Taco's Take on... Crazy Karts

2016 English First Edition (*Review Copy)
Published by: Portal Games
# of Players: 3 to 8

       Do you have fond memories of playing Mario Kart? I remember loving the first one and playing it all the time till I was told to go to bed. There have been many kart racing games over the years. I even remember later on in life playing Mario Kart: Double Dash on the Gamecube and getting angry with my friends who failed at driving while I was controlling the shooting. The reason I bring up Double Dash is because Portal Games have developed a board game where teams of 2 race karts across the board. In Crazy Karts, you and a teammate will be controlling different functions of the kart. There is one problem, you are not allowed to talk to or see what your teammate is planning. Decisions are made and mistakes happen, but can your team have a close enough connection to be the first past the finish line? If you are looking to shout, yell, and laugh, then you are prepared for Crazy Karts. Before you go off and race, I invite you to read along as I give you my take on Crazy Karts by Portal Games.

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Components
      Portal Games continues to provide excellent art that is very colorful and grabs the attention of those playing. The karts are wooden shapes with stickers that can be applied to both sides to make them look like carts. Cards and player mats are made excellent and will handle lots of playing. The one minor issue I had was with the player screens. They look nice but are a little smaller than I would like. They barely cover the the player boards from end to end and they are not very high. Players were saying they could see a lot of people's boards. The instruction book that comes with Crazy Karts may be one of Portal Games best to date. The instructions had lots of colorful illustrations and was broken down nicely to make it easy to understand. Portal Games also had a video done by Watch It Played's Rodney Smith that goes over set up and most of the gameplay. I read the instructions and watched Rodney's video and both do an excellent job explaining the game. Portal Games did a nice job of giving the consumer a game that is easy to learn and will stand up to lots of playing.

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 Gameplay
       Crazy Karts has players team up in groups of 2 to race each other in two races. You will first race in a shorter Qualifying race (Start map and 2 additional boards) and then compete in the Final Race (Start Map and 3 additional boards). The team to cross the finish line wins. You may be wondering how this can be played with odd numbered groups. There is a lone wolf board that allows one person to in control of their own kart, but each turn you must draw and play a Malfunction token that prevents you from performing a certain action space. You will also draw a Buff token that can be used to buff an action by 1, but you do not need to place it if you decide you do not want to.

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         Each game round is split into two phases. During the planning phase, each player will draw the number of cards based on their current speed on the their speed track. Then each player simultaneously places cards secretly on their player control panel boards. These should be mostly hidden by a player screen that each player has. You may place more than one action card on a action spot and you can also leave some empty. Each card has a steering wheel value 1-3 and that indicates how much you are putting into that action. The first team that is done placing their cards, can start counting to 5. (No fast count please) Once the count reaches five, all teams must stop placing cards and discard any cards that were not placed.

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       The second phase of the round is the Resolution phase. This is where all the actions happen. One player control board has the odd numbered actions and the other has the even numbered actions. The first action space is Initiative. The team who had the highest value placed on that spot will go first. Any ties are first settled by position on the track (team closest to finish line will go first) and if that is still a tie then it comes down to paper-rock-scissors. (My group failed at revealing paper-rock-scissors at the same time) The second action is Special Ability. Each team has a special ability that can be used if they allocate enough action value into that spot. These abilities include grabbing power ups from adjacent hexes, lassoing another kart closer to you, ramming an obstacle, or being able to turn before you move. The third action is using a power up activation. Whenever you move over a power up icon, you will receive a power up token. This provides a one time ability that can be used during this action step.

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       The fourth action is a special customization action that is recommended only after you have played the game a few times. These are boosting type effects to your other actions like drawing 2 power up tokens instead of 1 or dealing 2 extra damage if you run into another kart. The fifth action is braking. Based on the value of the cards you put on the spot, you will move your speed down on the track. The sixth action is speed up. The value placed here will raise your karts speed on the track. After this is done you will move your kart forward in a straight line an equal number of spaces as your speed is set. If your speed is at 5, you must move 5 spaces forward. If you hit another kart, the other kart moves up a space and you each take a damage. If you hit a wall, you take damage equal to your speed and then reduce your speed to zero. If you ram a kart and it can not move because it hits a wall, the kart that hits a wall takes an additional damage and reduce their speed to zero. After everyone has moved, you move on to the seventh action. This is the turn action. If you place a value equal to or higher than your current speed, you must adjust your kart by rotating the kart 1 side to the left or right.  The eighth action is shooting another kart. The range is determined by the value of the cards played on that space. For example if you had a value of 3 on the space, you can shot a kart that is 3 spaces away. Nothing blocks line of sight and you do not have to shoot in a straight line. The kart that is hit takes a damage card and resolves the effect. The ninth action and last action for team member 1, is charging. You will move up your charge meter based on the value of the action cards played. Once it reaches 10, you will receive a power up token to use later on and reset it to 0 and continue moving up again with the remaining value. The final action for the other teammate is repair. You can repair damage based on the total value of the cards. The damage is tracked on the speed track, going down as you take more damage. If your damage level is at space 4, that means your max speed is set at 3 till damage is repaired. The lowest your damage level can go is to 2, leaving you with a max speed of 1. Any further damage that would occur is ignored. After the round is over, if no one has moved past the last spot on the map, you will move on to another round. If someone moves past the end of the board, the race is over. The first to move past the end of the board on the second race are the winners.

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 Final Thoughts
     I am usually not a big fan of racing board games, but Crazy Karts is like a party game with racing being the theme. You will yell at your teammate and be confused by their decisions they make. You will laugh at some of the crazy stuff your kart ends up doing because you failed to turn or went too fast. Doing 2 races lets each player on the team try each control board. This is nice to not be stuck in the same role each game. You will run into obstacles tiles. I did not discuss these, but they usually provide some damage and can raise or lower the speed of your cart. It may feel like one team has an advantage after the first race, but we found that teams ended up focusing on the first place person and that in turn made the race close at the end. Some new gamers will feel a bit overwhelmed because they are on their own making decisions for them and another player, but after the first race they get over that and enjoy the game. This a game that group your playing with will either make it fun or not. If your group is loud and social, you will have a great time. If your group is more strategic and quiet, you may not enjoy this as much. I love how it does feel like Double Dash from Gamecube. There are lots of maps and each team has their own ability so there is plenty of games to played. This game benefits highly from higher player counts. I feel that you need at least 3 karts (5/6 players) to really have a game of Crazy Karts. I really enjoyed Crazy Karts and will keep in my collection for when my group wants to have a goofy, loud time racing. If your group tends to have higher player counts, then this is definitely a game you should check out.

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Taco gives Crazy Karts a rating of...

8.0 out of 10

Pros:
+ Encourages lots of emotion and social interaction from what is happening in game
+ Very colorful and eye grabbing art and solid components
+ Instructions are easy to understand and there is a video you can watch as well to help learn the game
+ Switching roles after the first race
+ Having to decide how powerful actions without discussing with your teammate

Cons:
- A quiet group may not enjoy this game as much
- Intimidating for new people due to having a teammate that they can not get help from
- 2 Races can take up to 2 hours, especially with newer ones
- Player screens are a little small and barely cover the control panel