Welcome to Tiny Turbo Cars! This is a frantic race game for 2 to 4 players in which you program the movements of your tiny toy car in advance, with a sliding puzzle acting as your remote controller.

Gameplay

A game includes several rounds. Each round contains 3 phase:

1. Programming

2. Racing

3. End of round

Phase 1: Programming

All players simultaneously program their movements on their controllers. Each piece contains a command.

Only the 2nd and 3rd lines of the puzzle will be used to run the program. Activate from left to right, then the next line.

In real-time mode, when a player is finished programming, they take the top smile token. When only 1 player is left programming, a 10 second countdown starts. When the countdown ends, the last player must stop programming.

In turn-based mode, this part has changed into counting the moves of programming.

Moving Commands

Black arrow: Forward

Hollow + Black arrow = Jump: Move forward 2 spaces while skipping the first space's effect

Gray arrow: Backward

Blue arrow: Left diagonal forward

Red arrow: Right diagonal forward

Arrow with missile icon: Launch a missile forward then move 1 space forward

Arrow with battery icon: Move forward according to your batteries number.

Special Commands

Empty: nothing happens

Battery: Charge 1 battery

+ (Increase): Increase the next command by 1.

- (Decrease): Decrease the next command by 1.

Effect to movement command: Effect to moving number only

Effect to Battery: Effect to the number of batteries recharged

+ after - or - after + : Both commands cancel each other.

Phase 2: Racing

Start from the player with the happiest smile token and proceeding in smile order from happiest to saddest. After a player has executed all of their programmed commands, the next player's turn will start, and so on. The last player loses 1 battery when their turn starts.

Racetrack Elements

When a Racecar moves, some interactions may be triggered, mostly according to where it start when proceed a command.

Note: When it says "stop their current movement command", it means the next command will still be preceeded after the effect.

• Starting Grid: Racecar won't suffer any damage from being hitted when on a Starting grid space. Ignore any backward commands.

• Carpets/Grass: Any movement command that starts on a carpet space will have its movement value changed to exactly 1. Grass spaces with a carpet icon have the same rules as carpet spaces. Increase and Decrease effects are applied after the Carpet effect.

• Crayon Speeder: When a Racecar starts a command on a space containing a Crayon Speeder, resolve that command as if it had an Increase.

• Obstacles/Racecars: If a Racecar enters a space containing an Obstacle or another Racecar, it must stop its current movement command on that space and suffer 1 damage. Effects don't accumulate so if a player hits a Racecar on top of an Obstacle, it only counts as 1 damage.

• Water Puddle: If a Racecar enters or starts in a space containing a Water Puddle, it receives the Slippery token immediately. From now on, any diagonal movement command will have it's direction reversed. Return the Slippery token to the supply at the end of the player's turn.

• Impassables: Racecars cannot enter an Impassable space. Those can be found in the middle of the track as Books or Magazines with a dark background or on the side of the track marked in red (right) or blue (left). If the Racecar should move into an Impassable space, it stops its current movement command, remains on the space it was in before hitting the impassable space, and suffers 1 damage.

Damage

For each damage suffered, the player loses 1 battery.

If they have Energy Shield(s), they must discard 1 instead.

If all 3 batteries are lost, the Racecar immediately lies down.

Lay down

When a Racecar is lying down, it cannot be moved until fully recharged. To recharge a lying down Racecar, ignore the next command to regain 1 battery.

When a Racecar is lying down, its ability cannot be activated unless the ability says so. Also this Racecar can be hit but won't suffer any damage.

Finish all Commands

After a player finish all commands, if they are not lying down they may spend their Energy Shield(s) to move. Move 2 spaces forward for each Energy Shield, one by one.

Although not mentioned in the rulebook, the publisher has clarified that "the movement restrictions from carpets, obstacles, and impassable terrains are applied to the Energy Shield movements as well".

Source: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2736997/article/38598830#38598830

Phase 3: End of round

Check if any Racecar has crossed the finish line.

If one or more Racecar has crossed the finish line:

If only one Racecar has crossed, that Racecar is the winner. If more than one Racecar has crossed the finish line in the same round, the Racecar that move the furthest past the finish line is the winner (even if lying down). In case of a tie, the one with the happiest smile token wins the game.

Other players keep playing to finish the race and check all their final standings.

If no Racecar has crossed the finish line:

Before starting a new round, players return and take Energy Shield(s). Then they must shuffle their controller.

Energy Shields

All players return their Energy Shield(s). Then each player takes Energy Shield according to the number of Racecar(s) ahead of them.

Special Abilities

Each Racecar has a special ability override the board effect when specified.

• Die Liner: The Increase command is applied twice. Increase the next command by 2 instead of 1.

• Brick Gang: When this Racecar starts any movement on a carpet, the movement value is equal to 2 instead of 1.

• Sonic Fish: When this Racecar is under the effect of a Slippery token, all its diagonal movements are increased by 1.

• Grim Thresher: When this Racecar moves exactly 1 space forward (after considering all modifiers), it ignores any damage in this movement.

• M1 Furry: When this Racecar shoots a missile, it goes in all 4 orthogonal directions. If any other Racecars are hit, M1 Furry gains 1 energy shield.

• Bird Racer: Before this Racecar's turn end (before using any shield tokens), Bird Racer may "fly" their car sideways to any empty spot. Obstacles, impassables, and any other Racecar may be "flown" over. This ability is ignored when Bird Racer is lying down.

• Dogtor: When this Racecar uses the Battery command, recharge 2 batteries instead of 1. If Dogtor has 3 batteries when using the Battery command, it moves 2 forward instead.

• Turbobot: When this Racecar uses the Turbo command, they moves 4 space forward instead. However during this movement any damage Turbobot suffers takes twice.

Table configuration

Turn-based Variant

In a turn-based game, the order to take smile tokens is set by the number of moves taken in programming.

Normal Difficulty

In a normal game, players have up to 30 moves to program.

Easy Difficulty

In a easy game, players have up to 40 moves to program.

Longer track

Add all four track boards to create a longer track.