Race Around the World product reviews

This is one of those games that grew from a basic idea, and after some heavy refinement by the experts, turned into something pretty amazing.

Each map is divided into squares. Some limit your movement choices, some give you freedom to go off in whatever direction you like... there's always one path from start to finish, sometimes there is more than one way to solve it, but I haven't found more than one successful path on any of the maps.

Again, this turned out to be a single-player game really, since there is only one copy of each map included. However, we made colour copies of the maps and ran them as a race, with four players all vying to be the first to beat each puzzle.

I love the way this game can be used as a single-player puzzle, or adapted to be a multiplayer game for any number of players. If you want to preserve the original game maps, get them laminated and then you won't even need the OHP sheet to write on. You could do the same with the copies, if you want to keep them pristine, but we found it just as easy to pop them in the copier and run off plain paper copies that we could draw directly onto.

Overall, I can't say this was my favourite game, but it certainly had some appeal. By the time I had made it through my fourth map - with each one harder than the one before - my brain was starting to see trails of arrows everywhere. This is a game I would happily play, but not for more than an hour at a time.

This was another single-player game/puzzle, but the inventive team in charge of the games event worked out that with a photocopier it was easy to make it a team face-off challenge. Not only did we have the thrill of trying to beat the clock, but also the other players around the table.
The puzzle itself seems to simple. Start "here" and follow the arrows. Some squares let you veer off in another direction of your choice, and this is what stops the game from being just a case of 'follow the trail' where your first move locks you in to a predefined pathway.
Since each map is progressively harder than the one before it in the series, things get tougher as the squares get smaller meaning more 'steps' and longer challenges. With my low tolerance for frustration the game became a little too much for me after three maps and I dropped out and went to explore other games, but I got enough of a taste to know that the design of this game is brilliant.
Based on a concept by some schoolgirls in Australia, this game has obviously been polished by some accomplished game designers. The quality of the artwork and the logic behind each map makes this game look polished enough to sell well at twice the price.
All in all, a lot of fun for the right type of people. Could make for a very interesting drinking game I suppose, if you started at map #10 and worked your way down to map 1 as you got more sozzled.