Touring Ticket To Ride During Free Play Day

This week we had a free week and I chose to bring a few games, one of which my friends and I ended up paying, being, Ticket to Ride. I’ve wanted to play this game for a while so I was really excited to have the opportunity to play, and to have JS there to help our group when we had questions. Ticket to Ride seems like a really complex game at first but it’s not too hard to catch on to. I played with a partner because we had an extra person in our group and I was honestly glad to have the extra help because I would have been confused otherwise. Overall I think I have a good understanding of the game, except for how the tunnel feature works, since I did not use it. My partner Anne and I had the longest train in the game and it was a really fun mission to have and goal to achieve. Other players seemed to catch on pretty well as well, even though it was everyone’s first time playing. If I were to play the game again, I think I could semi-confidently play on my own.
There were a few challenges to playing the game, one of them was trying to figure out which cities the cards are pointing at exactly. Because this is the European version of Ticket to Ride, there are a lot of cities close together and it can be hard to tell which city the cards are telling you to go to because it’s just a dot and there isn’t a lot of clarification. Another challenge of the game was playing upside down. We had to gather around a table and the board was upside down for half of us, and I was one of them. The cities are difficult to read upside down so I needed to get up a few times just to make sure we were on the right track to where we needed to be heading. Lastly, the game could get a bit dull at times. There aren’t really any plot twists or anything, the game is pretty repetitive and I felt like there were moments during turns where players were zoning out a bit. However, at the end of the game everyone seemed to agree that the game was fun and that they would enjoy playing it again. I think because the game is simplistic, it’s a nice game to play with music or a movie on in the background, just kind of a game for a nice chill evening.
Other things I enjoyed about this game is the individuality aspect, I like that everyone has a mission they are trying to accomplish that is secret from the other players. I also enjoy that this game has different elements to it like implementing both strategy and chance. This game is also very approachable for a variety of ages, which is really cool and a hard thing for games to overcome. I could see myself teaching this game to someone half my age, or someone three times my age, and I genuinely believe both age groups would enjoy it. I would like to play this game with my grandpa because I think he would enjoy the theme of the game and would understand how to play it without getting frustrated.I also think this game can relate to leadership because leaders are usually trying to execute a mission or goal, which you are doing in this game. Once you pick a mission, you’re pretty forced to be committed to it if you want to be successful at the game, and leaders must stick to their mission as well. Some missions take a lot of time, effort and determination, which is required in this game as well because this game is lengthy.