Rallyman: GT Strategy Board Game - Dice Racing for 1-6 Players | 45 Min Playtime | Ages 10+ | Perfect for Family Game Nights & Competitive Racing Enthusiasts

So here's the deal... I love playing board games. Ideally with a group of friends. But sometimes no one is available (such as, oh I dunno, in the middle of a global pandemic when everyone is practicing social distancing) and you want a solid solo gaming experience.The problem is, there are very few games out there that can "play both sides of the fence," so to speak.Most often what happens is that games have a great multi-player mode, but wind up becoming cumbersome for solo play (looking directly at you, Zombicide Invader). To date, one of the only games I've found for which the game play is practically identical in solo mode, without any additional complications placed on the solo player, is Dungeon Quest, a game from the 80's. I own the original game and the reissue (which isn't as good only by virtue of adding too many additional gameplay components), but sadly all versions of this game are out of print now.For the longest time, Dungeon Quest held my top spot for favorite solo game. The only problem is that the game is incredibly frustrating. It should have been titled "Screw You" -- and I don't mean that maliciously. The game is still incredibly fun, even if your chances of actually winning are incredibly small. It's just that the entire game is much more luck-driven than skill driven. So it doesn't provide much of an intellectual challenge.Right now you're probably wondering what any of this has to do with Rallyman GT. I get it. I'm rambling a bit. But I just wanted to drive home (see what I did there?) the point that finding a board game that is great at BOTH multi-player and single-player has been a quest of mine for some time now. I won't pretend to be a board game expert who has tried every game out there -- and there may likely be other solid options -- just that my experience has often left me wanting in one direction or the other.I missed the initial Kickstarter for Rallyman GT, but caught a game play video on YouTube. My initial thought was "a board game based on race car driving? Why would I have any interest in that?!??"But then the more I watched the video, the more intriguing the game looked. So on an impulse, I bought it.So one of the things I find frustrating about a lot of modern board games is that I feel like the rules are often overly complex. I feel like it often takes multiple play-throughs to get a solid grasp of the concepts, and usually the rule book needs to be kept nearby. Some games even require almost immediate releases of FAQs and addendums to clear up issues (once again, I'm looking right at you Zombicide Invader).With Rallyman GT, I read through the rule book one time. And it was so clear that I felt I had a strong grasp on how to play. I set up the board and went through a quick solo game, and everything made sense. I had one question about the rules that I had to look up, and it turned out that I had been correct anyway in my interpretation.I honestly can't think of any other game short of something like Checkers for which the rules were so elegant and clear right from the start.I have a neighbor family that I have been sharing quarantine time with and we played a full 6-player game. All of them fully grasped the rules, so much so that they were able to develop play strategies, within the first couple of turns of the game.Somehow the developers have managed to distill the very complex notion of automobile racing into an incredibly efficient rules system that just gets out of the way of game play, allowing players to really be creative and strategic with how they "drive" around the board. What's more, the game is equally exciting in both solo and group play.It also lends itself well to simple customization. For example, out of the box, solo play is time trial based. That is, your goal is to simply race around the track as quickly as possible, then race again to beat your time. However, several people have developed "AI" rules to allow solo players to actually race against other cars. And the elegant nature of the rules system makes it so that even these so-called AI cars can still pose an exciting challenge.The actual game components themselves are well thought out and of very good quality. The core box includes tiles that are used to build your race tracks. You can use layouts suggested in the rule book, or make up your own. All of the cardboard components, from the track tiles to the tokens, feel solid and durable. The plastic cars each have just enough detail to distinguish them even if they weren't all different colors (also, I've heard that Micro Machines are a small enough scale to be usable on the tracks). The included dice are solid and feel really nice. The developers even included plenty of plastic baggies to allow you to sort and store all of the tokens, cars, and car "dashboards." Finally, just the design of the game itself is gorgeous. The box art, the art in the rule book, and even the artwork on the track tiles is all just stunning.If I had any complaint at all, and this would be the most minor of nitpicks, it's that the box doesn't have a great way to organize the track tiles -- no separators or dividers too keep them from just sliding around all over the box. Again, this is a completely minor complaint and really isn't even worth knocking the rating for. Also, the lack of extra inserts in the box may be intentional by the developers in order to allow room for the additional track tiles from the expansions.I know this is a rather long review. So if you've come this far, thanks for bearing with me. All in all, I just can't express enough how much I thoroughly enjoy this game. I know that it's been immensely popular since it's Kickstarter launch, so much so that the expansions have been hard to track down. But as soon as production is able to catch up, I look forward to expanding this game and I have no doubts it will remain in regular play rotation for quite some time.