Roll The Track, Run the Race. Exploring Racetrack Boardgames

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

So.

What is a Roll and Move (or racetrack) game and what are the advantages to this format of design?

A Roll and Move game is just what it says on the tin. It is a game where players employ dice or some other randomizing element to determine their travel distance and possibly travel direction. In this light, these games are usually very simple to teach and even simpler to play, usually adding other layers of design to their initial concept to create interest

Consider the literal racetrack game Downforce. In this game players bid on formula one cars and then race with the ones they successfully buy, betting on which car will be the victor throughout. Depending on if your bought car wins and if you bet on the right cars to get into first second and third, you'll get a pay out at the end of the game. The player with the largest pay out wins the game.

The core play of the game is the race itself, with players using cards in their hand to determine their movement across the racetrack. This said there are many elements surrounding it, including predictive betting, bidding wars, and even special racer abilities. These serve to enhance the engagement, taking the game beyond the base "get there first" victory condition and creating a game with multiple convening threads of strategy.

This isn't to say that Roll and Move games are intrinsically boring, but without proper management of the randomization element for movement, players can feel like the lack the ability to control their destiny in these games.

Looking back at Downforce again, they get around this concept by using a combination of cards and player abilities to make the act of moving interesting. Additionally, the make the act of passing other players non-trivial as the board mimics a track with expanding and contracting width, so cars can be placed such that players get stuck behind each other. And while this would normally be an annoyance, because of the theming of the game, and how quickly turns resolve, it becomes yet another angle of strategic play for its participants.

Now consider the Roll and Move that that I personally don't believe to be a game in the truest sense: Chutes and Ladders (formerly Snakes and Ladders). In one of my earlier posts I proposed a change to this ...activity that grants it just enough engagement to be categorized as a game. Specifically allowing players to store and deploy dice rolls as they get them to better control their ability to move across the board.

Without this change Chutes and Ladders falls prey to the risk of over simplistic design, where the game is either too easily solved, or doesn't afford enough agency to be engaging to its players.

Now consider the digital counter part to the roll and move in the form of the Mario Party series. Here we have a game that focuses on moving players around the board to get to randomly selected star spaces where, predictably, they can buy stars. The game is made more interesting by this (admittedly simple) economic component, as players can gain or lose money by landing on specific spaces, winning in mini-games that happen at the end of every round, or by employing items they pick up throughout the game. Additionally, players can alter the types of dice they use to influence their movement, getting dice with higher upper limits, different chance ratios or lower overall values. In this way the game is made a fairly engaging, although many players would argue that it doesn't confer quite enough agency to players to be "fun to master"

Here again we encounter the main issue that roll and move games face: They have to work to give players a sense of control and agency. Even with all of the angles of manipulation that Mario Party employs, its reliance on dice to create its movement without methods of direct manipulation and control makes if fall prey to the agency issue.

In this light, it is important that designers that are considering making roll and move type games keep abreast of the amount of agency they are affording their players, and not be afraid to add a design layer or two to grant players the control they need to feel like they are achieving the goal of the game, rather than simply being given it.

So dear reader. Have you ever played a roll and move game? do you prefer the race track terminology? what kinds of design elements would you like to see layered on top of the roll and move archetype?