The Bike Boom

#356
Nice Games Jam: "The Bike Boom"
2024.07.18
Map used during the game jam creating The Bike Boom.

In the first Nice Games Jam in a few months (and we made it a long one!), your nice hosts explore the history of bicycles to develop a racing board game.

Our last Nice Games Club episode:
Prompt
Design a racing game in a historical setting.
Game type
Tabletop game
Player count
2 - 4
Materials

Map book

4-sided dice

Meeple to represent racers

Setup
  • Choose a map to race on in the map book (only one made right now)
  • Choose a starting point and an ending point on the map
  • Draw a conditions card from the conditions deck (not made yet! We just used rain, where you have to make a Stability check each time you make a turn)
Rules
  • Same area through time
  • You choose your rider and bike (each with different stats) based on how the map looks
  • You spend your resources to get new bikes or upgrade a bike
  • We started with penny farthings (bad stats), you can buy better ones later.
  • At the start of the race you draw a “condition”, affects the course to make more stability checks
  • You also randomly get a start and end place (we just set it as corner to corner for testing)
  • Types of stats:
    • Speed: how far you can go
    • Weight: how heavy your bike is, how hard uphill is and how fast downhill is
    • Capacity: how much you can hold on your bike
    • Stability: how easy it is to get past stability checks
    • Durability: how much failing a stability check affects you