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Ticket to Ride: First Journey review - All aboard this board game adaptation?

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Ticket to Ride: First Journey review - All aboard this board game adaptation?

Ticket yo Ride: First Journey is a simplified, family friendly version of the best-selling digital board game. But don't let that put you off.

Yes there's a cuter aesthetic, and yes there's a shallower difficulty curve, but there's still an awful lot of fun to be found in this track-laying strategy game.

Tickets please

The form of the game is going to be instantly recognisable to anyone who's played the original Ticket To Ride. You're laying chunks of track down in order to connect different cities.

You get two tickets at the start of the game that show you which cities you need to connect. Connect them and you'll score a point and then receive another ticket.

There are bonuses to score too, like connecting the whole of a coast, or crossing the whole of a continent. The first player to get six points, or whoever has the most points when one of the players had laid all of their track, wins.

The twist is that you can only lay track pieces that match the colour of the links between cities. So you need to think strategically. Do you draw some more cards, change your tickets, or put down some track?

It's not the deepest of games, but you'll definitely need to do some thinking to get the most out of it. And the cheery art style and gorgeous animations make sure you're going to have a grin on your face while you do it.

You can play against the AI, or engage with other people in pass and play matches. It feels very much like the whole game has been designed with a family night in mind, and that's actually quite refreshing.

Day rider

So no, it might not have the intricacies of its big sister, but Ticket to Ride: First Journey is a really great way into the world of digital board games. Especially for younger players.

And older members of the family are really going to enjoy jumping into the experience too. This is one of those games that aims squarely at everyone, and just about manages to hit.

Ticket to Ride: First Journey review - All aboard this board game adaptation?

It might not be as complex as the original, but there's still an awful lot to like here
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.