Burning Rubber

Originally published at xenoglyph: the alien writings of designer joshua a.c. newman. Please leave any comments there.

I really like racing games. I like Formula D, I like Burnout, and I played the shit out of Car Wars as a lad. What Formula D (née Formula Dé) and Burnout have in common is fast, sleek gameplay. What Formula D and Car Wars have in common are vehicle construction rules (otherwise excellent 5th ed. notwithstanding). What Car Wars and Burnout have are frenzied automobile combat. You will note that those don’t overlap.

I’ve been kinda trying to figure out how to adapt Vincent’s Mechaton rules to car combat for a couple of years now. I’ve got a couple of specs that make it non-trivial.

• You’ve only got one car. Instead of having 3-5 guys to spread your resources around, you have one complex guy.
• Facing has to matter. It’s a car, so it’s all about maneuvering, for both offensive and defensive gain.
• You have to go forward. You accelerate and have a speed.
• The game is about racing, not just blowing each other up. One of the great things about Mechaton is the objective system; it makes fighting a matter of tactics rather than one of bashing. In this game, I want the fighting to be about winning the race, or if you can’t do that, crashing your car really spectacularly.
• Build a car in 30 minutes
• Play in about 90-120 minutes
• Have good crashing rules! Losing should be fun and funny!

So I started writing this up. What I got so far is under the break. Maybe you’ll get a chance to play before I will!

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