This game was published multiple times in two separate forms between 1997 and 1999. It has sold out completely.
D'raf is a three to five player game simulating a crazy, uncontrolled race on a crowded highway. Instead of a game board, the table is used. The players take turns in laying cards. These cards make up the road on which the players drive their cars.
Speeding ahead, you cannot always lay enough cards to see the obstacles ahead of you in time. In fact, other players will try their hardest to put lots of dangerous obstacles right in front of you. After each accident the car will get more difficult to control. It would be safer to go slowly, but if you lag behind, you're out of the game...
Each player drives his car to the edge of the table as fast as possible. Whoever arrives first and drives off the edge, wins the game.
D'raf is well playable in convivial groups, who want to go at each other in a friendly manner. Since the playing time depends on the distance from the starting place to the edge of the table, it can be varied from about 30 to 90 minutes.
The game contains about 168 laying cards, 45 cruise control cards, 5 little wooden cars, a turn marker and rules in German or English.
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This game sold out at Essen 2001 in one hour. It is a very experimental game, and most people do not really get the hang of it. We hope it is still being played, somewhere, as we quite liked the concept. Here's the original text:
It is freezing cold on the polar expedition. Your spit has started to freeze in your mouth, but you choose to remain outside. You must be careful. For one of you is the BEAST. You do not know who. It might even be two of you. Or more. And they are out to get you. So find out who to trust, before it is too late.
Beest is a cardgame of deep thinking and pure guesswork, which will keep three to six players busy for about 45 minutes.
Airplanes enable you to escape from your home area, bring distant parts of the world within reach and enable fast and lucrative trade with other players. Just bring your building materials, express shipments and trade goods to an airport, take off, and drop them anywhere you want.
Railroads are not as flexible as airplanes, but they can be used by everyone who can spare a modest fare, and what's more: they enable your own transporters to travel and visit distant parts of the world quickly and easily.
Bombs give you more flexibility in your planning. No more obsolete factories blocking the best building site for your mint: just blow up the ruins! Of course, explosives in the wrong hands can lead to disasters, especially if your factories are all built of wood. It may be wise to strengthen your core factories with a little extra stone.
This expansion set contains new transporters (airplanes), new buildings (airports and bomb factories), new goods (bombs), fortified-building markers, and a number of scenarios in which you can experiment with the use and the fun of aviation, trains and explosives. Rules were available in English and German. You need the original Roads & Boats game (any edition) to play this expansion set.
Each player starts the game with three donkeys, a pile of wooden boards, a number of stones and two geese. With these few resources, you try to build such diverse things as woodcutters, roads, boats, mines, a stock exchange... but beware! There is no concept of territory in this game: you cannot own land, nor buildings, so the things you build can be used by any other player...
The game can be played by two to four players, but it can also be used as a one-person puzzle. Material for a fifth and a sixth player is available in the &Cetera expansion.
The basic game contains a rule and scenario book in English and Germand, a pile of hexagonal terrain tiles, 120 means of transportation from donkeys to steamers (wooden pieces), 75 walls (little woorden rods), 4 research boards, 28 discovery stones (glass), a wonder of the world with 193 wonder stones (cardboard), 18 mines + bags, 115 factories (cardboard), 600 goods (cardboard) and several other parts.
The fourth edition is very similar to the third edition except: the counters have be printed on both sides (gold and iron are black on the backside); the stickers have been upgraded to last longer; and, hopefully, we have a foldable plate instead of a rolled-up one.
We particularly like this review of the game's impact: What is Roads & Boats?
