Radar
- Board's Eye View
- 5 hours ago
- 2 min read
Designed by Abdulrahman Al-Homaid and published by Qatari publishers Majlis Shabab, Radar is a light card game where players are trying to avoid getting tickets for breaking the speed limit.
The 2-5 players each have a small hand of cards. These mostly show a number, representing speed (km/hour) but there are also some cards that have special effects, including 'Stop' cards and police cruisers that require all the players to play a card with a number less than 10. Each round, a speed limit is revealed and players take turns playing a card from their hand onto a central tableau that represents your shared car's speed. You must play a card on your turn but you are each trying to avoid being the player who plays the card that pushes the combined total above that round's speed limit. Do that and you are given a speeding ticket. You play for one more round than the number of players, and the winner is the player who ends up with the fewest speeding tickets.
Its simple and largely intuitive rules make Radar an easy-to-play family game. There's a requirement for constant addition, so there's an educational element for players who are well below the age when they can get behind the wheel of a car. There's no direct 'take that' interaction but you can definitely try to lumber other players by playing a number card that takes the total to only just below the round's speed limit. If the next player doesn't hold a very low or negative number card, or one of the cards with an appropriate special effect, then the likelihood is that they will have to play a card that breaks the speed limit and costs them a ticket.
Radar works at all player counts but the dynamics can feel slightly different in a two- or three-player game than if you're playing with four or five. There's a natural tendency to play a card that takes the total as close as possible to the speed limit in order to trap the next player. At higher player counts it's likely the round will end before it gets back to your next turn but in a two- or three-player game you may be pushing your luck: if the other player(s) are able to play cards that keep the round going, you can find that you've snookered yourself! Player count doesn't make each round materially longer but with more players you'll be playing more rounds, so games will be longer for that reason. Two-player games will take around 10 minutes but you can expect to double that with four or five players. Note too that at higher player counts you're more likely to have one or more clear losers rather than a clear single winner.
