Scrap Racer Board Game First Impressions

Scrap Racer is a dice-based, push your luck racing game.

Can you finish or will you crash on the double?

You are a daredevil Scrap Racer who knows only one goal: Win the race—no matter how dangerous!

Scrap Racer Game Play

A track is laid out on the table and everyone gets a random scrap racer to race. Each of the racers has its own ability and a matching standee that is placed on the start line.

The ability of my racer was that if I ended movement on a green space I moved forward one additional space.

The first player rolls up to six D6s one at a time and can stop after any single roll. If they roll unique numbers, they total the number of those dice and move that many spaces.

If they land on a boost marker they pick it up. These either let you reroll a die, +/-1 to a die or flip a die over to its opposite side.

This is because if they roll a number they rolled previously, they crash. They draw a card matching the corresponding duplicate number. A 1 or 2 is generally positive and will move you forward, a 5 or 6 is negative and will push you back and a 3 or 4 could go either way.

Whenever a player crosses the finish line they draw an event card which usually provides a bit of a catchup for the racers at the back.

The first player to complete 3 laps of the track wins.

Theme

You’re just a scrap racer, no explanation why you’re an alien or anything. I’m guessing it’s because they couldn’t call it Podracing?

Setup

You can build alternate tracks and place the tokens on the board. The rest of the setup is mostly just passing out racer board and putting out standees.

Components & Artwork

The components are fine. The bonus tokens slot into the player board which is nice but not really needed. The dice are as always standard D6’s and not special custom ones but yes, that would be expensive.

The art is OK, but not for me.

Ease of Teaching & Accessibility

This is very easy to teach. Don’t roll doubles, job done.

Everything is open information really so players can roll or not roll as they wish without assistance.

Scrap Racer Summary

So the issue here is on my first turn I rolled a 6, then another 6 and crash. I draw a card and because I crashed on 6 it would have made me move backwards but I couldn’t go back any further.

The next player moves 18, I roll double 4 and then that player rolls 17. No skill, no decisions, no choice, all dice rolls.

So, just play Wacky Races if you want a random racing game, it’s better and technically less random.

Jesta ThaRogue