Posted on 20 December 2017 by CarTakeBack

The 20th December is Games Day, and it's the perfect excuse to break the board games out of the cupboard for a dust off before Christmas with the family. If you're sick of your Nan cheating at Monopoly, and rummaging through the dictionary to check you didn't just make up that word in Scrabble, there are still games out there for you. Why not give one of these car, racing, and recycling themed games a whirl?!

Here's some of our top road, car, and even scrap themed board games.

Top 7 Board Games

Kanban Automotive Revolution

2-4 players, recommended for ages 12+, designed by Vital Lacerda

In Kanban you are involved in a car manufacturer assembly line. Each player is a manager who's trying to impress the board of directors, getting as high as they can in the company and secure their careers. In the game the players must manage supplier (and the suppliers), improve car parts, keep the design cutting edge. As you progress, you gain advantages in the game, such as space for storing your resources, and faster scoring. You can also get involved on the production line to boost production.

Focused on economics and resource management, this strategy game can be tailored. You can play under a nice factory manager, or a mean one, depending on how competitive you want to be!

Formula D

2-10 players, recommended for ages 8+, designed by Laurent Lavaur and Eric Tandall

With award winning game Formula D you race around a track, trying to beat your friends and family to the finish line! Along the way you manage gear changes, which control how many spaces you can move, corners designed to slow you down, penalties for bumping into other cars, being blocked by the car in front, or having to downshift gears too fast. These affect your tyre health, brake wear, transmission wear, also the body and engine damage, so be careful!

The mechanics of this game is dice rolling, so there is a bit of luck involved with the strategy. There are rule variations where you can customise your cars, add slipstreaming, road debris, and you can even play illegal street races, where anything goes!

If you enjoy the game, there are plenty of expansions available, too.

R-Eco - A Game of Recycling and Ecology

2-5 players, recommended for ages 8+, designed by Susumu Kawasaki

Oh no, the city has a trash problem! Each player is a company that does rubbish collection and recycling, and the aim is to earn money! You need to get the rubbish you collect to the correct recycling plants, but if you take too much, or the leftover from the recycling process puts you over your limit, you need to dump it, which is illegal, and loses you points at the end of the game.

This little card collecting game is great for a quick bit of entertainment, as playing only takes 20 minutes, and you'll find yourself doing a surprising amount of strategising, trying to get the other players to pick up the larger bits or waste!

Grand Prix

2-11 players, recommended for ages 14+, designed by Jeff and Carla Horger

Unlike Formula D, in Grand Prix, it's not only getting across the finish line first that counts. You can control either 1 or 2 cars each, or racing teams, and the scores aren't just about who's the fastest individual car. Only the top 10 cars score points, and if playing a racing team, it's the overall placement of all cars in the team that counts.

It's an involved game, with play averaging at around 90 minutes, but it's getting rave reviews from families and hobby gamers, so if you can find a copy, we think you should give it a go!

Pitchcar

2-8 players, recommended for ages 6+, designed by Jean du Poël

This is a fabulous family game based on dexterity, rather than luck. Each player flicks a wooden puck, decorated like a Formula 1 car, around a track that has ramps, bridges, twists and turns, with their finger. You choose how to build the wooden track before you play, and you can add expansions which give you the options to have tight curves, crossroads, jumps and bottlenecks on your track.

The aim of the game is to get to the finish the quickest, but be warned, if you fall off the track there are penalties!

Unexpected Treasures

3-6 players, recommended for ages 13+, designed by Friedemann Friese

In this sweet little card game, the aim is to collect things to upcycle and sell for a profit. You compete to get to the scrap yard first, using items from backpacks to estate cars, to carry them back home.

If more than one player chooses the same thing to carry the goods, only one of them can visit the junk yard that round, and there is also the thief to be wary of. If you go to collect things to sell, one of the other players might be the robber and take things from your home!

The game takes around 30 minutes to play, and is really simple to learn, but you have to get skilled in predicting what the other players will do next!

Steampunk Rally

2-8 players, recommended for ages 14+, designed by Orin Bishop

In Steampunk Rally you take on the character of famous inventors to build a contraption and race it through the Swiss Alps. The inventors are all from the last century and so steam, heat and electricity is used to create and power your vehicles.

You need the luck of the roll of the dice, as well as some strategy, to win this game. You need to build your contraption, maintain it, and get around the Alps before your opponents do.

Another award winning game, it takes between 45-60 minutes to play, and after being crowdfunded, is on the wish list of many gamers.