October 2, 1900: 28 years to the day that noted London eccentric Phileas Fogg accepted and then won a £20,000 bet that he could travel "Around the World in 80 Days". Now at the dawn of the century it was time for a new "impossible journey." Some old friends have gathered to celebrate Fogg's impetuous and lucrative gamble - and to propose a new wager of their own.
The stakes: $1 Million in a winner-takes-all competition. The objective: to see which of them can travel by rail to the most cities in North America - in just 7 days. The journey begins immediately...
Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure where players collect cards of various types of train cars that enable them to claim railway routes connecting cities throughout North America.
Ticket to Ride is the 2004 winner of the German Game of the Year award and is, in my humble opinion, one of the best games ever designed. I say this, not only as someone who really likes the game, but as someone who has introduced it to several people, all of whom, after one play, without exception, also really liked it. (This was true of gamers and non-gamers alike and this is an excellent game for gamers to play with non-gaming friends.) It is easy to learn and easy to play. It's essentially a well designed game of resource and time management, understandable by a child as young as 8 but enjoyable by an adult of 80+.
The game-board is a map of the United States with labeled cities, each one connected by "train routes." The goal of the game is to make connections between the cities in order to score points. Points can also be made by completing longer routes, as provided on "Ticket Cards." Connections are formed by completing sets of colored "Train Cards." On your turn you may do one of three things. 1) Draw Tickets, 2) Draw Train Cards, or 3) Play Train Cards to make connections. Play continues until one player is nearly out of train tokens. There are a few other minor complications, but this is the game in a nutshell. (Gameplay can be taught to a novice in under 5 minutes.) The winner is the player who scores the most points. Game-play, once the game has been learned, takes about an hour. The game is suitable, as is, for 2-5 players. My family has played it for 6 (by purchasing additional tokens), which makes it much more challenging.
The basic design of the game is, as I said, excellent. My praise for the original game and game-board, however, has one caveat. The basic game is excellent but the original ticket cards lend themselves to about 3 basic winning strategies. The replay value of the game is greatly magnified by the add-on of the 1910 expansion. This expansion increases the available winning strategies and is well worth the purchase. Despite this, the game is simply one of the best and should be in every gamer's library.
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