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Heat – Pedal to the Metal is a racing game for 1-6 players.

Glossary:

1. Boost Cards - Boost cards have a + symbol on them and they introduce a random element that may be good or bad for the player when played.
2. Heat Cards - Heat cards represent the strain on the player's vehicles engine when they push it too hard. Heat can only be gained by shuffling the player's discard pile into their draw pile.
3. Speed Cards - Speed cards have a number value on the card. This indicates how many spaces the players vehicle can move on the track.
4. Spinouts - Spinouts are when the player takes a corner too fast and do not have enough heat to make up the difference. The player resets their gear shift to first gear and position their vehicle at the at the corner line.


Overview:
The objective of the game is to complete two laps around the track. There are four race tracks that come with the base game, while there are two other tracks available in the expansions. However, there are players who are designing their own custom tracks to use in the game.

Each track has a certain layout that have corners in the track that requires the player to navigate without going into a spinout. There are two ways to accomplish this:
1. Slow down to the speed marked in the center of the turn.
2. Spend heat to make up the difference.

Each player receives a player board that has an illustrated sequence of play on the top, with three boxes for the draw, engine, discard pile underneath. To the right of the boxes is a gear display, to show what gear your vehicle is in.

While the draw and discard piles are pretty obvious, the engine pile is where the six heat cards that the player starts the game with are located. The player will want to keep as much heat as they can in the engine pile. Both to spend when needed, and to prevent their hand from becoming full of heat cards that they cannot discard. The player can only use cooldowns to get heat out of their hand, which will be explained shortly.

When the game begins the first action that the player does is draw seven cards from the draw pile that they add to their hand.

In the next action the player begins in first gear and may shift up one or two gears. Later in the game the player may shift up or down one or two gears per turn. 

If the player only shifts one gear they do not have to spend any heat, but if the player shifts two gears they have to spend a heat card. The gear that the player's vehicle is in is the number of cards that the player can use that turn. After all players have selected their cards and placed them face down they are then revealed and the player can move the number of spaces shown on their cards played, or use them to react to any special cards that have been placed.


Actions:
1. Boost - Pay 1 Heat and the player may draw until they get a Speed card. Once the Speed card is drawn the player moves their vehicle forward a number of spaces equal to the Speed number on the card.

2. Adrenaline - If the player has moved last, or second to last with 5+ vehicles, the player can add one Speed and moves forward one Space. Also, the player may use a cooldown action to return one heat back to the engine pile.

3. Slipstreaming - If the player is directly behind or beside another vehicle they may slipstream to move two spaces and pass the vehicle in front of them.

4. Corner Check - If the player is making a corner check, they compare their current speed to the max speed of the curve and pay 1 heat card for every speed factor that they are over that limit. The player may ignore any speed gained by slipstreaming.

5 Discard - The player may discard as many cards as they wish, face up. However, non-discardable cards have an X symbol in the upper right and left corners.

6. Replenish Hand - The player may return any cards that have been played to the discard pile, then draw back up to seven cards. But, if the draw pile is empty the player shuffles the discard pile and adds it to the draw pile.

Now I need to discuss cooldowns. Cooldowns allow the player to discard heat cards back to the engine pile. Cooldowns are available when the player's vehicle is in first gear, 3 cooldowns, 2nd gear, 1 cooldown, or through the adrenaline action.

The average play time is 30-60 minutes, but the first playthrough may take roughly one and a half hours.

Unfortunately, I have only played the base game. But the next time that I play I will add some of the advanced rules in the game, like the rule to modify vehicles or add weather conditions to the game.