Road Kill Rally First Impressions

Road Kill Rally sees you race the other racers…

…and run over old women and children.

2035 – The Road Kill Rally becomes a worldwide phenomenon, attracting contestants from throughout the world. Ratings exceed three billion for the Rally Cup Finals, making it the most-watched spectacle in human history.

Road Kill Rally Game Overview

Quick Rules Summary

Players each have a car equipped with various offensive and defensive equipment racing around a track. Each tile is filled with various scenarios that hinder the driver as well as several people to try and kill.

Players have to also manage their speed to avoid going around corners too fast and taking damage. Apart from the people on the track, you can also attack and be attacked by the other players.

Damage is tracked by cards in hand and players can spin off if they take too much.

How do you win?

Finishing positions and kills are worth points, most points win,

Main Mechanisms

A bit of hand management, a touch of die rolling and a whole lot of racing.

USP

Looking at this from 2023 there is nothing new here, apart from killing actual humans of course.

Theme

I do like the theme and I have no issue running over actual people, even kids… Because I know it’s not real or right. However, if they wish to retheme this with Zombies or some other non-human thing I wouldn’t be against it.

Setup

I’ll be honest, the board game group I played this at was selling homemade cakes so I was stuffing my face during setup! But it looked fairly straightforward.

I was handed bits and hold to shuffle and/or sort and I did as I was told.

Components & Artwork

These are both standard and dated as is the graphic design.

But, the little artwork there is is quite fun, just not my style. Although, the details of the hazards on the tiles are pretty good.

Ease of Teaching

It’s not that straightforward, again, it’s showing its age.

If this was made now it would be nice and smooth, like Heat with guns. But it’s quite a fiddley game, more than it should be.

Similar Games

Games like Titan Race, Wacky Races, Apocalypse Road and many more do car combat very well. (Maybe even better) No running people over sadly.

Road Kill Rally Review

Positives

I do like the Carmageddon-style theme.

The slowing for corners and changing speed is quite tactical which is something I like from my racing games.

Negatives

It was released originally in 2010 and it shows. Apparently, fans of the game use a few house rules.

The armour is too specific to the weapons in the game to be useful most of the time.

Cards in hand are your health so if you take a few hits you’ll have no cards to play on your turn.

If you’re 3rd or further back you have very few bodies to aim at to score points.

There is a “teleport to the front” tile which is no fun for those of us at the front! It won them the game too.

On that, the only reason I was in front was that I was randomly chosen as the first player which is weird.

Road Kill Rally Summary

Needs an update or needs to be left alone.

Jesta ThaRogue