than the ‘controlled chaos’ that is something like Formula De/D.
The Components
Powerboats doesn’t need a huge number of components to make it work, which helps keep the price to a reasonable level. What is provided is of pretty high quality for a smaller publisher.
Boards - The game comes with 6 boards in all, each consisting of an 8 x 12 hexagonal surface. Each board consists of mostly water punctuated by small, medium and large islands. The boards feature two sides, one with dark water and the other light. 299
These signify an easier (dark water) and harder (light water) skill level, with the harder side featuring far more small islands, which means greater maneuvering is required in each race.
The boards also feature the letters A, B and C at various locations. These are used in the set-up of the Start/Finish line and the Buoys.
Image Courtesy of Ceryon
Board Frames - A total of 4, single fold frames are used to keep the 6 board pieces in place. These frames feature 1-2 lines of water hexes which add to the boards themselves. The frames also offer a small section for each player to place their dice in and a winding canal-like score track down one side.
Image Courtesy of cwali
Dice - Powerboats might be a racing game but the dice are most definitely the star. The game comes with 18 of the novel 3-sided dice, with each top most facing edge featuring a 1, 2 or 3. What puts the dice into the awesome spectrum is the gorgeous
texture of the dice. Rather than just provide stock standard dice, Cwali has really provided some quality dice (texture wise) that are a pleasure to look at. Ok I admit it, I fell in love with dice when I was about 7 and I could marvel at them all day long.
Each dice features all three numbers twice, resulting in a 1/3rd chance of rolling any of the 3 results.
Image Courtesy of <PERSON>
Powerboats - The boats are also awesome to look at with each plastic boat offering enough detail to make out the driver, rear headrest thing and even the wake of the water under the boat. It’s little touches like these that true game fans...freaks (guilty as charged)...can appreciate.
Image Courtesy of chaddyboy_2000
Scoring Tokens - These are 2 dimensional representations of each player's boat and they are coloured to match the Powerboats as well.
Image Courtesy of zombiegod
Buoys - A total of 5 cardboard Buoys must then be constructed by slotting 3 vertical cardboard inserts into a horizontal cardboard disc. This is quite easy to do but some of the inserts do have a tendency to fall out in the set-up/pack-up of the game.
The Buoys are red in colour, which is a nice contrast to the rest of the game, which is rather blue-ish. 872