Category: Real Time #3

by Brian Moore

Category Realtime

BGG Description
In real-time games, players are encouraged to take their turns as quickly as possible, often simultaneously. In some real-time games, a player is penalized if they don't do something within a set amount of time.

BGG has over 3000 games in this category.

Previous blogs in this series are here:
Category: Real Time #1, Category: Real Time #2

These are the ones in the collection.


Turbo Taxi (2005) by Friedemann Friese is a neat little competitive puzzle game, similar in feel to Ricochet Robot.
In 2000 this was released as Flickwerk and then in 2005 it was re-released as Turbo Taxi.
Turbo Taxi, features city streets rather than computer cables. The markers on the edge of the grid are a yellow taxi, yellow house, black taxi and black house. Players must ensure that their tiles create valid routes leading the yellow taxi to the yellow house, and black taxi to the black house.


Gangsters (1992) by Don Greenwood&Gérard Mathieu where players are "bosses" of organized crime in Chicago during the Prohibition era. Rival gangs fight over Speakeasies, Gambling Joints, and Protection Rackets. They try to direct the public into their "stablishmunts", whilst keeping the donut-boys-in-blue out. Using their Racketeers, Thugs and Vamps the players try to obtain joints and make money from the "unsuspecting" public who just happen to walk in to them. The game is fast moving, as each players turn is timed, and has some dire results.
For example, when a hit is made the player who was shot gets a soaking (one trigger press only) with the *included* water pistol!


How-Ruck (2002) (aka Heave-Ho!) by Richard Borg where two Scottish players participate in a classic tug-of-war, joined on occasion by Nessie. Players first scramble to build their decks in real time. After the decks have been built, card play goes back and forth until someone pulls the whisky barrel across their line and claims it. First one to win three whisky barrels wins the game. My copy is the German edition, some text - just needs a crib sheet.


Pass the Bomb (1994) This frantic game is a wonderful exercise in word-summoning. In it, players try to come up with a word that contains a certain sequence of letters before the ticking time-bomb in their hands explodes. The bomb is an electronic timer with a variable time allotment, and a player is only allowed to pass the bomb to the next person when he comes up with a word that contains the needed letters. While creative spelling of the words in question can be frowned upon, it's up to the guy next to you to determine your fate.


Sunda to Sahul (2002) by Don Bone is a lightweight strategy game for 2 to 4 people which also includes a number of challenging puzzles for 1 player. The theme of the game is the migration of people down the Indonesian archipelago into New Guinea and Australia. The games is based on a set of 136 laser cut wooden jigsaw like tiles which go together in a multitude of ways to form a set of islands.
The game starts with all of the tiles face up on the playing surface and one tile in a cleared space in the center of the playing surface to start play. Players select a tile from the pool of upturned tiles and try to join tiles to it to extend the islands of an archipelago, 'discovering' a different set of islands each time they play the game. Each player has a number of tokens for his clan or totem. The aim of the game is to claim nodes (points on the land of the islands where the corners of a number of tiles come together).
The game can be played either as a race game with all players working simultaneously or as a turns based game.


Ghost Blitz (2010) (aka Ghost Blitz) by Jacques Zeimet is a lightning fast shape and colour recognition game that is sure to test the reflexes of kids, families and gamers alike. In Ghost Blitz, five wooden items sit on the table waiting to be caught: a white ghost, a green bottle, a cute grey mouse, a blue book, and a comfortable red chair. Each card in the deck shows pictures of two objects, with one or both objects coloured the wrong way. With all players playing at the same time, someone reveals a card, then players grab for the "right" object – but which object is right?
- If one object is coloured correctly – say, a green bottle and a red mouse – then players need to grab that correctly coloured object.
- If both objects are coloured incorrectly – say, a green ghost and a red mouse – then you look for the object and colour not represented among the four details shown. In this case you see green, red, ghost and mouse, so players need to grab the blue book.
In 2013 it was reimplemented as Ghost Blitz: 5 to 12 with new shapes.


TOKYO JUTAKU (2018) by Jordan Draper where you take on the role of a famous or emerging Japanese architect with the goal of building small homes on a strange or limited size property.
In this real-time dexterity game, players build with geometric pieces to stack up to certain building requirements, such as height and number of pieces allowed. You can build with only one piece at a time, and the harder your conceptual building, the more you make — if you can complete it first! As soon as one player has claimed five site cards, the game ends, all players sum their total yen payments, and the richest architect will be declared the winner!


Diner (2014) by Matthew O'Malley is a fast-paced game about waiters in a friendly competition to make the most money in tips. Take orders for the tables in your section, gather the plates to fill those orders, and serve your tables, and do it as quickly as possible while showing up the other players.
Diner features a pseudo-real time mechanic that has players passing action tokens whenever they take an action; if a player does not have a token, that player can't take an action. At times, action tokens may accumulate in front of a player, allowing them to take multiple actions at once.
It’s a very madcap, social experience, with lots of table talk. With the action tokens, though, it’s not total chaos like many real-time games - there is a lot of control worked into the mechanics.


Sukimono (2012) by Masao Suganuma is a stock market game of real-time card collecting. You are a collector of pots and plates during the Edo period of Japan.
At the start of each round, each player receives 5 ryo (an old Japanese currency unit) and the game board is filled with "wanted objects". New objects are placed at particular price values, while objects already on the board are boosted one step on the price chart because they're still in demand. In player order, based on the number cards they hold, each player chooses a deck of object cards, which represents a particular location of Japan. Everyone goes through their decks at the same time, pulling out any items that they'd like to buy and that they can afford to purchase. At any time, a player can stop looking and grab the lowest available number card.


Forest of Fate (2017) by Phil Hazelton is a social card game, where teamwork and tough decisions determine your fate. Choose wisely, and you just might make it home with the story of a lifetime.
The quest is already done: your goal is to make it back to The Finishing Post, your local tavern, to tell your epic tale. Form a party of up to six characters and brave your way home through the Forest together, meeting threats at every turn with your particular skills and abilities. In your way stand beasts, bandits and nature itself - colourfully illustrated by 36 unique encounter cards, each with 16 surprising outcomes.
Resolve outcomes using your choice of approach and skill, looking up the appropriate paragraph reference in the printed or digital story book. When the going gets tough use the legendary artefacts you recovered, or items you find on the way, to help you out - but don't imagine this will be easy.


Ubongo Trigo (2012) by Grzegorz Rejchtman where each player has seven shapes, each composed of a unique combination of triangles and each colored differently. In each round of the game, each player takes a puzzle board that uses four shapes (or six on the tough side) to create two images. Players are presented only with the images' silhouettes, so they need to determine how to combine which shapes – with which sides face up and in which direction - to create the two images on their card.
The first player to do so starts counting down from 20 (30 for the tough side), and any other player who doesn't complete her board before that first player reaches zero gives her card to that other player as a point; any player who does complete the puzzles in time (including the first player) keeps his own board for a point. The player with the most points after eight rounds wins!


This is the last blog looking at Real Time games in the collection.