Pitchcar...

Last blog I wrote a little about Thunder Alley, a racing game that is being kickstarted by GMT Games at the moment, this post I’m going to be writing about a totally different racing game: Pitchcar.

The cars line up on the grid...

If Thunder Alley, Formula D, Rally Man and so many other racing games are characterised by tactical choices about whether to play this card, advance this gear or take that corner, Pitchcar must stand in sharp defiance as a game that lacks any of those sort of choices, but which manages, nonetheless, to be a rollicking good game.

Pitchcar manages to remain a good game because it is not a game about choices, it is a game of action, it’s a dexterity game, and the name: Pitchcar, almost describe the rules in their entirety.  You have a car (disk) on the track, and you flick it...  It is as engaging as any game that involves some level of physical skill, whether that be something like darts, or something more obscure (well - obscure in Australian terms), like Carrom or Klop.  It is engaging because every flick is important, every straight, corner and jump has an angle and a speed which, in the players mind, is the perfect choice, but it’s not a choice, it’s down to flicking prowess.  Watching a race-car pitch off the track wildly because a shot had too much ‘pepper’, or limply slide a bare disk-length forward is hilarious.  Getting that perfect shot where the car slides around the bend and shoots down the straight just so, is exciting.  Pitchcar is a fun game, and that, to me, is all the recommendation I need.

Can red make the corner and the jump in one flick?

Pitchcar comes in two varieties, normal, and mini.  We have the mini version, because it takes up less space.  Both are highly enjoyable, but require a nice flat surface to rest on - if any track piece is slightly higher than any other it can really affect the disks as they move.

For my son’s birthday we bought a Lego table - this is a thing one wheels that is designed to slide under a bed out of the way, and which is the perfect surface to play with Lego on (and I might further suggest that trying to put one together an hour before work is not necessarily a good idea, it has more pieces than a Lego Technic set, and about a million screws). For Lego this table is fantastic, but my wife, bless her heart, suggested that an equally good use for the table might be as a surface to play Pitchcar on - a wonderful suggestion from a wonderful wife!

My son loves Pitchcar; being only a lad of formative years, the objective at this stage isn’t a tense race, but rather a simple enjoyment of flicking (sometimes swatting) the disks about the track.  We’ve played plenty of Disk Drivin’ on the iPhone/iPad (basically the same game), so he understands the idea of Pitchcar easily, being a simple game, it’s something we can easily play together, and is hilarious fun.  Pitchcar is a great fun game, totally different from most of the racing games out there - but as a game can be judged by the fun it induces, it stands as a great game.

Disk Drivin'

Pitchcar

Cheers,

Giles.