Ticket to Ride is another example of how Days of Wonder are truly capturing the transferrence of their games to the iPad. Not only does it transition to the iPad well as a game, but it is one that has been executed brilliantly.
Gameplay
For those who do not know this classic game, the premise is acquiring train routes in a set map between cities. One starts the game by chosing at least two tickets that require you to link lines between them. Throughout the game, you can choose more tickets to create higher demands with better payoffs. However, be careful, because while completed routes will gain you points at the end of the game, incompleted routes will penalise you that same amount.
To do so, you will have to claim a number of tracks as necessary between those destinations to link them. Of course, since you’re not the only one trying to do so, there is a careful balance between hoarding tickets to allow you to purchase the longer more wealthier roads and getting in first to buy some of the smaller (and often critical) routes. While there are often alternative routes that you can take, such digressions are costly and can easily set you back.
Additionally, you and your opponents have limited numbers of carriages, and the game’s last turn occurs when someone is down to two or less carriages. A number of times I, and other players, have been caught out because we had our eyes so fixed on our own network of train routes that we lose sight of how close to finishing. Don’t be left in the lurch with a bunch of unfinished tickets because you ran out of time, or worse because you ran out of carriages. The latter occuring because you’ve had to digress is understandible, but not having enough in the first place is just embarrasing (don’t ask how the iPad knows… it knows… it watches me).
To complete a given track, you need to collect tickets of the same colour equal to the number of spaces in a single tracks. Tracks on the board will either be grey or coloured. Grey tracks can be completed with tickets of any colour, while coloured tracks must be matched by tickets of the same colour. During each turn, you have the option of picking up cards of carriages (and locomotives), claiming a track, or acquiring new tickets. However, the last is a bit of a gamble since the choice is random, and you could be stuck with a real bad choice that changes your winning game into a losing one. For reference, locomotives count as wild cards that can be used to replace any colour. However, if you draw them from the face up choice of cards, that’s the only card you draw that round.
The game also scales up well from two and three players to four and five players. This occurs because there are a number of double tracks on the board, of which both lanes can be claimed independently for 4-5 players, but only one in lower numbers. This is a clever use of the board that constrains the game where necessary.
There are a few winning strategies, and they’re all about a balance between conservation and risk. You can go for shorter routes with less pay off, or larger routes and better pay off. Obviously, where possible attempt to select tickets whose routes potentially double up, thereby saving you some carriages. I often find it helps if I’m feeling confident to simply make my first move to draw another set of cards. So far I’ve managed to successfully complete the game with up to seven completed ticket routes.
However, I would suggest that the best strategies employ at least one (preferably two) long routes. Partly because the longer the individual track that is claimed, the more points you get compared to shorter routes of equal carriages (ie: one track of six lenghts is worth more than two tracks of three lengths), and these accumulate towards the end. Last but not least, there’s an additional ten points waiting for the longest consecutive tracks, so sometimes it’s worthwhile making a side loop or detour it it means your entire track is one continuous line.
There’s still more! There are a range of expansions or companion games that you can buy in game. This includes the popular European variant, the Swiss variant, and all the 1910 ticket expansions (with new and more demanding routes for the US board). With the European variant (my favourite), you encounter tunnels of variable length, ferries that require locomotives, and an opportunity to revise your European geography if you live in the USA.
Implementation
Days of Wonder has once again set a benchmark for iPad games. Every bit of the game has been translated to the iPad remarkably. All the graphics are crisp and faithful to the colourful designs that are the hallmark of Days of Wonder. It is peppered with lovely little animations and sounds that are just downrighth cheerful. All of its visual presentation goes above and beyond providing a game at its most basic necessities. This is what Days of Wonder do best, they use the visual and audio stimuli to draw you into the game, and I certainly lost a good part of my day to this fact.
The tutorials are brilliant, in that they take anyone from the novice to the expert through the game, and will even help you play your first part of the game for you if you like. They have youtube video tutorials linked in the game to teach you about the game itself if you need a more in depth demonstration of the rules. This cannot be understated, the ability for the iPad as an interactive medium allows for us to capitalise on these tools, rather than simply refer to a written piece of rules that don’t always help us visualise the game play.
As you can see, the menus and other back-of-house aspects to the game have been given detail and attention, including an option to switch things around for left-handed players.
I have found the AI to be challenging enough that I don’t always win, and cannot simply breeze through, but not so torturous that I want to try and find some high schoolers to beat out of sheer indignation. With the multiplayer options and variants already available, there is an immense replay value for this game.
Verdict – 10/10 – it’s a tick in every box!
Comments
My wife doesn’t take to many boardgames, but this one she absolutely loves, to the point that she is pushing my name slowly off the high score list completely. I can’t wait for local multiplayer, though I can see how passing the iPad around just to pick up two cards may get a little tedious. Perhaps someone could event a spinning iPad case precisely for this purpose???
I wasn’t expecting much with TtR, I really wasn’t. But I took the chance and snapped it up and boy, was it one heck of a ride. I grabbed all 3 expansions almost immediately and without a doubt, this is the best $10 I’ve spent on my iPad, next to Carcassonne of course.
I never expected a device like the iPad to herald such an amazing way to cart around board games like this. Heck, because I had a small family the most we played with board games was Monopoly or Uno, but rarely even that.
The iPad has changed all that. I have immediate access to playing a game of Carcassonne with my kids on the go. They now love Ticket to Ride, what’s next? You can only go up from here.
I have to go… There’s another game of Ticket to Ride waiting for me!
Nick
A very good game. Waiting for pass n play. The online multiplayer works well, bar having it freeze a few times and costing me karma. bought all expansions, agree on the benefits for my children’s geography. A top 5 game for sure.
There is already Pass’n'play support in this game so I think it can be updated!
Thanks Akk, I’ve updated the text
Version 1.3, now available, also adds Local Play over a local wifi or Bluetooth network. This version is compatible with the newly launched Ticket to Ride Pocket (for iPhone/iTouch).
Can you elaborate on how it is compatible with the Pocket Version? I haven’t been able to set up a game between iPad and iPhone, sadly. All of my friends play it on their iPhones, so it’s not much fun being the only one with the iPad version
Basically, every developer should use Carcassone as the de facto template for device integration. It’s wonderful being able to start a game on the iPad, and then finish it on the bus (where I wouldn’t be caught dead waving an iPad around)
Turn off wifi and use bluetooth connection for a local game between pocket and main version, that works for me. (maybe bluetooth isnt enabled on your ipad?)
local game? I’d rather share the iPad then. Such a shame! Should just be a universal app…
Has anyone been able to get the 15 tickets completed achievement? What’s the trick?
The best I’ve been able to do is 8 tickets. I believe a 15 ticket win requires insanity and luck.
thats same with me – i got eight
oddly enough i got 9 – playing the tutorial with no idea what I was doing. I guess I was lucky enough to draw tickets that already were on the route I lad laid down.
You can get 15 tickets completed (and 12 quite a bit more easily). One of the key to doing so is selecting the AI you play against carefully, and studying how it plays, then stymying it long enough to have the time to draw all the tickets you’ll need (and the time to complete them of course).
Not easy, but it can definitively be done.
This implementation is nothing less than amazing!
Too bad the AI is a bit week…
week = weak (slaps forehead!)
Ticket to ride pocket is free right now. No idea how long.
AI is ridiculous, i always win the games