Open Wheelers

Open Wheelers started life as a text thread. A group of friends who love Formula 1 wanted an alternative to fantasy games with drafted teams and waivers, so we played a manual game: picks in before the lights go out, and I tallied the results after each race and posted the standings. Three categories, three picks. Podium, fastest lap, DNF. The Messages app made a surprisingly workable game engine, for years.

It was also holding the game back, because the pick categories were limited to whatever a human scorekeeper could verify after a race. Moving it into an app opened up stats the thread never could, and it also surfaced a string of game-design problems that only show up once the rules are enforced by software: the game theory of picking “none” for DNF, a pole-sitter scoring loophole, and the discovery that hiding everyone’s picks, which seemed like an obvious fix, made the game worse. The group chat had it right.

Two siblings are on the way from the same design: Hard Chargers for NASCAR and Fourth Liners for hockey.