Description

Flamme Rouge is a 30 light game for 2-4 players where players controlling teams of a sprinter and a rouleur (all-rounder) in a cycling race. All players have a similar deck of cards for each cyclist, with numbers indictating how far the cyclist can move. Each turn, players choose a cyclist and draw 4 cards from that cyclist’s deck, placing a card face down, and the unused cards face up under the deck, then repeating the same for the remaining cyclist. When a deck is full of face up cards, it is reshuffled and turned over face down. Cyclists move from front first to back, with used cards gone from the game. After movement, from back first to front, any cyclists that are 2 spaces behind another cyclists move one space up to account as a drafting bonus. Then, any cyclist at the front of any group gets a value 2 exhaustion card into his deck face up. Play then repeats until any cyclist crossed the finishing line.

Flamme Rouge plays like catty cyclists in a breakaway towards the tail end of a professional road race, with the peloton catching up soon. Everyone is second guessing one another, not wanting to do the hard work in the front, barging and blocking to be in second place, enjoying the benefits of drafting and saving energy for the moment when one person decides to attack for the victory.

Like an actual cycling road race, Flamme Rouge is a slow burner as a game. Players will find it punishingly hard to escape the watchful legs of the pack or win a race from the front, but it can be done and when it all comes together, the results can be spectacular. Nothing can be more satisfying to saving your cyclists’ cards for an opportune time to strike out for victory while estimating what moves your opponents will make based on the current terrain.

Players who do not enjoy jockeying for position the whole game while curating their card decks will find the game too light and random.

Ticket To Ride Europe and Broom Service are both light games that have the same back and forth gameplay of Flamme Rouge that adults will enjoy. Across other 60 minute light games, Lords of Vegas, Ra, Not Alone, Camel Up, Clank, and Century Spice Road/Century Golem edition are all excellent choices.

Cards require 190 Standard American card sleeves (57 x 89mm)