Model: 17Publisher: Days of WonderPlaying Time: 30 - 60 MinutesNumber of Players: 2 - 5Designer: Alan R. MoonSuggested Minimum Age: 8
Ticket to Ride is an exciting cross-country train adventure game. Players collect train car cards that enable them to claim North American railway routes. The longer the routes, the more points they earn. Additional points come to those who can fulfill their Destination Tickets by connecting two distant cities, and to the player who builds the longest continuous railway.
Wizardopoly adds: the publishers have given a pretty accurate description of the game here. There's a board shows a map of the USA with a network of different coloured train routes between cities, a stack of cards (showing eight different coloured carriages, plus wild card locomotives) and each player has a pile of little plastic carriages in their own colour. The route between two cities will be in a particular colour and made up of 1 to 6 carriages. Each turn players may either pick up two cards - from the five cards on display or randomely from the stack - or play cards to build a train route. To play a route the player discards the same number of cards as the number of carriages in the route and all cards must be of the colour of that route. The are wild cards which count as any colour and there are some grey routes for which you can use any colour. You mark routes as claimed by putting a line of carriages of your colour (nothing to do with the colour of the route!) on them. Pretty simple really!
Each route played scores points, but (I think) the fun of the game comes from the Destination Ticket cards. These each show a different journey of varying lengths, with different points scored depending on the distance to be covered. At the end of the game if a player has claimed a series of routes to allow him/her to fulfil his/her Destination Ticket he/she scores that many extra points. But if they don't then the points are deducted! You are dealt three of these cards at the start of the game and you must keep at least one of them (you may pick up more as the game progresses). With each city to city route being contested you get some pretty circuitous train lines being built to fulfill these tickets!
This game really looks good, with lots of little carriages of different colours filling the map of the States. It improves your knowledge of American cities too. There is an European version which adds rules for tunneling and ferries. And not a mop-top in sight (My baby don't care/my baby don't care...).
Ticket to Ride Europe£25.99
