1 - 8Play Time
20 minutes
- Dice Rolling
- Simulation
The Fastest Men on Earth
Dice-and-chart simulation game of the 100 meter dash. The original edition includes 50 of the all-time great runners and is supplemented by a 2008 Beijing Olympics edition adding 12 more runners, for a total of 62 current and all-time great runners. Runners include all men's Olympic champions from Charley Paddock in 1920 to Usain Bolt in 2008. Game includes factors such as fitness, injuries, false starts, weather. Timing options enables comparison to world records.
Each race consists of a series of six die rolls for each runner, building on the success (or lack thereof) on each of the prior rolls. Each runner has a separate rating for the start, 10-30 meters, 30-50 meters, 50-70 meters, 70-90 meters, and the finish, as well as injuries, form, false starts. Approximately 30 different venues, rated for speed (fast, slow, medium), are included, as are options for a campaign game.
This is strictly a sports replay simulation game, with no strategy options other than runner and course selection. Game is published by Owzat Games under license from Lambourne Games.
Another description:
At first glance the 100 Metres track event may seem an odd choice for a sports replay game. Around 10 seconds of explosive action, nothing in the way of in-race tactics (if you discount the physiological warfare that takes place as the runners line up and get to their marks, more akin to two boxers eyeballing each other before a fight than to an athletics meeting), no 'decisions' for the replay gamer to make, just pure unleashed speed from starting blocks to tape. But an athletics sprinting coach will tell you differently.
Each part of the race, and the training manuals usually divide the 100 Metres into four distinct sections, Start, Pick-Up, Acceleration and Maximum Speed, require varying disciplines and techniques, and world-class sprinters all have their strengths and weaknesses, so this is what we have tried to focus on in this simulation, hopefully bringing to life the running characters of some of the All-Time-Great sprinters of the last hundred years. We have extended the training manual concept of four different sections into six, taking the runners progressively to 10m, 30m, 50m, 70m, 90m and 100m and within those six Sections each athlete's ability will vary to re-create his running style. And ability too, we hope. And here we must insert a caveat. In athletics to a degree not applicable to other timed sports performances have improved dramatically as training methods, diets and track surfaces have evolved and here we are trying to compare Charles Paddock with Maurice Green, Jesse Owens with Donovan Bailey.
To make this simulation 'work' we have had to use a benchmark, time wise, and up-grade the performances of athletes from earlier era to this level of performance. Because we felt that users would want to be able to get close to the current World Record (in the right circumstances with the right athletes) we have geared the simulation to 2001 season performances, assuming in doing so that the great sprinters of the past would have travelled that much quicker with all the (legal) advantages that their contemporary 'rivals' enjoy today. At the end of the day, of course, it is our judgement in all such matters, you may well disagree with that, and we can only say in our defence that we have been as objective as possible after lengthy and detailed research.