Board Game Arena

I play Heat: Pedal to the Metal, and enjoy playing the championship games. However, due to the sheer length of that game, the replay is practically unusable, as it's massive.

I was thinking, for game "like" Heat .. where you basically play 4 games back to back. There should be some way for the replay mechanism to be able to "split up" the replay. For example, in Heat at least (and maybe in some other longer games?) that game may be able to identify a "checkpoint". Some point in the game where the replay can safely "start here" without needing to go over all the previous things. Perhaps it's just a matter of storing an initial game state (again for Heat, maybe it's just the extra cards each player has attained), and then the replay would be able to "reset" back to a turn 1 . without the massive overhead of the previous maps.

And yes, I know this isn't an easy/trivial change just putting it out there for future thought/discussion. Perhaps others with more intimate knowledge of the current API might have a better idea on how to handle longer games.

I think you can already solve this.

Go to a replay (e. g. https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=823154512) and click on "View game replay". There you find the replay log with the move numbers. Pick a move number you want to start with (your "checkpoint").

After that, choose any players' view to open the replay. Click on the text "Advanced replay features" on the top, which adds 2 new buttons. Then click on the rightmost button, which opens a small menu of now 5 (instead of only 3) options. Then click on "Go to specific move (fast)" and add the move number. Normally you will get to that move in less than 30 seconds (depending on the game length and complexity). You can watch the replay from that point step by step, using the button in the middle.

In the same way you can jump forward to another move. If instead you want to go back to a previous move, you first have to go back to the beginning, using the second button from the left. Replays work like a one-way street, you can't go backwards, but have to start again at the beginning

not really ... once you select a move/spot to jump to .. it will take about 10 min to get to that point ... due to the long game time / size of replay.

That's the point, need to break it down.

try it on a Championship game of heat:

https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=813246318

Ditto11 wrote: ↑02 April 2026, 17:25 not really ... once you select a move/spot to jump to .. it will take about 10 min to get to that point ... due to the long game time / size of replay.

That's the point, need to break it down.

try it on a Championship game of heat:

https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=813246318

Trying with the fast replay it took me about 80 seconds to get to the start of the last race. Bit long but not terrible

Ditto11 wrote: ↑02 April 2026, 17:25 not really ... once you select a move/spot to jump to .. it will take about 10 min to get to that point ... due to the long game time / size of replay.

That's the point, need to break it down.

try it on a Championship game of heat:

https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=813246318

Did you use "Go to specific move" or "Go to specific move (fast)"?

Interesting .. I have used (fast) option when I use it. What might be different is after a game, I want to view the "replay last turn" .. and that seems to take ... "forever" .. O.o

Next time I'll try to compare the two and report back .