Board game review: Titan Race

Introduction

This is a short, fun and easy to play game that I think can be a great way of introducing someone to board games, but also a cool game to play when you just don't want something too long or too complex.

To give a "headline" type review, think tabletop Mario Kart with monsters. For a proper review, keep reading.

Also, basic information from the box: 30 minutes games, 2-6 players, age 8+

The components

Here you can see the three board pieces, the dice and the (quite short) rulebook.

And here the other side of the board pieces, for a total of six different circuits.
Each circuit has the same number of tiles and some common things, like the "bonus" tiles, but also some specific mechanic. More about this later.

Of course, what are race circuits without runners? So here you can see the six available monsters, each with a miniature and a monster card.

Last but not least, these are the game cards. To the left you can see the bonus cards, that you can draw when you hit a bonus tile, and to the right the monster ones, containing the monster's abilities.
In this picture you can also see a bunch of tokens for setting traps, counting hit points and keeping track of how many laps you've done.

And here's the back of the same cards. As you can see all bonus cards look the same, but each of the ability cards corresponds to one of the monsters.

The game

The game is, as the name suggests, a racing game. The objective is to finish three laps (going out of the board at the top and coming back from the bottom) before your opponents can do it. The fun comes with the fact that you can hit your opponents, switch positions with them, set traps on the map and use (or suffer) whatever special mechanic the circuit has.

There is a lot of luck involved, since you depend on dice and the random cards you can draw, but it doesn't feel unfair. Since each monster is better at one thing, you can decide what strategy you want to follow from the beginning. Some have mobility skills, while others focus on damage, and while you can't die, if a monster's hit points reach zero he'll lose a whole turn recovering.

Another important component is adaptation, both to the circuit and to the random cards you get. Some circuits have built-in traps or events that hurt the monster or steal cards from you, while others have mechanics that let you jump or teleport around the board. The bonus cards are pretty similar to the monster abilities, plus some other things like protection from effects for a turn.

The last key thing is positioning. Most skills can target tiles either in front or behind a monster, which means your position relative to the other players will decide if they can target you with their abilities and cards. Additionally, a monster entering an occupied tile will displace the monster that's already there, but also hurt him. That means clever positioning can give you an advantage as you get thrown forward, but also get you knocked out and lose a turn. And they can also push you backwards!

All in all I would say the game has a good balance of skill and luck, but keep in mind that for me this game is more about laughs than winning. On that matter I can tell you we've laughed a lot every time we've played it.

Here you a have a picture from our last game, where I managed to win with Ragnarok:

Replayability

One last topic I want to touch briefly upon is replayability. I think the game has does ok by this measure too, for two reasons:

1. Circuit mechanics. I mentioned it briefly but I'll expand on it now. Each circuit has a unique mechanic that sets it appart. In one of them you get assaulted by pirates on certain tiles, and either you lose a card or a hit point. In another there are ramps you can use to jump by entering them in the right direction. In yet another, ice will make you lose control and slip in whatever direction you where going.
   Some effects are bad, some are good, and some depend on how you use them. And to make things even better, they get trigger whenever a monster enters a tile, even if it's involuntarily (because someone pushed you into it). As you can imagine, this makes for nasty play and funny interactions.

2. Different people adopts different strategies. Some people is super careful while others play agressively. And as I said, some monsters also favor one type of play or another. By switching monsters (or deciding who plays what at random), when you also factor that you will probably get different bonus cards every game, you get quite a big combination of different things that can happen.

3. Grand Slam mode: If you get tired of playing regular circuits, you can put together 3 circuits and play a single run instead of three laps. This mode has the downside that if someone gets left behind he's completely out of the race (in the other mode he can get doubled and mess with the other players, even if he has no hope of winning), but it's kind of cool to see the whole circuit in front of you (instead of imagining the three laps), and it forces you to deal with different mechanics in a single race.

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To sum it up, I think this game is great fun, and my friends and I really enjoyed playing it. If you're looking for a whacky races kind of game, with simple rules and kind of cute monsters, this is probably for you. However, if you want a competitive and well balanced kind of game, or if you're the kind of player that gets upset when he loses despite having a great strategy, you would probably want to stay away from this one ^^".

This is all, I hope the review was useful for you. As always, any feedback, be it praise or criticism, is welcome :)