Flamme Rouge

Edition and goal: This entry covers the 2016 Lautapelit.fi base game Flamme Rouge, BGG 199478. The publisher-hosted French rules from Gigamic are localization v2.0, dated February 2021. The base game is for 2–4 players, recommended for age 8+, and takes about 30–45 minutes. Each player has a Rouleur and Sprinteur; the first team to win with either rider crossing the line takes the race.

Build the course: Choose a Stage card and lay its tiles in the listed sequence and orientation. The booklet recommends Avenue Corso Paseo for a first game. Each player takes a matching pair of riders, their Energy cards, and a player board. Shuffle the Rouleur and Sprinteur decks separately, and place the matching Exhaustion cards in shared face-up supplies. In turn order, place both riders in available lanes behind the Start line. Each square has two lanes and holds one rider per lane; when placing in an empty square, use the right-hand lane. The player who most recently rode a bike places both riders first; the youngest breaks a tie, then placement continues clockwise.

Energy Phase: Each round, players simultaneously select a card for each rider. For one rider, draw four cards from that rider's own deck, choose one and place it face down as the movement card, then return the unchosen cards face up to the bottom of that deck. Repeat for the other rider. You must choose for the first rider before drawing for the second. If the face-down deck runs short, shuffle that rider's recycle pile into a new deck and keep drawing; if fewer than four cards exist in both piles, draw every card still available.

Card-exhaustion version detail: The official Gigamic French localization v2.0 adds a final fallback: after the normal reshuffle and draw-all process, if no Energy card remains available, take an Exhaustion card for that rider and play it instead. An empty draw pile by itself does not trigger this rule because the recycle pile should first be shuffled. The older ©2016 English manual mirror checked for this entry does not state the final fallback. This summary follows v2.0 and preserves that version boundary.

Reveal and movement: After both riders for every player have selected cards, reveal all chosen cards simultaneously. Move riders from the one closest to the Finish backward; when riders share a square, the rider in the right-hand lane counts as farther forward. Move the exact number shown. Riders may change lanes without cost and pass through other riders, but cannot finish on an occupied lane. If both lanes of a destination square are occupied, stop in the nearest free lane behind it. Place a rider in the right lane when it ends in an empty square.

Energy and slipstream: After movement, remove all played Energy cards from the game; they never return. Unchosen cards remain at the bottom of their rider's deck. Then check slipstream starting with the rearmost pack: if exactly one empty square separates it from the pack ahead, move the whole rear pack forward one square to merge. Check the merged pack against the next pack ahead and continue forward. A rider can therefore benefit from slipstream more than once during the same round.

Exhaustion: After slipstreaming, a rider receives one Exhaustion card of its type in its recycle pile if the square directly ahead is completely empty. A square with one occupied lane and one empty lane is not empty, so it causes no exhaustion. Exhaustion cards have movement value 2 and use the ordinary draw-and-select process. When played, they are removed from the game just like a played Energy card. Keep Rouleur and Sprinteur Exhaustion cards with their matching decks.

Finish: Check the finish after movement, slipstream, and Exhaustion assignment have been resolved for the round. If any rider crosses the line, the game ends at the end of that round; the rider's team wins even if its teammate has not finished. If several riders cross in the final round, the one furthest past the line is ahead; if distances are equal, the right-hand lane wins. Riders cannot move beyond the fifth square past the finish. The base race has no intermediate sprint points.

Base options and mountains: Choose another Stage or build a custom track. Experienced players may handicap both rider decks with one extra Exhaustion card, or two each for highly experienced players. For Ascent, a rider starting on, entering, or crossing a red square may move at most five squares in total. If entering the first red square would be step six or later, stop at the nearest free lane before the climb. At round end a rider on red neither receives nor provides slipstream. Descent raises a card to at least five only when the rider starts on blue; merely entering blue does not increase movement. Slipstream on blue and Exhaustion assignment remain normal. Expansion procedures and Champion Edition are outside this entry.