It’s only the second expansion for Heat: Pedal to the Metal, but Tunnel Vision presents what by now feels like a familiar recipe: two new tracks (again only one of which features the titular mechanism), a new upgrade / sponsor card type, a new 4-card championship, and a new color of racer. But does it add to the overall experience or is it just an alternative for those that weren’t interested in the first expansion? Turns out the answer is: at the same time both and neither.
The New Tracks: Espana & Netherlands
For most people, the main reason to get this expansion will likely be the two new tracks. Let’s start with Espana, the track that actually features the titular tunnels.
Tunnels are sections of the track where players are no longer allowed to discard cards at the end of their turn. Similar to how Heavy Rain’s Japan track restricted the players’ ability to shift, tunnels limit the amount of hand/deck management players can do. As with Japan’s puddles of rain, tunnels are again a fixed feature integrated into the track instead of a modular component that could be used with any track. And it’s likely the same trade off as before that made the designers go again for a carefully crafted experience than just adding modular cardboard tokens. The track is scripted, almost orchestrated, in how certain beats will inevitably hit and end up in a satisfying crescendo. The first curve only has a tunnel behind it but it’s easy to skip it completely. The third corner has a tunnel both before and after it, but the actually spaces right before and after the corner form a tight 3-space long safe zone where if you hit it right, you’re again able to ignore the tunnels. The fourth corner tunnel is inevitable and sets you up for a problem as it’s followed by a long straight that leads into another curve that’s all tunnel. And after not being able to discard for 2-3 turns, players are thrown in a tight corner-chicane-corner combination where having the right cards to slip stream can make the difference between winning and losing.
What I liked here in particular is this section coming down from the top-right corner towards the bottom left that both starts and ends in tunnels and leads into that snaking end section. In general though, tunnels felt a bit odd for me and it took me a bit to realise why. They didn’t seem to have as big of an impact on my driving as the puddles of water, which is likely because I’m not a pro when it comes to card counting and deck management. When I did my interview with Asger for the original Heat: Pedal to the Metal, he talked about his thought process while playing Heat and let me just put it this way: his skill of manipulating the deck is definitely on a different level than mine. Not gonna lie: there are sometimes turns where I completely forget to discard additional cards because I’m so deep in the heat of the moment, no pun intended.
There’s a second potential source for the oversight: it’s super easy to forget you’re in a tunnel! Visually, tunnels are represented by arcs showing the entrance and exit of each tunnel and track in between is rendered darker than usual. But that’s easy to overlook and much less striking than the blue bodies of water on the Japan track. Overall, the tunnels seemed to be “just not my thing” but I really enjoy playing Espana due to the single-lap nature and that last curvy stretch before the finish line. It just makes for good racing!
The Netherlands on the other hand is a track I can’t quite figure out yet. It has a long straight and a nasty curve-chicane-curve combination on the left side of the board, but I for example enjoy Great Britain and Italy more than this. Somehow the Netherlands track feels too generic to me, having less character than other tracks. Maybe it’s just a case of “I’ve seen that before” because chicanes were already introduced on the Mexico track in Heavy Rain. Not sure yet …
One thing to note is that there is a spot on the left side of the track where the legends are allowed to skip two additional corners. This felt simply too powerful and left a weird aftertaste for me. It’s frustrating to have to snake through the 5-chicane and one or two legends end up already on the other end of the next 3-curve. I’m sure it’s balanced over the course of the whole track, so nothing to worry about, but emotionally was a bit of a let down.
New Symbol: Draft
The new card symbol that’s introduced in this expansion is called “draft”. It’s basically a personal slip stream to bring you to a position from which you can actually slip stream. Let me explain: Depending on the card, draft allows the player to move one or two spots further but only if that wouldn’t move across a full row of racers AND ends behind or next to a racer. Draft can often fizzle without effect, but when one manages to time things right, it’s an immense boost when considered in combination with slip streaming.
However, the +2 draft front wing upgrade I picked up during my first championship with the expansion turned out to be a rather fickle beast! It comes with a whopping 6 points of movement plus 2 draft but costs a Heat when activated. Well, no problem, I thought, I’ll just have to use it sparingly. Fast forward and any stress I played became a nail biter. It didn’t take long for disaster to strike and my front wing came up unexpectedly as result of stress and caused me to go into a corner way too fast and spin out! But then came just the right situation: I could use the 6 movement to almost catch up with the lead pack, draft next to the last of them, and then with my +1 slip stream move all the way to the front. I was ecstatic … until I executed my move and realised the road conditions for the part of track I was on didn’t allow slip streaming! Ah, the humiliation!
(side note: since this is the internet, I already brace myself for the inevitable person to point out that I might have played something incorrectly there. Honestly, I don’t care, so no need to add a correction in the comments. In the moment, that was how I played it and it was super funny to me that after all that careful planning I had overlooked the road conditions 😀 So do me a favour, just let it be and enjoy reading the rest. Thanks!)
Overall, draft seems like a fun, powerful addition that is sometimes rendered useless because with 8 racers there’s just too much traffic on the tracks. Remember: there has to be a clear path to be able to use it. So it’s powerful but not overly so.
The Purple Racer
As with Heavy Rain, Tunnel Vision comes with everything one needs for another player: deck, player board, tiny car, gear lever as well as more stress and heat cards to top things off.
The interesting bit is that where Heavy Rain felt like “just me driving with six others”, having 8 racers on the track can feel almost uncomfortably crowded. In my first ever play of the expansion, the random lot had placed me in 7th starting position and for the first three rounds, there was no way for me to overtake as I was always facing a tightly packed wall of racers in front of me. Handling 7 automa when playing solo also feels on the verge of just being too much to manage.
And yes: there still isn’t an updated legends deck. With just Heavy Rain, I had simply chosen the new orange racer for myself (which is my favourite player color anyway) and could use the legends cards for the racers that came in the base game. With 7 automa, another solution is needed and no recommendation can be found in the rules. Just applying for example the blue values to the purple racer usually led to both by mid of the race having caught up with each other and then driving pretty much side by side.
What worked better for me was to alternate between the blue and red racer values and applying whichever one was further away from the purple racer (I guess the same could be done for the orange by alternating between yellow and red). That produced a bit more dynamic/chaotic results and felt more enjoyable to me. It’s a shame there isn’t a new set of legend cards that features all eight colours, but honestly I’m not really that bothered by it. But boy are there threads on BGG about it already …
For those that want an alternate solution, I found both someone who had created new legends cards and someone else who had created a web app in the BGG forums.
The 1965 Championship
As before, the expansion comes with four new championship cards that combine two tracks of the base game with the two new tracks of the expansion. I in particular liked the scenario called “pressure cooker” which extends the race by one whole lap but forces players to remove one Heat for each lap they complete. That really makes for a different, interesting driving experience.
Having this growing set of ingredients with which I can create new championships is one of my favourite small details of Heat’s expansions. It ties it all together and creates replayability on a macro-level much like the weather system does it on a micro-level. Where the amount of upgrade / sponsor cards is big enough now for the new cards to only be a negligible sprinkle, each championship card is a possibility to mess up the rules we know by heart now.
Conclusion
Tunnel vision and Heavy Rain almost feel like twin siblings to me. Both follow the exact same formula of what’s in the box and what isn’t and both mainly offer support for an additional player and two new tracks. They are so similar that they both will face the same criticism: why does only one track have the new titular feature? Why is it not modular so it can be applied to all tracks? Why only one new racer? Why …?
Which of course poses the question whether or not one needs both as most of us won’t ever play with the full 8 players. More importantly, that many cars on the track definitely feels different to the 6 racers of the base game. There were a number of occasions where I was facing 3 rows of 2 racers side by side and that felt like racing behind a brick wall. On the positive site, there are more racers to potentially slipstream off. On the negative side, there is serious congestion in the tight corners. While the recent tracks have starting positions for up to 12 racers, I can’t really fathom what it might be like with that many cars on the track.
Focusing on the tracks, I really like Espana despite me occasionally forgetting I’m even in a tunnel. The single lap combined with the tight corners towards the end makes for an epic race. The Netherlands track while solid feels forgettable, most likely because we already know chicanes from the Mexico track in Heavy Rain. When comparing draft to super cool, I’d give it to draft as it feels that more epic when one is able to pull it off.
To sum it up, here is my recommendation: if you liked base Heat, you’ll like this expansion, same as you would Heavy Rain. Personally, I’d go for Heavy Rain first, both because I prefer orange to purple and the rain puddles mechanism is more imminent than the tunnels, more tangible for new players. Not being able to shift without being penalised for it is immediately understood by everyone where not being able to discard might not seem that bad on the surface.
But then, if you really liked Heat, you might as well get both expansions. More tracks means more variety when creating championships. And you’ll finally be able to fill those gaps in your base game insert. Everything from both expansions fits neatly into the base game (even with sleeves) except for those two new track boards. The only gap that remains is for some additional road condition tiles which would be highly welcome. I still think the weather system is one of the best parts of Heat as it creates a lot of replayability with very few tiles.
Having both expansions and thus a pretty much complete base game box almost feels like closure. Like a good point to end it. I was highly anticipating Heavy Rain as a way to finally have more content for Heat, and it didn’t disappoint. Rain, chicanes, super cool, an orange driver, aggressive legends, … it introduced a lot of new concepts. In comparison, Tunnel Vision feels less revolutionary, simply because there has been an expansion pretty much like it already. If they had come out in reverse order, there is a good chance I’d have preferred Tunnel Vision over Heavy Rain. But the way things are, if there would be a third expansion and I’d only want to get two, Tunnel Vision might be the one I’d skip, simply because I like orange more than purple and the effects of water on the track more than the tunnels.
Speaking of which, I hope Heat’s next expansion will mix up the formula. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with the value-for-money I got out of both expansions. But I’d happily skip having a ninth racer for something revolutionary again. Something completely left field like crashes or pit stops or … I don’t know. There are lots of possibilities. Part of me wants expansions like in Flamme Rouge where you buy one and suddenly all of the game will be changed forever. Heavy Rain had the opportunity to be such a thematic expansion (think racing in the rain like in the movie Rush) but chose not to do so. For “Tunnel Vision” it wouldn’t have made as much thematic sense to suddenly have tunnels pop up in the middle of the desert, so limiting it to 1-2 tracks made more sense. It’s still strange to me though that the titular feature of an expansion isn’t at least included on both sides of the map …
Anyway, I digress. One thing is clear: there is currently little reason for me to buy a future third expansion that follows the exact same formula. 8 players is more than I’ll ever need and I’d have gladly skipped on either Mexico or Netherlands for some other track or some modular feature. As to Tunnel Vision and Heavy Rain, I’m happy to have both and would give a slight nod to Heavy Rain. But then again, they are so similar in composition, just go with whatever player color and track you fancy the most. And if you’ve played one so much you’ll find yourself wanting for more, just get the other one. New maps are always a good reason to get a game you enjoy back to the table!