Reviews

BoardgameGeek rating: 6.89 of 10.00
See ratings (58) and comments (29)       (at 04 / March / 2004)

A simple yet fantastic game of strategy... and chaos!

I stumbled across this game by hitting the developers website. I was very happy to find out that Funagain could get it for me! I read the COUNTER magazine review posted on Funagain and decided to make the purchase. The game is made for 2 to 8 player with any unused cars staying on the board as obstacles. The object is to score as many points as you can ramming other players within the time limit of 11 turns. After picking your favorite color car, you plot your moves on the movement sheet. The game includes player help cards which plot out every possible movement a car can make and labels each move with a letter, so all you have to do is enter the letter in your log! After everyone has entered their move for the turn, they are all revealed and the movement begins! Now this is where it gets interesting because you may have ploted to move somewhere (anywhere from 1 to 3 hexes with/without turns) but in the process, you may hit another car or be hit before you move. This can really cause havoc which I have found out first hand. Depending on your speed and direction of ramming, you win a certain amount of scoring tokens from your opponents. The crash can also result in the reduction of speed or being turned 60 degrees from your current heading (think bumpercars). The really nice thing about this game is that even if you are out of scoring tokens, you are not out of the game! In fact, if you have no scoring tokens, you don't make a good target to hit which can allow you to take revenge on others and get right back into the scoring.

The rules are very straight forward. We had the box open and were playing a game after 10 minutes. The rules were grasped right away by my 10-year old and after a couple of games, my 8-year old had it down pretty good and currently is the person to beat! Is there luck involved?... to a point there is but there are no dice to make anything random. You have to plot your moves as in chess or go. The variable that is beyond your control is what the other person can do in their move to bump your car or a car you are targeting, which make the game super fun and unpredictable. The real nice thing I have to reinforce is that you are never forced out of the game which, if playing with children, is a big deal!

So if you are into a game that the whole family will enjoy and makes a great conversation piece, I highly suggest picking this little but heavy gem up. The price may tend to scare people away but the game components,playing board and gameplay justify it!

(John D. Di Ponio, review at funagain games )

" Very nicely made wooden game which is a rather faithful rendering of the amusement park staple known in America as "bumper cars". Details even go down to nails in the back of the wooden cars to represent the poles which support the electric brushes in the ceiling. But here the nail supports wooden rings which indicate the car's speed. Somewhat reminiscent of Roborally as players pro-program their turn position and moves and then execute simultaneously, often with unplanned results.

All of the feel of the bumper car experience is there, the crunch of the head-on hit, the domino effect of a rear hit, the devastating hit by a fast car of a slow car and the inevitable jam-ups. One feature which real bumper cars, or at least American ones, have is missing -- the ability to make a turning reverse move. Not difficult to add in, it would probably provide even more fun to what is already a lighthearted romp longer on tactics than strategy. "

(Rick Heli review at spotlightongames.com)

" For the material you get, Autoscooter is not over-priced; whether it is worth the money as a game is for each person to decide.

I like the game a lot: it has simple rules that link up logically and if you can persuade players to decide on their moves without undue delay, it recreates some of the hilarity I associate with the topic. Other players' opinions have varied from "Günter's best game yet" to "a totally random affair". I cannot agree with either: while other of his games, like Nanuuk! or Kahuna, certainly have more depth, this one plays fast and is no more random than other multi-player games; our results certainly indicated that there is a skill factor involved.

If you play with few players, each having 2 or 3 cars at his disposal, you can even plan fiendish trapping manoeuvres with your "fleet". The game received quite positive comments in the family circle; a group of more consim-wise gamers was even more impressed, perhaps because they found it easier to plan moves in a "hex" landscape.

Not taking the price into account, I give the game 8 out of 10.

(Lutz Pietschker, full review printed in "Counter" games magazin, issue 8 ,February 2000 )

"I really dislike Arabana Ikibiti, but quite liked Nanuuk!, so I was interested to see what Bambus had this year. Autoscooter is what they delivered, a game about fairground dodgem (or bumper) cars which bore a passing resemblance to some WWI air combat games I've seen.

The game was explained to me and it sounded fascinating, with turn programming, clever effects both on the cars you had to pursue for victory, and the results of 'bumping'. Others played it and said it was truly dire, with no control and a surprising level of boredrom.

All of this is rather academic as the game was made entirely out of wood, and retailed for DM 128. I am not sure many (or any) were sold at that price, but it certainly poured cold water on my enthusiasm - surely a budget version would have been a good idea ?"

(Mike Siggins, Gamer's Notebook Essen '99 GAMESGAMESGAMES 138, Dec 1999)

Your opinion