Bidmeadman's Besties: April

Ticket To Ride (Days Of Wonder) is considered by many to be the ultimate "gateway" game, a game to introduce to people who are unfamiliar with the wide world of board games.

In Ticket To Ride you're competing to travel across america securing train routes. The game board is a map of the USA covered in train routes of various colours. As a player you have a collection of trains that you use to connect different cities, earning you points. The more train carriages needed to join two cities the more points you earn.


To place train carriages onto the game board you need to collect the right coloured cards to match the route. So, if you want to connect Denver and Oklahoma City you need to have four red cards in your hand. Once you do you can spend a turn to discard the four red cards and place your trains between the two cities and collect the points.

During a turn you choose one of the following actions: Collect two train cards from the five face-up cards or face-down draw pile, place trains onto the board, collect destination tickets. Destination tickets detail two cities and a number of points. To earn the points on the card you need to have connected the two cities with a continuous line of your trains.

That's Ticket To Ride in a nutshell. Simple, refined mechanics mean it's a breeze to teach/learn/play. Everything's crystal clear; no unfamiliar terminology or symbols, just colours and numbers. It being fun on top of this is the reason it's such a good gateway game, a transitional game between the traditional and the modern. If someone is struggling to see past the familiar family games like monopoly, introduce them to Ticket To Ride.

It can be played and enjoyed by young and old; familiar to board games and unfamiliar. My gamer friends love to play it, my niece and nephew (8 and 12 respectively) love to play it, my non-gaming sister loves it, my cousin bought it to play with his family once he played it and loved it. It's a game for everyone.

It's the lightest of the Besties so far and probably the lightest of all the Besties to come, but that's not to say there's no skill in playing it well; finding the optimum routes and getting to your destinations fastest, knowing when to discard destination tickets and when to keep them. There are strategies to be found and perfected the more you play, and the card drafting system adds anticipation and a small amount of tension.

There's not a lot of opportunity for player interaction. Everyone's got their own goals and it's easy to keep your head in your game, ignoring everyone else. The more players there are the more crowded the map gets and players will block the routes of other players often. However, a two player game can go by without any conflict and it can be a bit like you're each playing you're own game for the most part.

Ticket To Ride is simple and effective. A fun, light, family-friendly, frustration-free, satisfying board game.

Are you a fan of Ticket To Ride? Have you played any of the other maps available? Is this your first time hearing about it? Message or tweet me and let me know your thoughts.