With elegantly simple gameplay, Ticket to Ride can be learned in under 15 minutes, while providing players with intense strategic and tactical decisions every turn.
Players collect cards of various types of train cars they then use to claim railway routes in North America. The longer the routes, the more points they earn. Additional points come to those who fulfill Destination Tickets – goal cards that connect distant cities; and to the player who builds the longest continuous route.
“The rules are simple enough to write on a train ticket – each turn you either draw more cards, claim a route, or get additional Destination Tickets,” says Ticket to Ride author, Alan R. Moon. “The tension comes from being forced to balance greed – adding more cards to your hand, and fear – losing a critical route to a competitor.”
Ticket to Ride continues in the tradition of Days of Wonder’s big format board games featuring high-quality illustrations and components including: an oversize board map of North America, 225 custom-molded train cars, 144 illustrated cards, and wooden scoring markers.
Since its introduction and numerous subsequent awards, Ticket to Ride has become the epitome of a “gateway game” — simple enough to be taught in a few minutes, and with enough action and tension to keep new players involved and in the game for the duration.
Game Mechanic Used: card drafting, route building, network building
Categories: hand management, trains, travel, family games.
HOW TO PLAY
We can show you the ropes when it comes to playing this game in person. In the mean time, or if you’d like to see if this is the game for you, we encourage you to watch this short video tutorial and/or download or view the game manual.
Video Tutorial
Game Manual (click to download)
List of expansions: while there are now several years worth of expansions (train routes on different continents primarily) with this game, we only list the ones we have direct access to.
Release Date: 2004.
Amount of Players: 2-5.
Measured Space Game Board Takes Up:
Duration: 30-60min
Suggested Ages: 8+
Difficulty: slight.
Which therapists offer it: Michael THORBURN
Copies on Hand: (game might be personal collection, donated to network stocks or part of hospital stock) 1 personal stock (MT).
“I love route building games and I love railroads so my goal with Ticket to Ride was to design a game that combined those two things in the simplest way possible, while retaining a game that was fun to play no matter how many times you played it.
I also wanted the emphasis to be on building routes from coast to coast. People often ask me if I knew the game would be a hit. But if I’d known that, I would have designed it twenty years earlier.”
Ticket to Ride
Game Credits:Designer Alan R. Moon
Artist Cyrille Daujean, Julien Delval