Ben Hurt (1996)

About this game

A chariot-racing game with pre-race rounds of card auctioning - the trick being that the race-winning "pot" is made up of the auction bids. You have to balance the cost of the cards against the likely return - you want good cards cheap, and you want to force your opponents to pay over the odds for their cards. Of course, everyone else is trying to do the same thing. However, there is a great deal of luck in the actual movement during the race, so your careful planning can be destroyed by a few poor dice rolls.

Does it fit your group?

• Group size. Works with 4 to 8.
• Rules load. At 1.7/5 this is a light game — explain it in a few minutes, good for a table that has not played much.
• Age. The publisher suggests 12 and up. That rates the rules rather than the artwork, so judge the box yourself for younger players.