Fuga!: A Cycling Strategy Game

Fuga! is a bicycle racing game that is played with a pen, paper and a few standard decks of playing cards. The rules and all other game components are available for free online. Players can print these off or keep a computer or tablet handy, whichever is preferred.

Fuga! is designed to replicate the real strategy and tactics of professional bike racing—but without all the long, dull training kilometers or excruciating pain. It aims to appeal to both those who are new to the sport and full-blown couch director sportifs. Courses in the game take the group of contenders through a variety of terrains, such as steep climbs, technical descents, gruesome cobbles, and flat expanses–all of which suit the different types of riders that players are able to choose from. The game especially emphasizes the interpersonal component of bike racing, as riders joining a fuga—Spanish for “breakaway”—will have to cooperate with competitors in order to keep a larger group of rivals behind known as the peloton—French for “main group”—at bay. Riders in the peloton, for their part, will often have to share with other teams the burden of chasing the fuga back or else miss out on their chance for victory. In the words of a Global Cycling Network commentator, “To become enemies, you must first become friends.”

Fuga! is also about taking calculated risks, staying true to the saying that pro cycling is “poker at 60 kilometers per hour.” In Fuga!, if you play your cards right, bluff your opponents when you need to, and choose the perfect moment to go all-in, you’ll be the one raising your arms in glorious victory while your opponents are left shaking their heads and banging their fists in anger. Whether it’s by winning a bunch sprint, or a sprint of a small group, or pulling off a fuga de la fuga—breakaway from the breakaway—to go solo, the winner of this game will have demonstrated both brains and nerve to emerge victorious.

—description from the designer