Ticket to Ride Board game Review

Ticket to Ride is a fast-paced train board game that sees you laying down trains and inadvertently getting in everyone’s way as you race to complete train routes. Although it can’t help sort out the crippling public transport issue in Britain (a problem that has been said to make several experts quit their jobs and move to Hawaii) it can be a chuffing good time — you see what I did there, yeah, I’m not proud.

The aim of Ticket to Ride is to earn the most points by completing routes between the cities shown on your secret ticket cards. You build your routes by putting down trains on the different coloured tracks. On your turn you can either claim two colour cards from a communal selection or by picking hidden cards from the deck. The objective is to collect the same number of colour cards as a section of track on the board, at which point you can claim this track and put down your trains. 

Ticket to Ride is a classic and for a reason. It has supplied my family countless hours of fun because it manages to do so much with so little rules. Every decision you make is   very simple as you aren’t overwhelmed with options, but can also be excruciating as you have to choose between taking more useful cards and claiming routes early. Having low amounts of rules also means that anyone can play it, making it a perfect introduction for anyone into the hobby of board gaming.

Near to the end this game  it can get very animated (sometimes making people more excited than train spotters when they see a vaguely old locomotive) as everyone races to connect the cities on their secret ticket cards. The feeling you get when you realise someone else is trying to  put trains down on the same section of track as you and then racing to try to beat them to it have created some of the most tense moments of my life (almost paralleled by waiting for the hosts to announce the winner on the Great British Bake Off).

The only small problem with Ticket to Ride is sometimes you can lose to bad luck as some people get easier combinations of cities to link together (sometimes being able to do it all in one simple train line) while other people have to criss-cross across the board in a spaghetti-like mess of trains.

Overall I would say that Ticket to Ride is a bona fide classic and is one of the first games I would suggest to anyone, whether they are looking for a way into the world of board games or are just interested in a great game. Or maybe just want to see how hard setting up a transport network can be (harder than it looks apparently).