Radar Flop (1984)

Six circular areas, each with a sweeping radar at its core, are surrounding a central area, again with its own radar system. Each radar is surrounded by three rings, marked 1 (=inner) to 3 (=outer), and each radar zone is divided into 6 pie-parts, except for the central radar zone, which has 12 pie-parts. The radars themselves are small dots at the center of each zone. The outer 6 radars each have 2 pie-bits connected to a neighbor. One movable radar beam is placed on each station, covering a sixth of each circular area, and a beam half that size is placed in the central zone. Each player takes ownership of an equal amount of outer radar posts, and gets a small squadrons in the same color. These are then placed on the starting fields on the outer edge of the board, just outside their own radar post zone.

Using dice, 2-6 players try to keep their fleet of planes under the radar, and the first one to sneak 3 planes of one color into the center zone is the winning commander.

In turn, players will first move the radar beam at their own station forwards. The beam speed depends on the activity within the zone. Any planes that get caught by the sweeping beam have to abort their attempt to reach the center, and return to their start location to start another approach.

After that, the planes move, by rolling 4 dice. Planes are under no obligation to move, but when a die gets allocated to a plane, the entire move has to be made. Planes start on the outer rim and move, avoiding the area covered by the radar beam, clockwise or anti-clockwise, along the ring it is currently occupying. However, in the pie-part that touches its neighbor, planes have an opportunity to "flop" radar stations instead of continuing on their current track. When they do flop, they move their plane to the other station's pie-part, but place the plane one ring closer to that's station's radar than the one they just left.

When a plane leaves the most central track and flops right on top of a neighboring radar, called the blitz-field, that plane is then immediately moved to the outer ring of the central radar, which is surrounded by 2 rings. Each subsequent plane of that color that manages to make it to the central zone undetected, arrives one ring closer to its center. When the third plane of a color pops up on the most central ring, that player is the winner.

At the end of a round, the central radar also sweeps forwards, the speed again depending on how crowded the central zone is, and detected planes must abort and start their mission again from the beginning. After each round a new turn-order is established.

This is a fairly abstract race game, using a novel mechanic, that works quite well. It is probably slightly more complex than the average Spielbox game, but simple enough to appeal to a family audience.

Publication history: this game appeared in Spielbox magazine (4/1984 oct-dec), as one of the earlier entrants in the "Spiel zum Herausnehmen/Game to Remove" series. Its novel movement mechanism made it the winner in Spielbox' "Invent-a-Game" competition. Some assembly required.

This is not the first "dodging" collaboration between Bernd Brunnhofer and Karl-Heinz Schmiel. A year before the pair had given the start signal for "Hans im Glück" by self-publishing Dodge City, in partnership with Bernd's wife Margaret.