Definitive Mad Max game?

mjl1783 wrote:

There are lots of ways you could do boarding with moving vehicles that would be easy on the playability, but what would really be the tough thing to model would be drifting. Whenever one of the drivers gets injured in those movies, all hell breaks loose. The car drifts into another car, that's car's passengers get thrown off, then that car starts drifitng, and so on.

Even then, I think it could be done and still be playable, but the problem is that you'd have to have a TON of cars and people in the game to make it any fun, which would make things really cumbersome.

Seriously, Circus Imperium is pretty good with this as well. And you are right on the money, it really isn't nearly as fun with less than 8 and I would say a bare minimum is 6. It's (or a car game like it) would be the "party game" for F:AT -- maybe it can replace BSG, which is just wearing thin.

One of the best gaming experiences that I've ever had was with Car Wars. Eight players, each controlling two vehicles costing a combined total of $30K. We used the Double Drum arena map, and each player had to start one of his two vehicles in each of the "drums." It was total mayhem. The most lightweight gamer in the group managed to sucker me with a linked smokescreen/landmine combo to take out one of my cars early. It took all afternoon to play out, but what a great afternoon of gaming.

But now I look back on Car Wars and shudder at those damn speed charts and the turnkeys and the lengthy car design process. It would be great if there was a simpler game that still had a lot of the flexibility of Car Wars.

Circus Imperium??? OH Man . I leave the thread for a few hours and you go and pull out a favorite of mine that I have to PULL TEETH to get to the table. I've had some great times with that game but it just never goes over well here.


Whats next? you guys going to start a thread about how great heroclix is and how everyone in your group loves playing it?

I should have a whole catagory of Steve's Maligned Games...

YAY SpaceGhost! You da man!

Steve"weeping with joy"Avery

Stephen Avery wrote:

Circus Imperium??? OH Man . I leave the thread for a few hours and you go and pull out a favorite of mine that I have to PULL TEETH to get to the table. I've had some great times with that game but it just never goes over well here.

I can't even fathom that. Last game, I came in second -- riding with one foot on two beasts approaching the finish line when a rider whose chariot had been destroyed killed me with a hurled trident, allowing a player who was being drug by a beast to cross the finish line and win.

Awesome.

Michael Barnes wrote:

The problem with ALL "Mad Max" games is that they all have exactly the same problem as any racing game- no sense of speed, velocity, or pace.

GorkaMorka had one or two scenarios that depicted high speed chases, which was represented by having the scenery move backwards. If anyone fell off a vehicle, they'd be out of the game.

mjl1783 wrote:

I like the Mad Max idea so much better- open cockpit vehicles, boarding, really more of a man-to-man fight across moving cars. No game really has that.

There are lots of ways you could do boarding with moving vehicles that would be easy on the playability, but what would really be the tough thing to model would be drifting. Whenever one of the drivers gets injured in those movies, all hell breaks loose. The car drifts into another car, that's car's passengers get thrown off, then that car starts drifitng, and so on.

I'm pretty sure GorkaMorka had that, there were some pretty wild damage charts for the vehicles, one of the results was hitting the driver or gunner. It also had boarding actions, ramming, close combat weaponry (ball and chain on a rig attached to a trukk, stuff like that), harpoon launchers, etc.

One of the main ideas in Mad Max was the lack of resources, especially ammunition and fuel. You don't really see that in most games, unless you're playing some type of campaign. It's probably best represented in video games anyways. I remember the old NES game where you always ran out of gas - GAME OVER.

Space Ghost wrote:
" While its chariots, Circus Imperium kind of captures that man-to-man boarding and out of control speed fairly well."
I have Circus Maximus and Circus Minimus, but seem to have missed Circus Imperium.
There're two up on ebay.com now, unfortunately US and Canada only.

Since I started this thread I've managed to pick up a copy of Battlecars and trade for a copy of Thunder Road and Wreckage.

I'll have to work on Rushncrush and Circus Imperium I guess.

Anybody ever go to Con of the north? Is Circus Imperium the game hosted by the lady with the fully modelled arena and the wierd puppet fetish?

Squigherder wrote:

Since I started this thread I've managed to pick up a copy of Battlecars and trade for a copy of Thunder Road and Wreckage.

I'll have to work on Rushncrush and Circus Imperium I guess.

Anybody ever go to Con of the north? Is Circus Imperium the game hosted by the lady with the fully modelled arena and the wierd puppet fetish?

I never go to Con of the North. I live in the area, but it's at the wrong time of year for me, when things are very busy at work.

ubarose wrote:

I just played the prototype of what may be the definitive Mad Max game, [url=http://http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/63047/scorched-earth]Scorched Earth (working title)[/url]. The game is still being polished, but even it's current slightly ragged state, was throughly engrossing and exciting. Speeding around the waste land on a motorcycle armored with junk I dug out of a dump, trying to get to town before nightfall, avoiding the giant fucking mutant bison that kept mauling me and my bike.

I saw someone post a session report about this game on BGG and was going to ask here if anyone had heard of it.

Fabulous.

Are the designers in your neck of the woods, Uba, or is there a playtesting group in near you?

ubarose wrote:

... avoiding the giant fucking mutant bison that kept mauling me and my bike.

Is the designer your pal Megafauna Dan?

Circus Maximus.

Shellhead wrote:

A very early issue of AutoDuel Quarterly (ADQ) had new rules, equipment and a scenario for a Mad Max setting for Car Wars. We just played it once, but it was a blast. I still have my homemade map for it somewhere in my game collection, though I no longer own that ADQ issue.

Searching my memory banks here ... but that might have been Chassis & Crossbow? It was later expanded into a full (optional and "non-canon") setting for Car Wars, with an emphasis on gasoline and low-tech weaponry.

Yes! Crossbows and Chassis. They did make the gas engine rules official while I was still playing, but I guess I missed out on the full setting treatment.

Also not bad: some of the "car combat" gamebooks that came out during the height of the gamebook craze.

Off the top of my head, at least one of the Car Wars series (Badlands Run, I think) was a fairly low-tech setting. Also, Freeway Warrior (Joe Dever's first non-Lone Wolf series, I'm pretty sure) had more of a gritty "Mad Max" feel to it than some of the other books of the time, which were definitely more about shiny cars and big-ass guns. There was actually a CW-esque book in the Fighting Fantasy series, too. I own it, but have never played it (or read it, or whatever).