Cast Dash: a short race that keeps stopping for a mini-game
Cast Dash is a board race for people who will not sit through a long property game. Two to six players roll along a fixed path of 30 tiles, pick up cards, and sometimes get yanked into a trivia question or a five-second tapping contest that the whole room plays at once. The television is the path, the tokens, and the mini-game. The phones are the die, the cards, and the tapping finger. It does not have a mode where one phone shows the whole board, because the point is the shared spectacle.
2–6 players
How to play
1Cast Dash
Vibrant tile-path party race with power-ups and event mini-games for 2–6 players.
The path and the points
The track is the same every game: a start, a mix of blue, red, star, and event tiles, and a finish. Blue pays 3 points. A star pays 5 points and draws a card. A red tile costs 2 points, and you also step back one tile, unless you are shielded. Points do not go below zero. Reaching the last tile wins immediately, whatever the scores say. If nobody has finished when ten rounds are over, the highest score wins. A tie on both points and tile position is a draw. If the points match and the tiles do not, the player farther along the path wins.
Avatars are dealt from fox, robot, star, rocket, cat, and dragon, each with its own color. Turn order is shuffled. Everyone starts with a card. Your hand holds at most five.
The five cards
Double Roll makes your next roll two dice added together. Shield blocks the next red tile or the next Sabotage, and is then used up. Boost moves you forward three tiles right now, and you resolve whatever you land on. Swap trades your tile with a player you choose. Sabotage, if it is not blocked, takes 3 points off the target and moves them back two tiles. Swap and Sabotage ask you to pick a target on the phone. The others are played on yourself before you roll.
Cards come from stars, and the deck is part of the chaos. Holding a Shield “just in case” is often right when you are sitting on a part of the path with red tiles ahead. Burning Boost to land on a star is how a hand refills.
Trivia and the tap race
Event tiles stop the path and start one of two games for everybody, not only the person who landed. Trivia gives four choices and fifteen seconds. Anyone who answers correctly, including people who were waiting, gains 4 points. You lock an answer from the phone. The TV shows the question. A tap race lasts five seconds. Mash the button. The highest tap count earns 5 points. Ties or a race nobody wins award nothing. Then the path resumes.
These interruptions are the game. If your group hates being interrupted, this is the wrong title. If your group came to make noise, land on events on purpose when you are behind on points and the finish is far away. Points can beat a player who is closer to the end, once the ten-round cap arrives.
Running it in a living room
Six is a full room. Two is a duel and the mini-games are quieter, because fewer people are mashing. Four is the size that usually feels right.
- Leave the QR code up until the sixth phone is in. Starting early and adding a person later is not how this room works.
- Read the card names once. Double Roll, Shield, Sabotage, Swap, Boost. After that the icons are enough.
- Put the most competitive tap-racer where they can see the TV countdown. Five seconds is not long enough to ask what is happening.
- If the TV browser hiccups when trivia appears, host from a laptop. The mini-games are timed. A frozen question wastes the fifteen seconds.
- Decide before round one whether you are racing to the finish or farming points. A player who only sprints can lose to a player who farmed stars and trivia for ten rounds.
FAQ
How do you win?
- Reach the finish tile first, or, if ten rounds end before that, hold the highest score. Equal points go to whoever is farther along the path. Equal points and equal tiles are a draw.
What are the tiles worth?
- Blue is +3. Star is +5 and a card. Red is −2 and one step back, unless a Shield absorbs it. Event tiles start trivia (+4 for each correct answer, 15 seconds) or a tap race (+5 to the winner, 5 seconds).
What does Sabotage do?
- It removes 3 points and moves the target back two tiles. A Shield on the target is consumed instead, and the Sabotage does nothing else.
Can we play this on one phone each, without a TV?
- No. Cast Dash is a shared-screen game. The path and the mini-games are meant for one Main screen, with phones as the controllers. Put the Main screen on a TV or a laptop.
How many cards can I hold?
- Five. You start with one. Stars draw another, up to that cap. Double Roll, Shield, and Boost affect you. Swap and Sabotage need a target.