Today I have decided to delve deeper into gaming and provide a closer look at one of the more popular gateway games. It’s called “Ticket to Ride”.
On the box:
2-5 players
Ages 8 and up
30-60 minutes
Ticket to Ride is a simple game: You collect colored train cards and play them on matching colored routes while trying to finish your tickets (goal cards to connect distant cities). Finishing tickets gets you a certain amount of points based on how far the two cities are apart.
A short ticket gets you a small amount of points
Game weight:
There are three pages of rules, so this game is VERY easy to learn and teach. It should take around ten minutes to learn, all the game concepts are easy to understand and you won’t be overloaded on strategy on your first turns.
The very short rulebook
The game weight on BGG is 1.86.
Though this game is easy to understand it is action packed in trying to balance when to claim routes (to avoid being blocked) and when to pick cards. Your first games will take closer to the 60 minute side, but once you have played it a couple times you should be able to get it down to 30-45 minutes.
Setup time:
Setup takes me around 4-5 minutes.
All the components
Content:
What you are doing thematically in the game is trying to visit the most cities by rail within an allotted time frame to win a wager.
Artwork:
Most of the artwork is maps or drawings of train cars, the only other piece is on the cover of the box. (Told you Ticket to Ride would be easy!)
Box cover
Conclusion:
Ticket to Ride is a very family friendly game. It is also easy enough to learn for your kids, having only three pages of rules. Overall, if you are looking for a short game with little to no questionable content and easy to learn, this may be the game for you.
Next time I will probably do something a little harder, maybe Terraforming Mars or Scythe? We will see. Until next time!
Steve