The Amazing Mumbai Race: Why you should check out this new board game by playing like a local

Remember the Subway Wars episode of How I Met Your Mother When Robin Barney Ted Marshall and Lily argue on the fastest way to get to Downtown New York and decide to race each other there mdash by bus cab or on foot subway or ambulance mdash to prove whorsquos a true New YorkerItrsquos the first thing that comes to mind when filmmaker Deepak Thomas drops in at the Sunday midday office with SimblyCity a new boardgame he developed to teach his partner and gameplaytesterinchief Sajna Sangeet Sivan how to get about in the maze that is MumbaiThe game designer Deepak Thomas flanked by his partner and muse Sajna Sangeet Sivan left and art director Malvika Sharma PicsSatej ShindeIt all started with them moving from Versova to Chandivli in 2021 ldquoWersquod just had our son Sahas and it felt like the right time to buy a house We bought an apartment in Chandivli and loved our life there But we realised none of us knew how to get anywhere from there particularly Sajnardquo Deepak recallsSo they bought a map of the city Instead of letting it gather dust on their wall ldquowe laid it out on a table and rolled the dice to move from one place to anotherrdquo And thatrsquos how Deepakrsquos attempt to teach his wife about the cityrsquos geography became a boardgameThe couple along with art director Malvika Sharma turned this very relatable Mumbai problem into a fun game that mimics all the ways we strategise how we move in this city take an auto rickshaw and spend money to save time or get a bus pass on the cheap but agonise in slowmoving traffic Take cabs till you run out of money and then walk everywhere or set aside extra time to buy train and Metro tickets before beginning your commute Now not only is everyone on our team a certified Bombayphile obsessed with all things Mumbai but these are genuinely questions we debate about in the newsroom on the daily so we were truly excited to playYour playscape is the entire city laid out on the board with all transport routes marked thereTeaching the game takes about 2030 minutes Deepak had warned us and then we could either go full hog and play a threehour session or play a 90minute session with three short races across town Itrsquos still a working day so we pick 90 minutes Commuters Deepak tells us can travel in the following ways in descending order by cost cab autos Metro Monorail train bus or on foot To win the game one must not only move quickly but also save money sigh tell us about itThroughout the game mdash and your fellow players mdash will throw alltoofamiliar challenges at you processions mega blocks rain treefalls cattle blocks Any and all of these can slow you down until you get a card that cancels the misfortuneCommuting in Mumbai has never been so much funWe wonrsquot lie there are a lot of moving parts to the game and the tutorial can seem a bit daunting especially to those not used to complex campaign games However once you start playing the logic of SimblyCity feels very familiar if it rains trains run late a cab is likely to be faster than a busInterestingly even though both commute time and cost are imaginary constructs in the game most players in our session seemed to play a frugal game One team member chose to walk almost the entirety of the game and despite that went on to win one out of the three races Guess anything is possible in SimblyCity just like the Mayanagari that is its museOur Editor Aastha Atray Banan celebrates on winning a race and takes a selfie at the destination Bhandup Flamingo SanctuaryOur Editor Aastha Atray Banan won the other two out of three races mdash and the entire campaign mdash armed with nothing but a bus pass Each race ends when you reach the destination and take a selfie there in true Bambaiyya style But even among those who didnrsquot win a single race there was a newfound understanding of the lay of the land in aamchi Mumbai Even now when we close our eyes we can picture the cityscape and the transport lines snaking through it And even those among us who are not very wellversed with Greater Mumbai are now confident we know our way to each of the destinations from our three races Gaimukh Promenade in Thane the Bhandup flamingo sanctuary and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in TrombayUltimately we can foresee this game being very popular not just with boardgame enthusiasts but anyone whorsquod like learn how to navigate this city better whether thatrsquos students or anyone new to the city or even trueblue Mumbaikars who may not have explored the city beyond the closest neighbourhoodsThe game should be available to buy commercially early next year an announcement will be made on their Instagram simblycity Until then Deepak Sajna and Malvika are making rounds of boardgame conventions here and in other metros teaching more and more people how to gamify the city commute They will next appear at Meeplecon a tabletop gaming convention being held at Nesco Goregaon East on October 17ndash18Happy commuting