by Lauren
| Recently, one of my awesome friends had her 30th birthday party (happy b-day Elyse!) which was a tabletop gaming celebration. People were playing old-school games, like Candyland and Rock’em Sock’em Robots. Card games like The Werewolves of Millers Hollow and Star Munchkin. Also, euro-games strategy games like Dungeon Fighter. |
Dungeon Fighter
| 
Werewolf
|
My group played Ticket to Ride, an easy-to-learn strategy game where you draw color-coded cards to build your train routes and complete your destination tickets. You can only do one action per turn, which keeps things simple. Also, if you are a little OCD, lining up the little train cars on their route blocks are oddly satisfying.
It didn’t take very long at all for the 3-out-of-5 of us that had never played before to pick up the rules and play. The original US map version is pretty simple and we played ‘fair’ - but I can definitely see how you can play dirty and steal other peoples’ routes and be cut-throat -just like a real railroad tycoon!
| It took a little less than an hour to play and it was pretty fast moving for a game about trains! It is a great game for families, since the rules are pretty simple - and it helps teach (some) geography. When someone has 2 or less pieces left, its game over. Easy. |
| Scoring was the only tricky bit. You can either move your piece as you go around the counter boarder (which is easy to forget to do) - or calculate at the end as you remove the pieces at the end (which keeps the winner a surprise!) I've been told that the European and other maps are more complex and potentially dastardly, so the original US map was a good choice for learning the 'rules of the rails.' There are many expansion packs and various country / map versions of the game. I look forward to playing again (the veteran player of the group kicked out collective butts, so clearly practice helps) and also to try out other versions! | 
Ticket to Ride Europe
RATING: A- A - for ease of learning A - for setup A - for length of game play B - for replay-ability B - for fun! |
