Dirt and Dust Board Game Review

Stats:
No. of players: 1-4
Amount of time to play: 60-90 min
Age requirements: 14+
Set-up time: 5-10 min

Dirt and Dust puts you in the driver’s seat of a rally car. You must navigate the course to score the most points. As you progress from stage to stage you fine tune your car by adding to your deck.

Dirt and Dust Rules Description:

You start Dirt and Dust with a ten card deck of five starter cards and five cards for your driver. There are four different drivers in the game and each has different cards and a unique play style. You compete across a series of stages while improving your car and rally team. The goal is to earn the most points by achieving the best results across all stages of the rally.

The rally is played over ten rounds represented by stage cards. At the beginning of the game each player prepares their deck of starting cards, places their tokens and boards in front of them, and receives a set of three dice. You track the stage on a main board which also shows Speed, which represents your performance and victory points, and Popularity, which acts as a resource that can be spent on various actions.

Each round begins with the Dice Roll phase. The racing team board has six slots with six on the left down to one on the right. All players roll their available dice and place them on the corresponding spot on the racing team board. These dice determine which cards can trigger actions during the round. Some cards require specific dice results in order to activate their abilities. If one player has the most popularity they roll the popularity die. Although it only has one and two values, this die can give them an extra action each round. After placing the popularity die on their racing team board they subtract the die’s value from their total popularity.

After rolling dice the game moves to the Drive phase. In this phase players take actions in any order using the dice they rolled. They may play cards from their hand into any open slot on their racing team board. Players may also acquire new cards that improve their deck for future rounds. Cards cost wrenches. You may also use wrenches to increase or decrease the value of a die. The other resource in Dirt and Dust is traction. You use it to map out stages on the main board and that lets you score them using traction. This action will cause your car to shift on the course. When that stage card is resolved you gain points based on where you are on the course. You can gain traction from cards or by taking hazard dice. These dice are rolled when acquired and during the Dice Roll phase and slowly damage your car over time. But you have some repair actions to remove them.

Once you have completed all actions the Stage Evaluation phase occurs. The current stage is resolved and you score points based on a few factors. If you are accelerating and in the center of the course you get the most points (four). But someone decelerating and on the edge will score less (two). The stage cards then shift down the track and the next stage becomes active for the following round.

Finally the round ends with the Preparation phase. Players shift all the cards on their racing team board one slot to the right. Then you may discard any number of cards from your hand and draw back up to five.

After ten rounds the rally is complete. Players total their points from the Speed track and any cards they bought worth points. You lose one point per hazard die still in your dice pool. Then the player with the most popularity gets three points and the player with second-most gains one point. The player with the highest total is declared the winner and becomes the champion of the rally.

The solo mode pits you against a ghost driver that rolls three damage dice and three 1d6. Each damage result showing at the end of the round gives them one speed point and they gain popularity as usual. You can spend your action dice to cover their damage dice that have a matching value. For example, if the ghost gets a five that is paired with a damage die showing three damage, you can use a die with a five result to cover that die and ignore the three speed it would get them.

Review of Dirt and Dust:

Dirt and Dust blends deck building, resource management, and push-your-luck mechanics into a fun puzzle game. It’s less about adrenaline and more about execution. There is less “who’s the fastest” and more “who built the best machine.” It is also mostly multiplayer solitaire as there is little interaction as you work to get through the course.

At its core, Dirt and Dust is a really satisfying puzzle. Each turn asks you to optimize your cards, dice, and positioning, and when it all clicks, it feels great. It is fun to develop your “engine” over time by tuning your deck and lining up actions. It is satisfying to meet your goals for a round or stage.

I really enjoy the card system combined with the die rolls. Wrenches help mitigate luck. Cards moving through your board and activating at the right moment creates rewarding turns where multiple effects chain together. It’s the kind of mechanism that rewards planning ahead without feeling completely deterministic.

The four drivers are fun to try. Each one plays differently and encourages you to adapt your play style to them. The same can be said of the included race courses. They require you to maximize your lane position to get the most points while not damaging your car too much. Both these elements add replay value to this box and present opportunities for expansion.

Besides the lack of player interaction, there are a few things to be aware of in Dirt and Dust. Undoing turns can be difficult, you might start down a path and realize there is a better or more efficient way to play your turn. Rewinding things can be confusing depending how actions you have triggered or resources you have gained or spent. If you do not like iconography, this game might not be for you. I am not a rally racing fan, but to some this game might not feel like racing. There is no board or cars to move. It is more about navigating from stage to stage and scoring as many speed points as possible. If you’re expecting something like a traditional racing game, this might feel abstract.

Being less interactive sets it up for solitaire play and I tried this mode several times. I found approaching the solo race the same way as the multiplayer game resulted in losing. Winning meant playing defensively and using action dice to cover the ghost driver’s dice. This means doing less cool actions on your turn and feels like playing the game less.

Overall, Dirt and Dust is a fun, thinky experience. It will appeal to players who enjoy efficiency puzzles and optimizing systems over direct competition. If that is you pick this up, but if you aren’t sure try this out before buying it.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 3 out of 6
Luck 4 out of 6
Player Interaction 5 of 6
Replay Value 4 out of 6
Complexity 2 out of 6
Fun 4 out of 6
Overall 4 out of 6