First class
RIDE THE RAILS
Designer: Harry Wu | Publisher: Capstone Games
Whenever a board game has a small rulebook, I'm intrigued. The level of confidence needed to ensure every rule query can be contained within a double-sided sheet of A4 speaks to either a very simple or very engaging experience. Sometimes, it can be both. Ride the Rails has three to five players become railway tycoons as the ‘age of steam’ makes its way to America. You'll start on the east coast and slowly develop a nationwide multicolour train network, with the sole objective being to earn the most money after six rounds of play.
The game loop is sublime. Each round starts with players taking a coloured train piece as a pseudo-stock certificate. Next, players lay out trains across the map, connecting cities to a shared rail network and only able to place trains that they have a stock share for. Finally, each player chooses one of the 51 passengers (one for each city) and takes them on a city hopping journey, with the rule that they can never visit the same place twice. The player moving the passenger earns $1 for every city visited, then all players earn money based on what train lines are used. For example, a journey with five cities using three red lines and one blue, earns the moving player $5, then every player with a red or blue stock gets $3 or $1 per stock respectively. As the next round begins, a new railway becomes available with new placement conditions and play order is rearranged so the lowest scoring player goes first.