Returning to The Game of Highway Warriors

 Returning to The Game of Highway Warriors

My first game of Dark Future in decades

In my last post, I teased that I had received my copy of Dark Future from my younger brother in April. I originally bought the game back in 1988 when it first came out. The game is far from pristine, but all of the components are there, along with White Line Fever and all of the articles from White Dwarf that I cut out back in the day. My older self almost cries at the destruction I meted out to those magazines, but it does mean that I have all of the rules that were published for the game.

As I went through the box more carefully, I noticed that all of the road pieces are a bit warped. The corners are worse than the straights, and even the spin template is showing a bit of a twist, but they are nearly forty years old, so what can I expect? All of the pieces are still usable. The cars and bikes are in surprisingly good condition, and once I slap a coat of paint on them, I can get them on the table.

I took about a fortnight to go through the rules before I was ready to play my first game. Fortunately, the rulebook comes with a series of six learner games. I thought that I would give them a go.

Game one

I broke out two of the cars that I made for Gaslands to try the first scenario. It is a very simple game in which one car is trying to get to the end of seven road sections before the other car destroys or disables it. You may have noticed that my table is a little too small for seven road sections, but I simply removed the rear section after no vehicles were on it and placed a new section at the front of the road. I may try to play my next game on the living room floor, but I am not sure that my knees will be up to it.

Battle report

Along a lone strip of highway, Paz and Baz Chuckle were in pursuit of Lawford Featherstone of the Westbury Warlords for encroaching on their territory.  

Paz opened fire with the machine gun, scoring a critical hit on Lawford's engine and destroying the carburettor.

The brothers could not avoid the oil slick that Lawford had dropped, and Baz panic-braked to keep the car under control.

Lawford sped away from his pursuers, dropping oil slicks as he went. His buggy was constantly being hit by machine-gun rounds.

Hitting a second oil slick at 100 mph, Baz lost control of his vehicle.

The car skidded, heading towards the verge.

Baz fought to right the car, but it started to spin.

Hitting a third oil slick, the car went into a roll.

The Chuckle brothers were thrown clear as their car bounced along the tarmac.

The wreck finally ran out of steam and shuddered to a halt.

Lawford Featherstone drove away from the scene with only minor damage to his car.

Thoughts

The first question that might have crossed your mind is how this compares to Gaslands. The best thing that I can say is that it plays differently. It has a bit more crunch than Gaslands, but not as much as I have often heard on YouTube. I am always a bit disappointed when a YouTuber shows off their copy of Dark Future — or any old-school game for that matter — and declares that they will never play it. For me, these games are there to be played and enjoyed. That is probably enough of a rant.

Dark Future is not a game that I would bring out for a pick-up game on a club night. I think where Dark Future shines is in the campaign rules and the slightly more granular combat. In Gaslands, there is no degradation to your vehicle; it can continue to take damage until it is destroyed. Not so in Dark Future. Cars get worse as they are riddled with bullets, and critical hits can destroy a vehicle really quickly. I enjoy both games because they scratch different itches for me. I am glad that getting into Gaslands has led me back to an old favourite from my childhood.

Dark Future is also packed with glorious images like this: the 80s at their best.