Review: Kid on Bikes

Have you ever wanted to play Stranger Things? Well, have I got the game for you! Ennie award winner for Best Family Product 2019 Kids on Bikes. 

Now, this review is based entirely on a reading of the rule book. I haven't played or run it. 

In under 80 pages the game is a concise little system in a slick graphic novel feeling format. Most of the rules are covered quickly, and about a third of the book (the appendices) is tables to help with world building and to provide some basic templates for characters. 

The game does suffer a bit from being so rules lite. Much is left up to the Game Master to decide with vague suggestions about how they might go about it. Actions  are resolved by rolling the appropriate die against a difficulty number, and then comparing the variance of the rolls against one of the charts in the back of the book. For a rules lite system this gets a bit complicated. I suppose if you play enough you'll memorize the chart, or at least have a good enough feel to wing it, but at least at the start I bet it'll feel clunky. 

One design element that I thought was really interesting was the way it handles the powered/psychic characters. For one thing, the powered character is co-controlled by all the players. Each player is given a couple aspects of the powered character, and when that aspect is important, that's when that player gets to control the powered character. When none of the aspects are particularly important, it's a group decision. 

All in all, this is an interesting game that I'd love to try at some point. It puts a lot of work onto the GM, and I don't necessarily see it having good long term campaign playability (especially as it seems to lack a leveling up/getting better mechanic) but for a short campaign or one shot? It'd be fun.