Ticket To Ride

My latest game shipment came in and the kids and I tried out Ticket to Ride by Alan R. Moon. Ticket to Ride won the Spiel Des Jahres (Game of the Year) 2004, International Gamers Awards Best Strategy Game Nominee 2004, Deutscher SpielePreis (6th Place 2004), and Games Magazine Best Family Game Nominee 2005. This game will stay strictly at home and cannot be brought to Analog Game Night. Ken bought this game as well and wants to contribute a game to our game night playing festivities.

Ticket to Ride plays quickly and is very easy to learn. The kids had no problem at all picking up the rules. It took about 45 minutes to play which included the learning phase. It’s got a fairly significant luck component with the “draw your blind train cars” action. They do try to mitigate this somewhat by exposing the top 5 cards from the draw pile. There are still plenty of tactical plays that can made that can greatly affect other player’s ability to meet their hidden Ticket Card goals. So be forewarned that others can (and will) sense the end-points you’re shooting for and will attempt to block you from completing your task (the nerve of some kids…I mean people!). Speaking of nerve, Sophie kicked our butts by constructing several 5 and 6 segment routes and meeting all of her Ticket Card goals….plus she got the longest route bonus. I made all 5 of my Ticket Card goals but they were, unfortunately small in value. Noah didn’t meet two of his three goals so he got docked the value points for those.

The other games I received are Carcassonne – The City, Carcassonne’s new more strategic big brother (comes in a wooden box!) and Battle Line, a Reiner Knizia designed 2 person card game. I’ll throw out reviews of those as soon as I get a chance to play.

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