Rebellion Unplugged's flagship (or, flag-car, I guess) racing board game Joyride is still young - the original 'Survival of the Fastest' version crowdfunded in late 2023, and only reached local game store shelves in February 2025. But it must be doing pretty damn well, because not only has Rebellion already given the original two spin-offs and four expansions in the past couple of years, it's just launched a full-on 'expand-alone' follow-up game on Gamefound. At press time, it's already racked up nearly $90,000 from backers.
Theoretically, the big deal about Joyride: Full Throttle is an all-round suite of gameplay upgrades to the original game. Like its predecessor, you'll be picking from a set of unique variant cars with their own player board and abilities, and racing across a hex-board track, ramming opponents out of the way like it's Rainbow Road.
This new edition is kinda the same, but more so, adding a bunch more game, while all the previously released stuff (cars, boards, and so on) remains compatible. The max player count is upped from four to six, with team based modes, for either two or three teams of two players. There are six new cars (of course) and the individual car "dashboards" now have more strategic options on them.
The new double sided board promises 20 unique new tracks to play on, and Rebellion says it's got "dozens of new abilities, items, obstacles, and more" to mix up the variety of scrapes, bangs, flips, and general shenanigans you'll encounter mid race. Even the theme has been dialed up from just 'oversaturated cartoon silliness' to 80s neon oversaturated cartoon silliness; one side of the new board is basically Miami Beach and the other is an abandoned mall.
But, for my money, those aren't the main draw here. Nope, the real game changer is that, where Survival of the Fastest was only available with prettily painted wooden pieces representing your car, Full Throttle has proper miniatures to bring its overblown aesthetics to life.
Among the add-ons for the Gamefound campaign is a full set of nine plastic minis for the cars in "season one" (the original board game and expansions) and a set of six minis for the new cars in Full Throttle, featuring some much wackier vehicles. These include a mall cop in his little golf cart; a delivery van with a ramshackle catapult on the back; and a hot dog truck, whose roof mounted sausage looks suspiciously like a cruise missile.
As to pricing, the basic pledge (just the core box of the new game) costs $67.91 (£50), while the cheapest version featuring those new minis (the Deluxe Destruction) will set you back $115.44 (£85) - but that also rolls in an upgrade pack that swaps a fair few of the cardboard obstacle tokens for fancy wooden ones, so your extra cash isn't just buying you the toys.
What's your take on this Vice City-flavored, dice driven destruction derby? Come join the free Wargamer Discord community and let us know if Joyride is a stunner we should consider for our list of the best board games ever made, or honestly just a bit of a flat tire.