Ticket to Ride

I recently wrote about my new (re)found affinity for board games.

One that I picked up recently is called Ticket to Ride, which won the 2004 Spiel des Jahres -the German game of the year - regarded as the highest honor a board game can receive.
Ticket to Ride is what is known as a Eurogame - meaning that it contains a few simple mechanics, not too much luck, a light theme, but a lot of strategy.

In Ticket to Ride, you and your opponents are a early 20th century Railroad tycoons. You compete to claim as many routes across America as you can.

The game play is fairly simple. Train cards are collected and used to claim routes on the board. Destination cards give bonuses at the end of the game, if their described routes are completed.

In each turn you either claim a route, take some train cards, or take some destination cards. The tension of the game comes from the decision to take cards or claim routes, not knowing if or when you may be blocked from claiming important routes by your opponents.

If it sounds interesting, you can try it online for free on the Days of Wonder website.

One really cool thing about this game is that when you purchase it, it comes with 6 months of pre-paid membership on the site, which gives you the added abilities to create your own games using (allowing you to play only bots if you want). I think that is a very nice touch, and hope to see more of that type of board game / computer game integration from other publishers in the future.