I actually had a slightly disappointing game of Hot Streak over the holiday. There was only time to play once, and no one else had played it before. The main problem was that we ended up with no “turn around” cards in the deck, and only one “fall over” (which was for Dangle, who had, like, 3 cards in total). Gobbler meanwhile had 6-7 cards most of which were just charging ahead, and there were ample recovery cards to counter the minimal problem cards. There wasn’t even much swerving on offer. I was hoping the secret cards would spice things up, but if any good cards were dealt out, people didn’t use them. So it ended up being a far more mundane experience than I wanted. Which would be fine if either (a) we’d had time for multiple games, or (b) people had played before and understood that it was anomalous.
All of which has made me decide that I’m going to be seeding the deck with a bit of guaranteed chaos the next time I’m introducing the game. Subsequent games can be fully-randomised, but I need that first game to bring the drama.