See You on the Pitch

Among game enthusiasts, PitchCar is a fairly well known -- if somewhat rare -- game. The idea is simple. You build a race track, complete with some guard walls and (if you have expansions) obstacles, then race around the track with wooden discs. On your turn, you flick your disc with whatever accuracy and skill you can muster, trying to pass other racers, stay on the track, and reach the finish line first.

It's a bit rare because it doesn't come cheap. The track parts are made of wood, rather like those toy train sets so many kids play with. But the fit is much tighter and precise -- and it has to be, since you can't have any breaks in the track interfering with the discs as they go speeding along.

My first taste of "PitchCar" was actually the iPhone quasi-adaptation, Disc Drivin. I've been playing that one for nearly a year. Other games have come and gone among my friends, but Disc Drivin endures, one of the very best take-your-turn-then-forget-it games there is on the iPhone. Disc Drivin one-ups PitchCar by adding a dose of Mario Kart to the proceedings. There are speed boost patches, ramps, and flippers. You get weapons and boosts, including the ability to drop bombs, oil slicks, turn your disc ghostly for a turn, and more. It's a ton of fun.

But my friend has always been curious about the true original, and finally picked up a copy of PitchCar, which I got to play at last this past weekend. I thought it likely that it wasn't going to live up to the hype, and certainly thought it wasn't going to be as fun as Disc Drivin without all its only-possible-in-the-digital-world add-ons. But I was completely wrong.

Within just a few turns, it was easy to see that PitchCar was just pure fun. Everybody would laugh or groan when you launched your disc off the track. People would "oooooo" with admiration when you made a particularly nice shot. It was fun for newcomers, and fun for people with a year of Disc Drivin under their belts. (It even made one person in the group go download the Disc Drivin app after we finished playing.)

Sometimes you want strategy, of course, and clearly PitchCar doesn't offer much of that. (Manual dexterity and a dose of luck? We've got plenty to spare!) But it's one of the most fun race games I've ever played. It's worth the price tag...

...though I don't mind at all that someone else in my play group was the one to finally pick it up.