Outrun Card Game First Impressions
Outrun is a card game where you’re running away from a monster released in 2020.
It’s not a racing arcade game released in 1996.
It’s Halloween in 2050 at a fancy dress party at the monster movie museum. You and your friends are at the party when a freak lightning storm makes one of the realistic movie monsters come to life! It’s chasing you! You don’t have to outrun it just each other!!!
Outrun Game Play
Each player has a character and an identical deck of 9 cards. I mean, the art is different, but the 9 cards each have the same symbol at the top of the card. They also get a ‘finish’ card with the character art on it.
There is a variety of monsters in the game each with unique abilities and the one you’re choosing to run away from is the one you’ll set up for your game.
A player will flip over a path card. These cards show a linked list of the above symbols in order. Players, as quick as possible, will play those symbols from their hand in that order.
When a player has done this, they will play their finish card down into a stack so the player that finished first will be at the bottom.
Once everyone has done this you check everyone’s cards to make sure they have indeed played everything in the right order.
If a player is wrong, they move into the go into the +0 box at the top of the monster board and will not move this turn.
Those that are right, in order from quickest to slowest as denoted by the order of the finish cards will add their token to the monster board. the quicker you are, the further you will move.
The monster board will show you the number of spaces your character will move on the map board. Players move that many spaces in order from fastest to slowest.
The first player out the door is the winner!
Theme
A lightning storm brings a movie monster to life while at a Halloween party at a museum. It’s crazy, I love it.
The monster themselves have individual themes, well, most of them do. I didn’t talk about interference cards which give players a rule to abide by when playing the cards. For example, the below card switches the two symbols shown giving you something extra to think about as you play your cards as quick as possible.
These are usually played on an individual. But the vampire makes these cards affect all players reflecting his hypnotic vampire gaze that no one can escape from. Zombies infect players who can spread the infection with only the antidote able to cure it.
Setup
The only tricky bit to set up is blocking out the unused spaces on the monster board when playing with fewer players. There is a grid on the back of the rulebook and I’m sure it’s easy. Would rather see it on the board itself though.
Components & Artwork
The components are very standard. the card quality was OK but it doesn’t matter if they get scuffed up.
I really like the artwork, it’s got a nice cartoony vibe that’s a lot of fun.
Ease of Teaching & Accessibility
It’s easy to teach obviously but you do have to be careful though. In the influence card shown above, I was told when you see ‘A’, play ‘B’. But I wasn’t explicitly told to play ‘B’ when I see ‘A’ and as I didn’t see the double arrow I got it wrong.
Barriers to accessibility are the real-time element that hinders the ability to pause the game to teach. Also, the visibility of the symbols on the path cards will need decent eyesight for sure.
Outrun Summary
There are a few competitive speed games around. Nine Tiles Panic and Ghost Blitz come to mind immediately. Even Steam Park comes to mind again with it being fresh off of reviewing Meeple Land.
I do like games where you need to be quick, but accurate. You want to finish first but do it with mistakes and what was the point? It’s like you need to outrun this monster but trip over and you’re done for so take it easy, but not too easy.
The interference cards are very aptly named and really mess with your head.
So if you’re looking for a quick, fun card game where you also get to mess with your opponents this is definitely one to consider.
Jesta ThaRogue
