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The red flag waves. There’s one kilometer to go. The crowd roars. The riders surge forward using every last ounce of energy they can muster. The great race is reaching its climax. It’s Paris. It’s the 1930s. It’s a brief attempt at a thematic introductory paragraph. But is this cyclical bliss? Or modular madness?
Flamme Rouge is a bicycle racing game that features hand management, elegant movement mechanics, a modular board, and a quick pace of play. Each player controls a team of 2 riders (a Rouleur and a Sprinteur), and the first player to have a rider cross the finish line is the winner! (Or if more than one rider crosses the finish line at the same time, the one who gets the furthest beyond the line wins). The Rouleur is a good all-rounder, whereas the Sprinteur excels at occasional bursts of speed. Flamme Rouge is all about fast, tactical play, and succumbing to the charming theme and sumptuous rhythm of the gameplay phases.
Gameplay
Each player has 2 riders and their corresponding decks, each of which consists of numbered cards that dictate movement (a 3 card means move 3 spaces, a 4 card means move 4 spaces, etc). The gameplay of Flamme Rouge is deceptively simple and at times, downright ingenious. A round consists of 3 phases, which I’ll briefly go through in turn.
1) Energy Phase – All players simultaneously draw 4 cards and play 1 from both their Sprinteur and Rouleur decks. In each case, the 3 unplayed cards are Recycled (put face-up at the bottom of the deck).
2) Movement Phase – All players reveal the cards they have played, and starting with the frontmost rider, players move their riders forward the number of spaces stated on the played cards.
3) End Phase - The played cards are then removed from the game, slipstreaming occurs, and Exhaustion cards are taken.
It’s worth explaining slipstreaming and Exhaustion cards in detail, as these represent important mechanical innovations. Slipstreaming means that you gain some additional movement if your rider ends their move with exactly one empty space between them and another rider in front of them. If you’re clever/lucky, you might get to slipstream multiple times, as packs of riders slipstream together, so if your rider is in the last pack, they might slipstream to the next pack, and so on until all slipstreams are resolved. Using this free bonus movement is invaluable for saving your higher numbered cards, and it’s pretty exciting to resolve too!
As well as timing your slipstreams, careful management of Exhaustion cards is key to having a successful race. After movement and slipstreaming has been resolved, if ever a rider has more than one empty space in front of them, they must take an Exhaustion card and add it face-up to the bottom of that rider’s deck. All Exhaustion cards are 2s and so using too many high numbers early on (thus being at the front and taking on Exhaustion) can result in a cripplingly terrible deck at the end of the game. There is also plenty of room for second-guessing what your opponents might do in order to potentially force them to take on Exhaustion or miss out on a vital slipstream. As in actual cycling races, Flamme Rouge is not about zooming off at any opportunity (although it is very fun to do so!), it’s all about pacing yourself, knowing when to hang back among the pack, and sensing when to attempt a bold breakaway with a stunning surge of speed. The end of the game is invariably a thrilling experience, as you play your final cards to take your riders as far across the finish line as possible.
There is also a small but crucial point regarding rider movement: once both lanes of a space are filled (you always occupy the right-hand lane first if possible) no further riders can be moved to that space. This rule often results in players wasting cards, as they may not always be able to resolve their full movement. For example, if you play a 6 card and there are already 2 riders on the space that is 6 spaces ahead of you, you must place your rider on the space behind (if it’s available). This may not sound like a big deal, but as you realise when the end-of-the-race sprint occurs, or when a few riders try to pull away from the main pack, every number counts! This movement rule also means that the further forward your riders are, the less they will be affected by spaces being blocked, because the riders’ movements are always resolved from front to back. But then being at the front all the time means more Exhaustion cards… It’s an exhilarating balancing act!
One final aspect to discuss is the mountains that feature on some sections of track, and these add an immense amount of enjoyment, challenge, and variance to the game. As you might imagine, the ascents slow you down and the descents speed you up. When ascending, no matter what number card you play, the maximum movement you can make is 5 spaces. This limitation applies if you spend any time at all on an uphill slope space, so it’s essential to conquer the ascent as quickly and efficiently as possible. After scaling the peak, you have the blissful downhill section to look forward to. If a rider starts a turn on a descent space, their card always counts as a minimum of 5, so even if you play an Exhaustion card, you’ll still be shooting down 5 spaces! It’s worth bearing in mind that while slipstreaming cannot occur on an ascent, it can on a descent, which creates opportunities for massive movement.
My Thoughts
Flamme Rouge features one of the best integrations of theme and mechanics I have ever come across in a game. The way that Exhaustion cards are gained makes the gameplay mimic a real cycling race, where distinct packs of riders form and the rider that is leading a pack continually rotates. The slipstream mechanic is also ingenious in mechanically replicating the realities of a cycling race and provides plenty of strategic and speculative food-for-thought when selecting which cards to play. While the options at your disposal ultimately come down to luck with the drawing of the 4 cards, it is what you do with the cards (and when) that really matters.
The component quality of Flamme Rouge is high on the whole, featuring some colour-coded plastic miniatures for the riders and plenty of thick, linen-finish boards that constitute the track. The boards are modular and can fit together in a variety of ways to form different tracks, and when you combine this with the fact that the boards are double-sided, the base game has a great level of replayability. The nostalgic 1930s French cycling theme is truly wonderful; huge props to the artists Ossi Hiekkala and Jere Kasanen for capturing the spirit of the era so well. I particularly enjoyed the faded, creased detailing on the photographs that feature on the player boards, and the charmingly eccentric faces of the riders on the box art.
I really only have a few small criticisms. The first concerns the component quality of the riders; they do feel a little cheap and flimsy for the game’s price point. There is a crude ‘R’ and a ‘S’ painted on the backs of the riders to distinguish them, and the hands of the riders often come away from the handlebars. Secondly, in terms of gameplay, I have noticed a tendency (at all player counts) for the riders to remain in one pack until the end of the race, though the inclusion of mountains does go some way to countering this. While this could be praised in terms of realism, it leaves me occasionally thinking ‘what was the point of the race if we’re in the same situation at the end as the beginning?’. Finally, the constant shuffling of the Recycled cards back into the rider decks to re-form them does get a bit tedious after a while, but these minor complaints almost disappear in light of the sheer fun of playing the game, the elegance of its mechanisms, and the delightfully executed rendition of the theme.
The game plays best at the 4-player count, as the more bikes there are on the track, the more opportunities there are for slipstreaming, pack forming, and other strategic options. That being said, Flamme Rouge is by no means lacking at the 2 and 3 player counts. The lovely tempo of the game is still there and the sprint to the finish line loses none of its excitement with fewer bikes. The publishers state that the game lasts between 30-40 minutes, which is accurate, and the minimum age of 8 feels appropriate given the game’s sophisticated simplicity. There is also a cool companion app that allows a ‘Tour de’ multiple stage event to be played, which will appeal to those of us who love a good campaign mode.
Flamme Rouge is a fabulous game that I enjoy every time I play it. The theme is fun and original, and the elegance of its mechanics makes Flamme Rouge both very accessible and tactically interesting. As such, I’m giving it Cthulhu Reviews’ first ever 8-tentacle rating!
Cthulhu Reviews: 8 out of 8 tentacles 🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙
Designers: Asger Harding Granerud
Publisher: Lautapelit.fi, Stronghold Games
Players: 2-4
Age: 8+
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