Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride

One of the things on my shopping list at this year's Gen Con was a copy of the Ticket to Ride board game. I'd tooled around enough with it on Xbox live to believe it would be a sound investment. The first couple of days I kept an eye out for it and didn't see it for less than $42, which would have constituted a large chunk of our spending cash. I finally broke down and went to the Days of Wonder booth to get a copy and the nice German man there told me they were completely sold out. A single tear ran down my cheek.

It will be mine.

This week I finally got my wife to give it a try on the Xbox and we can hardly put the damn thing down. When we get the money, we'll have to grab a copy. It's a game of building railroads across the country to connect various cities. I've always been intrigued by train games but never tried one. Ticket to Ride is a great introduction to the genre, and I'm not sure if it's representative of how great train games are or an anomaly, but it's worth a look. The rules are simple to learn, there's good amount of planning and strategy involved, a little bit of luck and a dash of screw-your-neighbor thrown into the mix.

Ticket to Ride on Xbox Live

I know there's a whole subculture of train game people at the con every year locked away in the Puffing Billy room playing train games and only occassionaly emerging to be fed and watered. Who knows, maybe years from now I'll be one of the guys at the con in overalls and a little train conductor's hat.