Recently I had the chance to sit down and play Junkyard Derby, a game which originated as a Kickstarter project that a friend backed some time ago. A steampunk-themed racing game, the basic premise is split into two parts; a preparation phase where players build their karts, and then a race phase where everyone takes to the track and attempts to become the first to finish. As a sucker for motorsport and Mario Kart, this kind of game seemed right up my alley - especially since recently I had been debating whether to purchase Downforce from my local Games World.
Each player has a driver that comes with their own special traits (more armour, better steering, more speed, etc) and special abilities. These special abilities tend to be split amongst the two phases - for example, you might have a driver whose prep phase ability means they can recycle junk into kart parts for a lower price, and a race ability to add one to your steering challenge rolls to make negotiating obstacles easier. Players take turns during the prep phase playing and trading cards to make up a kart that they’re going to race. Each kart has a chassis, steering system, propulsion system, and wheels. Different variants on each means you can get some pretty varied karts going to the track - although a couple of extra types would have meant some truly random combinations; as it was, in our six player game we had a couple of near-identical karts taking to the track. The prep phase lasts a minimum of three turns, which gives everyone a reasonable chance to put a kart together they’re comfortable racing with.
After three prep turns, you’re free to begin the race - or at least try to. One of the nice quirks of the game is that each kart has a complexity score; the more complex the kart, the more difficult the dice roll you need to start it come the start of the race. One of our players rushed a very complex build and got to the start line early, but then spent three turns trying to get the thing running! Another negative to high complexity (which balances out the likely speed or steering advantage you’ve given your build) is that when you take damage during the race, you take more than your opponents who have slower, less-complex karts. So that’s a nice risk/reward mechanic. The race itself is pretty straight forward - make steering rolls to attempt shortcuts or dodge obstacles, try to use some of the equipment you crafted during the prep phase to boost yourself or hurt the opposition, and try to get to the finish line before anyone else.
So, how does it play? Well, to start with the stuff I liked, I think the board itself is absolutely gorgeous. It’s got some great production value and the track and scenery is all very thematic in terms of the scrappy steampunk look and colours. It’s really odd that this didn’t extend to other components of the game - but more on that later. Additionally, for me it’s hard to go wrong with a game that is essentially Mario Kart on a board. I love that idea, it’s great to see interactions between players as they essentially red shell each other or craft a boosting mushroom… or the scrapyard version thereof. You’re really incentivised to go after each other if you want to get the victory, but there’s also an element of forced co-operation during the prep phase if you want to trade and barter for that one piece of scrap you’re missing to craft an electromagnet or better armour.
Where the game lets itself down a bit is in what feels like some unfinished production value - perhaps understandable for what was a kickstarter game. The game’s manual feels rushed; its font is small and hard to read, and there’s a lot of whitespace in places. This also extends to the tiny font on the cards themselves, and the confusing choice of colours. One type of cards has a dark blue background with a tiny black font - it’s pretty tough for me to read, let alone someone who might have colourblindness or other visual impairments! Getting back to the manual, the other issue is the lack of clarity on some of the rules; the ins and outs of the special abilities of each driver and the way you resolve on-track obstacles could really have used some fleshing out in the manual. The obstacles in particular were cause for argument for our six-player group, which was pretty split as to whether you had to resolve each one as you passed the square, or only if you landed on it - and then turned into a discussion of whether you took damage immediately or had to roll for it. Our decision ended up being yes, everyone had to resolve each of the obstacles, and then for the damaging obstacles everyone would take one point of damage and then roll a check for additional damage. It would have been great if the manual made this clearer though!
The other slight problem with the game seems to be one of balance. We played with six players, the maximum permitted by the game, and some of the characters prep-phase abilities seemed entirely negated as a result. With six players, there was little to no cards in the discard pile after a player’s turn, and a couple of characters had discard-pile related abilities that seemed entirely useless as a result. Now again, perhaps this comes down to misunderstanding some vague rules, but it seemed to be a real issue for those characters in the prep phase. In the race phase, it seemed like the players who got the high amount of speed points possible for the lowest amount of overall complexity pretty much had an advantage over everyone else. Armour didn’t really do too much for you as your opponents disappeared over the hill; it would be interesting to see if this strategy held out in future playthroughs of the game.
Overall, the game felt like it had some really solid foundations to build on, but it couldn’t quite execute on everything that it wanted to deliver. It’s hard to be too critical of something that started as a Kickstarter idea, but you get the feeling that if someone invested a bit more time in a v2.0, or perhaps added some balance and variety with an expansion pack, a few of the issues above could be resolved. Overall, I’d give it a solid six out of ten in its current state.