On a blustery autumn evening, five old friends met in the backroom of one of the city’s oldest and most private clubs. Each had traveled a long distance — from all corners of the world — to meet on this very specific day… October 2, 1900 — 28 years to the day that the London eccentric, Phileas Fogg accepted and then won a £20,000 bet that he could travel Around the World in 80 Days. When the story of Fogg’s triumphant journey filled all the newspapers of the day, the five attended University together. Inspired by his impetuous gamble, and a few pints from the local pub, the group commemorated his circumnavigation with a more modest excursion and wager – a bottle of good claret to the first to make it to Le Procope in Paris. Each succeeding year, they met to celebrate the anniversary and pay tribute to Fogg. And each year a new expedition (always more difficult) with a new wager (always more expensive) was proposed. Now at the dawn of the century, it was time for a new impossible journey. The stakes: $1 Million in a winner-takes-all competition.
The objective: to see which of them could travel by rail to the most cities in North America — in just 7 days. The journey would begin immediately…
This is how the original Ticket to Ride starts and our starting point for this trip Around the World in Eighty Turns.
The physical board game created by Alan R Moon was pitched to Days of Wonder in the World Boardgaming Championships lounge bar before being released in 2004. At that time the game had a different title: Station to Station!
This is the first Ticket to Ride prototype and after a long road, the digital version you know was released in 2011. The tablet version of Ticket to Ride was named the 2011 Digital Game of the Year by the Danish Guldbrikken (The Golden Pawn) Awards, which referred to the game as "the exemplar of how a board game makes the leap to the digital world without compromise”,
Ticket to Ride is easy to learn but always refreshing. Each turn you choose between one of three actions: draw railway cards, draw destination cards or claim a route. You have 45 wagons to place and the game ends when any player has only 2 or fewer left. The longer the routes completed, the more points earned.
Later the expansion “USA 1910” was released to be used with the same map.
USA 1910 also provides 3 new modes:
- Classic (new destinations only)
- Mega (New and old destinations for more challenge!)
- Big (with only the cards mentioning one of the big cities: Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and Seattle).
Get Ticket to Ride and its USA 1910 expansion right here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/108200/Ticket_to_Ride/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/108232/Ticket_to_Ride__USA_1910/
Oh and one more thing!
The original USA map of Ticket to Ride is not accurate: Duluth is not where it should be.
Duluth was included in Ticket to Ride because of the city's significance to the railroad industry. In the 1800s, Duluth became the first port city with access to both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans due to the construction of various railways. At one point, Duluth was the busiest port in the United States, eclipsing even New York due to its proximity to various iron mines and its advantageous location.
The 10th Anniversary Edition of Ticket to Ride included a small sign noting Duluth's correct location on the board.
To quote the words of the Days of Wonder team:
“The nature of the gameplay requires us to take liberties with the geographical placement of the cities. Just as in the US map, we decided to make sure that the game plays properly at the expense of some inaccuracies in the city placements. We know that this does offend some, especially those living in those areas that have been adjusted. However, since the games are not intended to be used specifically for educational purposes, we'd rather you get to play a well-balanced game.”