A few years ago I received an email from a young Danish game designer who told me he has an idea for a game mechanic that fitted perfectly to a cycling race. He told me he had read my texts and that he was convinced he was on the right track. He sent me a sketch of his ideas, asked me my opinion about them, and asked me not to disclose them. I did not even mention them in the unpublished games section.

At the time he already had the game's name, which I though (and I still think) is a great name. It is hard to find a cycling-related name for a game that sounds good and has not been used yet. (Check the  alphabetical list of names and see if you can find a good one still available).

When I read the rules I  told him that they might turn into a good game. How could it be otherwise coming from someone that had studied my cycling game theory my texts? ;-) What I did not tell him is that I have received sketches of rules before, some of them also promising, some even by authors that have already published other games, and that, unfortunately, it is very hard to see cycling games commercially released.

So, I just waited for news but I did not hope much. At most I could expect a self-published release or a kickstarter attempt. Even when a couple of years later Asger wrote again to tell me that the game was going to be released, I thought it was going to be a modest edition, and I was not so surprised to learn that the release had been delayed (that was one year ago).

Finally the whole thing sped up. When I saw the first sketches of the graphic design, and I could read the definitive edition of the rules, I realized that this was much better than I had thought. When I finally received the boxed game, saw the games components, and played the game properly, I was amazed. Flamme Rouge may easily be the (cycling) game of the year. Did I say "of the year"? Maybe I meant "of the decade"!

 

UPDATE 2018: Since day one there has been considerable fuzz about this game and some unofficial and semi-official variations have been posted on different websites, specially on Boardgamegeek. Some of these variants have been included in the Flamme Rouge: Peloton expansion, released in 2017. Scroll down to read about this and other expansions.

Flamme Rouge is supposed to represent a one-day race though, since there is a small pack of just eight riders, the game is played in around 30-45 minutes, and the name of the game is that of the  red flag displayed with one kilometre remaining from the finish line of a race, I prefer to think that the game represents the last, say, 20 or 30 kilometres of a classic race. If you consider it so the game turns out to be quite realistic!

Information about the game is easy to find: you can download the English rules (and also the French ones) from the Lautapelit website and you can check all the comments and even download the first game variants on BoardGameGeek, so I will just add a few things here.

 

The game does not have a "board" but instead has 21 double sided track segments Marked by letters, small case on one side, capital letters on the other)  which can be assembled in different ways to make your own stages. In the box are six possible configurations, but I expect many more to be created by fans. (Here is mine for a hilly stage:  amcSqtRNBDHoIeGlkfju - the first I is a capital "i", the second is a small case "L").

The mechanics of the game are easy to learn. Each player manages a team of two riders, called Sprinteur and Rouleur, with different capabilities. Each rider has his own deck of cards (it can be considered a deck building game) from which they chose one. When all the players have chosen one card for each cyclist they reveal it simultaneously and move the riders accordingly. The simultaneous  play solves (well, almost) the problem known as "analysis paralysis" (players taking too long to move their riders) and makes the game very dynamic.

The Rouleur and Sprinteur decks are different, though each players' decks are equivalent. Sprinteurs are quicker but Rouleurs are stronger, as can be expected: Sprinteurs will win in mostly flat stages while rouleurs have better chances in mountain stages. Players will manoeuver to have the worst rider work for the best in every situation. The drawback of each player having two different decks is that you have to reshuffle two ever-diminishing decks of discarded cards.

 

The strongest point of the game mechanics, IMHO, is the slipstreaming rule (combined with the exhaustion rule) which makes the pack stay together as a single group in most cases, at least while the road is flat and the riders are protected from the wind. Breaking away from such a pack is hard, though not impossible. A simple but effective rule for the climbs and descents causes the group to split when the road goes uphill and generally regroup on the descents. All in all, a very realistic "cycling feel" with a very simple set of rules. Clever!

It is interesting to mention is the winner rule, which combines first-past-the post and further-past-the-post rules in an unusual way. (Check the theory here in case you do not know what I am talking about, or just forget this last sentence). There are only five squares (a tile) past the finishing line. In the case (which does not happen often, but which MAY happen) of the riders having to move further than that, they just occupy those five squares, the winner being the one further away on the right side of the road. This rule, which does not make much sense in a normal game, is essential if you want to play the Grand Tour variant (more on variants below).

 

 

By the way, the flat stage (called "Avenue Corso Paseo") will probably be used the first time you play, as the climb and descent rules are easy to learn and good for the game, though of course you can add a flat stage to a stage race. The possibility of playing stage races is given as a print-and-play download (that is why I class this game in the one-day races section) but in fact you just download a table to keep track of the times and a rule that just says how the time is counted.

Other downloadable variants are the rules to move the teams if you are less than four players. You can use "hard" rules to make the robot teams stronger. And of course you can play solo against three robot teams.

 

I did not mention that the game is supposed to represent a race from 1932. Look at the realistic vintage-looking riders. Some players have complained that the two riders are too similar. It is true that it is better if you paint the cap of one of them. I personally complain that Sprinteur is the rider that looks like a climber, while Rouleur is the one that looks as a Sprinter.

Rouleur on the left, leading for Sprinteur

Another strong point of the game is the fantastic work of illustrator Ossi Hiekkala in giving this game its 1932 feel. If you are interested, he explains how was his work with this game in his blog.

There are two different editions of the game, the "international edition" with rules in English, French, German and Spanish (as I said above, translated by yours truly) and the "Nordic countries edition", with rules in Suomi, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. However, the contents of the box are the same except the rulebook, which can be downloaded anyway.

Since I have both boxes, I will investigate the possibility of making longer stages, using not only the road segments from both games, but only using twice as many cards for each rider. This is an idea I am having lately: that it is a good idea to have two copies of the games that have modular roads. You never know when you are going to want to play a really long stage.

 

UPDATE: There is also an English-only "international" edition and I am not really sure if the game has been or will be released in other languages. The Peloton expansion includes the rules in nine languages, adding Italian and Portuguese, but not including Spanish. I did not have to translate that one, but I am not sure why Spanish is not included.

 

Nordic  countries edition

By the way, I know I am being quite enthusiastic about this game, and this is not common in me. Well, these things happen. In case you wonder, I am NOT involved in any way with the games' makers (though I translated the rules into Spanish). I did NOT know the game designer before, and in fact I can barely say I know him: I just met him at Essen 2016 and we did not have much time to talk since he was very busy demoing the game. Maybe next time ;-)

 

 

 

FLAMME ROUGE: PELOTON
Asger Sams Granerud / Lautapelit, Danmark / Finland, 2017

 

 

 

 

As I said above, there has been considerable fuzz about Flamme Rough and some unofficial and semi-official variations have been posted on different websites, specially on Boardgamegeek.  Some of these variants have been included in the Flamme Rouge: Peloton expansion, released in 2017.

Some of these novelties are: extra stages, cobblestones, two extra teams and a breakaway variant.

The new stage cards do not have imaginative names like they used to have in the base game, but they suggest instead the possibility of playing a multi-stage race, though the semi-official rules for a Grand Tour have not been included in this expansion. On the other hand (on the other side, should I say), the new stage cards are reversible, offering configurations for 5-6 players on the opposite side.

I like the idea of the breakaway variant, since I said from the beginning that this game represents the last 20 kilometres (or so) of the race, and we all know that, more often than not, in a cycling race there is an early breakaway that has not yen been caught at with 20 kms to go.
 

 

 

However, my favourite novelty in this expansion are the rules for dummy teams. There are two different kind of dummy teams, each with its own special extra cards. They are called Muscle Team (card on the left in the picture above and Peloton Team (card on the right). While there can only be one Peloton team in the game, there can be as many Muscle teams as needed. This means that the game can now be played as a solitaire (well, it could already be played as a solitaire, but now the extra teams are better and they behave differently).

I must add that this is, by far, my favourite cycling solitaire game.

 

 

Two riders of the new teams on cobblestones. Notice that the letters on the back of the riders are easier to distinguish now.

 

 

 

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FLAMME ROUGE: METEO
Asger Sams Granerud / Lautapelit, Danmark / Finland, 2018

 

 

 

 

This is not a boxed expansion like 2017's "Peloton" but rather a mini-expansion that comes wrapped in plastic. It adds some variation to the game by introducing weather phenomena such as different winds and stormy rain. Of course it is a must-have for dedicated players, but not such a big improvement for the game as was "Peloton". You can download the rules from Lautapelit's website and decide if you want this one too. At 9.95 ?, it does not hurt to have it.

 

 

A bunch of cyclists (not included; the white and pink ones belong to the Peloton expansion) suffering under heavy rain.

 

 

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PROMO CARDS
 

 

Some hard-to-find promo cards have been distributed at various gaming events. Most of them are just new stage configurations, which will be a nice collectable item (thanks a lot to the Lautapelit crew for sending them!) but you do not miss much if you do not have them. Most of them can be downloaded from the Boardgamegeek, and eventually all of them will. (You can also download a lot of unofficial stages there).

A much more interesting card is the Team Trial, which offers special rules for a team time trial stage. Now we need a rule to include this one in a Grand Tour, specially if you play solo. Hey Asger, how are dummy teams supposed to play the team time trial stages?

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Promotional cards offered by Gigamic in France before the start of the Tour de France 2018. According to the designer, Ryan Keane, "there are 12 cards, including 21 track designs on alternating card sides. The designs represent the last 70 km of the actual stages raced in the Tour 2018 using the Flamme Rouge terrain system".

Needless to say, these cards are better played with the Grand Tour rules, a semi-unofficial expansion by Asger Sams Granerud himself, which I hope will see the light someday as a proper official release.

 

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UPDATE OCTOBER 2020: As far as I know there were plans for a new official update this year but they have been posposed as a result of these pandemic situation. However, on the unofficial side there have been plenty of new stages posted on Boardgamegeek. Almost every "real" race has its own unofficial Flamme Rouge design, sometimes more than one for the same race. Even better, a BGG user has created an automatic track generator, in which you can select features like table size (very important!), number of ascents, descents and cobblestones, number of players, if breakaway riders and supply tiles should be used, and even " if design principles should be applied".

Here is a card of a hilly stage for 2-4 players, using the Peloton expansion, designed by yours truly.

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UPDATE DECEMBER 2022: The long-awaited "definitive" expansion Flamme Rouge: Grand Tour has been officially announced on Lautapelit's website. The game is scheduled for release in 2023, without further precision. I guess we will still have to wait a little. In the meantime, Flame Rouge's designer Asger Granerud has released another racing game, which kinda looks like Flamme-Rouge-with-cars (doesn't it?)

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PROMO CARDS: DICE TOWER 2019
 

UPDATE OCTOBER 2023: These promotional cards were available as a reward from the Dice Tower 2019 Kickstarter Campaign. It is a set of  five double sided cards with one side for 2-4 players, and the other 5-6 players

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UPDATE OCTOBER 2023 (2): On the other hand, while the Grand Tour expansion has been announced for this fall, and the box design was made public some months ago, it cannot be preordered yet. It was supposed to be available at the Essen fair, but Lautapelit just says that [at Essen]  "we will show [..] other upcoming releases, such as [..] Flamme Rouge Grand Tour". I am afraid we will still have to wait.

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UPDATE APRIL 2024: Still no Grand Tour, but we have a kiddies' game instead. While it bears the name Flamme Rouge, it looks like a different game to me. When I get a copy I will let you know.

Click here to see Flamme Rouge on Laitapelit's website