Automobiles is a car racing deck management game, where each player's "deck" is actually a bag of different coloured cubes!

Cubes

There are 10 types of cubes in the game.

Gear and Wear Cubes

These cubes are the same every game.

3rd Gear (White) - These allow you to move onto a white space on the board.

4th Gear (Light Gray) - These allow you to move onto a light gray space on the board. The light gray spaces are typically longer than white spaces, so these are more powerful than 3rd Gear cubes.

5th Gear (Dark Gray) - These allow you to move onto a dark gray space on the board. The dark gray spaces are typically longer than white and light gray spaces, so these are more powerful than 3rd and 4th Gear cubes.

6th Gear (Black) - These allow you to move onto a black space on the board. The black spaces are the longest, so these are the most powerful cube.

Wear (Brown) - These cubes are useless! They perform no function and every one that you draw is one less useful cube that you've missed out on. Powerful cards and travelling at high speed will gain you wear, so you will need to take steps to keep removing it or you may become overwhelmed!

Other Cubes

The other 5 cubes may perform different actions each game. In each game a card is used to determine the function of each cube colour, and playing a cube will perform the action on the card of the same colour.

The cards used in a game can come from a pre-chosen set or it can be random.

Garage (Yellow) - Garage cards are generally used to manage your cube supply.

Handling (Red) - Handling cards are generally used to give you movement bonuses,

Pit (Purple) - Pit cards are generally used to remove cubes that you own, particularly wear cubes.

Engine (Blue) - Engine cards will usually move your car forward a significant distance.

Performance (Green) - Performance cards can have big impacts on the game, often favouring players at the back of the field.

Setup

The game will randomly choose the starting order from amongst the players.

Each player starts with a small pool of 3rd Gear (White), 4th Gear (Light Gray) and Garage (Handling) cubes.

Each player will have the opportunity to buy additional cubes before the game begins. Players towards the back of the starting grid will have slightly more money to spend on cubes.

Quick Summary of a Turn

Action Phase

To start with, you will have drawn 7 cubes and these will form your Active pile.

You can play as many cubes as you like from your Active pile, one at a time, to use the effect shown on their matching card.

When you play a cube, it moves from your Active pile to your Used pile.

Your car never moves during the Action phase, but where playing a cube will move your car, you place the cube onto the board in the appropriate space, planning out your move. Your car will move along the planned route at the end of the turn.

If you wish, you can skip your entire turn and have a Pit Stop. If you take a Pit Stop, you will not perform the Action Phase, Buy Phase or Movement Phase, but you will remove all wear from your Active pile.

Buy Phase

In the Buy phase, you add up the Value (the yellow dollar signs) of any cubes that you have not played and are still in your Active pile. You may then spend that money to buy any number of cubes.

Any money unspent does not carry over until later turns.

Car Phase

This is where you car actually moves. If you have placed any cubes on the board in the Action phase, your car will move to the last cube that you placed.

Decline Phase

If your car moved this turn, you will gain wear cubes.

The number that you get will be based on the color of the darkest space your car moved into or through this turn.

White -> 1 Wear cube Light Gray -> 2 Wear cubes Dark Gray -> 3 Wear cubes Black -> 4 Wear cubes

BUT! Wear in the Decline phase can be avoided. If you finish your move immediately behind another car then you are drafting, and will receive no Wear from movement this turn. You will still receive Wear described on action cards whose cubes you played during the Action phase.

End Phase

This is the cleanup phase. All cubes on your board and on the track are moved into your Discard pile.

You then randomly draw 7 new cubes from your bag and put them into your Active pile for next turn.

If your bag is emptied before you have drawn 7 cubes, all cubes from your Discard pile are returned into your bag.

The End of the Game

A race lasts a number of laps chosen at the beginning of the game.

All players will have the same number of turns, so the game will end after the final player's turn if anyone has completed the required number of laps and crosses the finish line.

Once at least someone has finished the race and all players have had the same number of turns, the winner is the car that has travelled the furthest, so even if you cross the finish line first it is worth travelling as far as you can before you turn ends.

Advanced Rules

Once you have played the basic game, there are additional rules you may choose to explore.

Weaving

Normally, cubes are simply placed on spaces during your Action phase, and if a space is made up of multiple segments then the cube is placed as far forward as is available.

If you use the Weaving option, then cubes can be placed anywhere within a square. This allows you to "cut across" a space by landing on one of the squares further back in order to reach a space on the far side before it disappears.

The result is movement where there a far more options for each move (making moves far less simple to plan) but providing for more sophisticated movement paths.

Driver Cards

If you play with Driver Cards, then before play begins, each player will be able to choose one driver who will grant them a unique ability they can use each turn throughout the game.

Seasons

A Season is a game made up of a series of 3 or more races, with points being awarded for each race.

Between races, players may choose a Sponsor to give them a unique advantage that will modify their cube pool.

The winner of a race has first choice from the pool of available Sponsors. A player may keep their Sponsor from the previous race if they have one, instead of taking a new one. If they do so, they must choose to discard one of the existing available Sponsors.

The starting positions in the first race are random as usual, but from the second race onwards players will start based on their finishing position in the previous race.