The Great Race

Inspired by the ancient Royal Game of Ur comes... The Great Race! A fun,fast-paced single-card racing game. All you need is a dry-erase pen and a coin. Players take turns flipping the coin to make their way to the end of the track.

How To Play

Setup

1. Grab a dry erase pen and a coin.
2. Flip the coin to determine first player. Heads is player 1.
3. Player 1 plays as pawn “X”, player 2 as pawn “O”. Write these pawn letters on the starting tile. Each player gets two pawns.

Play

Players take turns flipping the coin.

They can move up to 2 connected tiles on flipping heads or exactly 1 tile for tails.

A pawn must move 1 tile per turn if possible.

Either pawn can be moved each turn but not both.

If no move can be made, the turn is forfeit.

If a player ends their turn on a tile occupied by another player, the other player’s pawn is knocked back 1 tile. A player can move through any occupied tile.

No two pawns can share a tile unless it is a peace tile.

If a pawn occupies a locked tile, it cannot be knocked back. A pawn cannot end its movement on an occupied locked tile.

If a pawn ends movement on a +1 tile that player can take another turn.

Goal

The winner is the first player to move both pawns onto the goal space.

About

The Great Race was created for The Game Crafter Single Card Design Challenge. It takes inspiration from the ancient Royal Game of Ur, perhaps the first roll-and-move game discovered. Players take to a tiled track and must use cunning strategy to defy the rolls to be crowned the victor! Where the Royal Game of Ur uses counters and rolling tetrahedral dice, The Great Race uses a pen and the flip of a coin to determine the moves a player makes.

The game is ultra-portable and greatly replayable.