Stats:
No. of players: 2-6
Amount of time to play: 60 min
Age requirements: 9+
Set-up time: 5 min

Nitro Dice Rules Description:

Nitro Dice is a card game that simulates a road race. You try to out maneuver, out smart and outlast your opponents.

Don’t let the name fool you this game is all about cards. Dice are used to mark your position on the map. More importantly they let everyone know your speed.

To begin Nitro Dice you roll your 10-sided die. You then line up each player’s die in descending order at the starting line. You should be sure everyone is on zero at the start of the race. Each player also starts the game with 9 cards, a condition marker and 2 nitro tokens.

At the start of each round you decide if you’d like to increase or decrease your speed by one. You also have the option to change your speed by two, but you’ll have to discard a card to do so. You should turn your die to indicate your current speed.

Once everyone has set their speed, you move. The player with the highest speed moves first. Ties are broken by race position in descending order.

The track is made up of cards from the game and each time your die enters a new card you must discard a track of the same type from your hand. There are 3 track types left turn, right turn and straight-aways. If you don’t have the type you need you may just discard three cards. Failing this you’ll have to take a point of damage.

Taking damage affects two things; your top speed and your maximum hand size. Each car starts with 9 points and can move up to 9 spaces. So if you take three points of damage you’ll have a max speed and hand size of 6.

Cards are discarded to change lanes, drift and brake. Go too fast and you might hit other cars. Go too slow and you probably won’t win.

To end your turn you may replace an empty section of track with any matching card from your hand. Many of these cards will contain hazards. Running over a hazard results in a point of damage to your car.

Nitro tokens can be spent on straight-a ways to move 2 extra spaces or to shoot between 2 cars that are blocking you. You’ll take some damage but it might be worth it.

After each player moves the round is over. You now refresh your hand to your max hand size as follows: first place draws three cards, last place draws five cards and everyone else draws four.

There is a garage to fix your car. For each point of movement you spend there you can heal one point of damage.

On the last round, the player to pass the finish line by the most spaces wins.

A Quick Review of Nitro Dice:

Nitro Dice is a fun racing game. You’ll find that you want more cards quicker than you think. The track is crowded and how best to get through the other racers is tough.

The cards are the central resource in Nitro Dice. You will jockey for position and sometimes you just won’t like being in first. Getting only three cards can be tough especially once you are moving fast and entering new cards more often.

And although the rules could be a little clearer about drafting they are fairly well written. Nitro Dice is not weighed down by a lot of complexity and I appreciate that.

There are more tracks, rule variants and suggestions for building your own tracks included. This adds replay value. Nitro Dice is a fun light racer with some different mechanics for the racing genre.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 3 out of 6
Luck 4 out of 6
Player Interaction 6 out of 6
Replay Value 5 out of 6
Complexity 3 out of 6
Fun 3 out of 6
Overall 3 out of 6