859 – Sleepy Ticket to Ride | Bored Game Unboxing
Think train rides are sleepy? Just wait to rest via my unboxing of a game, based on a game about trains.
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EPISODE 859 – Sleepy Ticket to Ride
[START OF RECORDING]
SCOOTER: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and friends beyond the binary, it’s time for the podcaster who, when I asked my brain just a few seconds ago, what should we do for the opening of the podcast? It said jasmine rice. Then I said talk about jasmine rice in the intro…like a teaser that’s supposed to be about thirty seconds or whip up a pot of it? I mean, I know I had it for dinner. If I could think of a song, like Jasmine Rice on My Mind, that would be one of the songs that would make about as much sense as a…the whole idea of the podcast is it only makes partial sense just like when I say hey, let’s set up something witty for the podcast, brain. What do you got? Jasmine rice. I don’t think we’re the jasmine rice of podcasts but you know, we’re here and we’re here to put you to sleep. You might not know what I’m talking about. I barely do, too. Welcome to Sleep With Me, the podcast that puts you to sleep.
Those of you that are regular, multiple-episode listeners, if you could just listen close ‘cause this is the way we bring the podcast to you free and free for everybody else. Thanks. Oh, Mystery Bard, a lot of people help out on this show. Who are they? Thanks, Mystery Bard. I’m @dearscooter on Twitter and Instagram. That’s where you can find me. A huge, huge way to help the show; One Listener Initiative. If you’re listening and you get a lot out of the podcast, you wanna help the show in a huge way, let one person know about it or let a bunch of people online know about it. Maybe one person it’ll resonate with, or if podcasting comes up, just let them know about the show, your honest experience. But I would love for the podcast to grow a little bit here as the year winds down. If you could help me out, bring me one listener. That would be a huge help. One Listener Initiative. We did it a while back and I appreciate it. What do you say we get on with the show?
Alright, it’s time for The Sleepy Supporter Zone. It’s one part of the podcast…it’s at the beginning, it's upbeat, a little bit over the top because it makes me happy to be able to thank the listeners who empower this show so I can be here for you. Love that you don’t have to pay for this podcast and I wanted to thank Courtney who supported Native. You say man, whose armpits smell so great? Well, mine smell pretty good right now; I got Candy Cane on. Thanks for asking. But I wanted to thank Courtney for supporting Native and if you’re listening, you support a sponsor, let them know about it. Let me know about it and I can try to thank you here on The Sleepy Supporter Zone. Tag them on Twitter or Instagram so they know our partnership’s valuable and so other people know, especially if you’re excited about it. Check out what I got from Grove or check out these amazing scents from Native so other listeners find out about it, and it helps us keep this podcast free for everybody. Thanks, Courtney. The Sleepy Supporter Zone is now over. Oh, Mystery Bard, a lot of people help out on this show. Who are they? [MUSIC, SINGING]
INTRO: [INTRO MUSIC] Thanks, Mystery Bard. It’s now time for me to slow it down ‘cause it’s time to get on with the show, what do you say? Hey, are you up all night tossing, turning, mind racing, trouble getting to sleep? Trouble staying asleep? Well, welcome. This is Sleep With Me, the podcast that puts you to sleep. We do it with a bedtime story. Alls you need to do is get in bed, turn out the lights, and press play. I’m gonna do the rest. What I’m going to attempt to do is create a safe place where you could set aside whatever’s keeping you awake, whether it’s thoughts you’re thinking about, physical sensations, things on your mind, things you’re physically experiencing, any feelings or emotions coming up, changes in time or temperature or routine, any of that kind of stuff, or someone else’s routine is impacting yours. Maybe you work second or third shift or maybe work different types of shifts.
I would like to know if anybody works in morning news because I watch my local morning news and I can always empathize with those…everyone that does a job there, whether it’s on camera or off-camera. I say holy cow, I have great respect for anyone in the morning local news or national but I just say if you’re doing morning news, shout out to you because…or, I mean, I’m not…any other super-early job, too, I totally appreciate it. Where was I? Where am I? Oh, I’m already lost in the podcast. Oh, whatever’s keeping you awake. It could be any of that stuff. It could be…Scoots, you fell off of the…whatever’s keeping you awake, I’d like to take your mind off that. What I’m gonna do, is I got a safe place here set aside. I got an invitation for you; holy cow, I don’t know, have we talked about invitations on the podcast? I know we’ve talked about paper products and stationery. Maybe not recently.
This one is signed…this invitation it was signed, sealed, and delivered. It’s actually yours; it’s your invitation. Thanks, Stevie. Oh, Steve and…sorry. Oh no, okay. Well, I could, I mean, this is…I’m just in the beginning of the intro so I would say Mr. Wonder but that just sounds…that makes me giggly even though I’m a professional, so I’m not giggling now. It also makes me say Mr. Wonder, I wonder why I can’t call you Stevie, or I could call you…how about Steve? Oh, Steve Wonder’s your realtor. Oh, well, interesting. Okay, so, where was I? Sorry about that. I got off-track there. Oh, I have an invitation for you to this nice, safe place. Now, if you’re new, I’m glad you’re here. I’m gonna send my voice across the deep, dark night. I’m gonna use lulling, soothing, creaky, dulcet tones, pointless meanders, superfluous tangents, ums, ahs, extra…filler words, confused logic, illogical, all those things.
But really what I’m gonna try to do is keep you company while you drift off. If you’re new, one, like I said, I’m glad you’re here. I hope this podcast can help. Now, it doesn’t work for everybody but I certainly hope it works for you. Here’s a couple of things to note; structurally what to expect, the show starts off with a little teaser; ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and friends beyond the binary. Then I try to think of something witty to say which I have about one in ten chance of doing that. Then there’s some business and that business keeps the podcast…the people that take action on that support the podcast being free for everybody, so that’s a wonderful thing but necessary ‘cause I do not want the podcast behind a pay wall. My goal is for you to be able to listen to it for free if you wish, or for new people that come in. That’s the business. Then there’s an intro.
Now, the intro’s the first thing that can throw off the new listener because usually, intros are efficient and they’re just an introduction. With the length of the podcast, technically, our intro, which is usually around twelve to fifteen to eighteen to twenty to nineteen to seventeen to sixteen, thirteen, eleven minutes or so, it’s still an intro-type length for our podcast. But usually the intro’s like, here’s what I’m gonna talk about. You talk about what you’re gonna talk…I can’t remember how they…’cause I can’t even remember when they say here’s an efficient way to do an intro. You tell them what you’re gonna talk about, [00:10:00] then you’re supposed to do something else efficient like go through what you’re gonna talk about, then tell them why or something, then tell them again what you’re gonna talk about. That’s an intro, I think. First rule of intros…I forgot what the rules were.
Our intro though, it has a dual purpose, or quadruple purpose, or more because really, it’s supposed to introduce you to the podcast but also set you up for a good night sleep, right? And wind you down, help you to unwind or start to drift off, or to get ready for bed. If you’re new, you might be, wherever you’re listening to it is where you’re listening to it, right? Perfect place. But as you become a regular listener, a few percentages of people skip ahead to eighteen to twenty minutes but most listeners work it into their bedtime routine, so some people are listening in bed and some people are listening as they’re getting ready for bed or anywhere in between. Some lovely listeners are already sound asleep. Look at how sweet they look. Isn’t that sweet? You just kind of gotta see how it goes. It’s just friendly banter from old Scoots. Regular listeners are like okay, you think Scoots is gonna get that intro down, talk about what he’s gonna talk about?
I mean, I definitely show why I make a sleep podcast, so I got that part down but the intro’s just a friendly time to get ready for bed and to get in the mood, you know what I’m saying? I think I’ve already…I think I’ve successfully…unsuccessfully told you what the intro is. Then there’s some more business between the intro and the show. Then tonight will be a random Tuesday-style episode. I think we’re gonna be doing a board game unboxing and talking about the board games in this board game lineup. That’ll be fun. Then there’s some thank you’s at the end. That’s the structure of the show. Also, if you’re new, a couple other things; there’s no…you don’t need to pay attention to this podcast so there’s no pressure to listen along. You can kind of listen along at your leisure loosely or out of focus, or on low-volume. You know, just barely follow along if you like but there’s also no pressure to fall asleep.
I’m gonna be here for about an hour. There’s 299 other episodes ready to go so if you need to play them back-to-back-to-back you can do that. I’m here to keep you company as you drift off. If you can’t sleep, I’ll be here ‘til the very end to keep you company but ideally, for a lot of you, that means that you can just drift off along the way but they have plenty of time to do that. I’ll be over-analyzing the details of this game and pondering if I were to play it, what I would do. Also, I know I mentioned invitations at the beginning and I would say you know, invitations are probably not…I guess it depends on what the invitations are for. That could be something. Like, a lot of times I say no invitations in bed but I’d say well, invitations might not be…if you’re willing to, you say okay, let’s put it in limits though; you say okay, ten invitations. If you’re feeling excited about it and you’re saying…not the exact condo method but here’s a…what do they call that when you alter it for your own purposes?
Repurposing Condo; that’s my new book. How I Used Marie Condo’s Principles on Rocks and When I Play in the Dirt. That’s probably not going to be the official sub-title of the book. Or Condo’d: How I Took the Condo Method into My Condo. I don’t have a condo right now but I think that would be a good one. Condo’d. Let’s lock that one down ‘cause that’s definitely gonna be a title in five years people are gonna be after. Probably would be a good name for a podcast if we could…anyway, this is…I’m not…I was just saying let’s just say invitations are okay in bed if you’re feeling good about them. If there’s a limit, you say okay, I’m gonna do ten invitations to this tea party tonight; not that the tea party’s tonight. It’s in the future. Then you do a little condo-ing, for real. You say okay, I’m inviting Tammy. She brings me joy. This is one of the things I’m grateful…dear Tammy, can’t wait to see you at the tea party.
Don’t worry, I’ll cut the crusts off for you. FYI, I’m pretty sure tea sandwiches don’t have crusts. Love you lots, Lorlene. You know, that would be, actually, a good thing to use in combination. Another word we could create; condo…well, Condo Nation. There’s another thing. Let’s lock that one down. That’d be the Marie Condo Super Fancast or network of Marie Condo-related fan…Marie Condo-inspired fancast. We call ourselves Condo Nation. It’s a little close to con…anyway, because of my inability to pronounce words…that’s an idea for invitations. Here’s an idea; this is just an off-the-wall one but I’m always looking for stuff to make me feel better. Then this just popped into my mind but I think it’s…I’m always looking for sticky ideas. What if you…’cause there’s a lot of things with gratitude lists, right, and that’s a powerful bedtime technique.
We have a different program or Oprah, are two people that really are big on gratitude lists. Here’s an idea for a twist on a gratitude list…man, I’m coming up with titles for stuff. What if you send out imaginary invitations and invite them into the day tomorrow? I think this is just wacky but I think it actually…this is the kind of stuff I actually do at bedtime and then I try to…it’s like, you say well, these are the things I wanted to be grateful for today, or you could write it in perspective; if Koa was writing it, she’d say dear Scoots, or dear constant patting of your dog and multiple dog walks and extra treats, can’t wait to see you tomorrow all day. Really looking forward to it. I guess you could do it as thank you notes. I think that’s a popular thing. That could be another thing instead of doing a gratitude list, an imaginary…dear Dragonfly, thanks for buzzing by me today. It was great. You’re so sparkly. Love, Scoots.
That would be one I wouldn’t have written today unless I see a dragonfly. Dear Dragonfly I Imagined Flew By, you were pretty great. Maybe different than a regular…then I would send dear Dragonflies of the World, I know we don’t technically live in the same area and I don’t know if you’re seasonal or not but I’d love to see you tomorrow. I’m having a dragonfly party. I don’t have any idea what any dragonfly…you know, I don’t know any of the things you might like and I don’t want to be presumptuous but I’m going to bed so I can’t do any research but I hope to see you…I’ll be there tomorrow but if you don’t come, I totally get it. Also, I have an imaginary dragonfly just in case. Love, Scoots. I don’t know, there’s something that came out of nowhere but that actually might be useful. Hopefully someone out there can use that. I’m gonna try using it. Sometimes I’m facetious but this time I’m not.
Somebody remind me, this episode will be out months and months after I recorded it so it’ll be a good experiment; check in with me and see if I’m using that. The invitation method or the thank you…I know thank yous are a thing. Anyway, the main thing is, I’m really thankful you’re here. You’ve taken time, you’ve taken a risk to check this show out or to come back or to support the show on a regular basis and I really do…I’m really grateful for that. I would do something witty like write you a thank you note or an invitation but I really would just say it straightforward; I’m really glad you’re here. I really appreciate your time and attention and while this podcast doesn’t work for everybody, I really hope it does work for you because you do deserve a good night’s sleep. I’m glad you’re here. I work very hard; I yearn and I strive ‘cause I want to help put you to sleep or to be here as you drift off or if you can’t sleep.
Thanks so much. Here's a couple of cool ways we’re able to keep this podcast free for everybody. [00:20:00] Hey, I don’t know if you’ve checked out our merch store lately but you’d better get over there. We got stickers, we got a bore-friend shirt, we got a lot more stuff in the works plus all the merch you’ve come to love, stars on the rear-end of those sleepy pants and plenty more. Go over to sleepwithmepodcast.com/store. That’s sleepwithmepodcast.com/store, check out our merch, and let me know. When you get your swag on, let me know about it. Thanks, everybody. Alright everybody, welcome to an actual board game unboxing. We do these from time to time. So far, no one’s sent me a board game. I think one person, one company inquired one time to actually have us talk about a specific game. I said well, if you’re gonna choose that, then you probably have to pay me.
I still just buy my own games just so everybody knows. I usually buy them when they’re on sale and I buy them to play with either Antonio Banderas or my daughter. This game, I’ve played a version of it. Actually, I’ve never played the board game version of it. This is one where I’m going, have we done this before? Where I’ve gone from the modern era back to the board game era, which I think board games are still a modern-era thing, at least to me. Maybe I’ll talk about this but just for anybody who’s never heard one of these episodes, I’ll talk about a board game and then I’ll unbox it. I took the wrapping off but I have not…I literally have it in my hands and it’s a really nice box. The art is not exactly…totally bringing me into the game. But it’s heavy; it’s a heavy-duty box. Those are all good signs. It’s not really a playful game anyway, so that’s why the art is a little bit more…not real to life but the name of the game, it says Alan R…this is, I’m looking at the cover of the game.
We’ll do the top cover of the box and then I’ll talk about the top cover, then I’ll talk about my history with the game, and then flip it over, look at the back, open the box and go from there. The name of the game, or the cover of the game, it says Alan R. Moon and that’s in some cursive gold writing. Ticket to Ride which is in multiple fonts, like in a fun, ticket-to-ride theme park-type font and red lettering but with…behind it, I don’t know what that’s called, but multiple colors. Then it says New York. The N-E-W of New York is an American flag and the York, Y-O-R-K is all cursive. The Y-O-R-K is also kind of out of focus. The rest of flag, I think. Ticket to Ride: New York is the name of the game. It’s made by Days of Wonder. Then on the front cover is a cityscape of New York, looking down a street with an elevated train. I’m guessing, because I’m not good at guessing eras that it’s like, 1950s.
That’s only ‘cause one of the people looks like what’s his name from Grease or Fonzie from Happy Days, both of which are pop culture icons that I know not everybody knows. Then, there’s three other characters standing in the foreground. Everyone’s…three of the four characters are holding a ticket and then there’s a business person who has a ticket in their front pocket. Then, there’s also a cab driver pulling up, waving at us. There’s five humans, I guess we could call them, that we can see their faces. They’re all smiling. Actually, the businessperson’s not smiling; they have…they’re looking…they look like they’re about to splain something. The cab’s license plate reads DOW 218. It looks like it’s the 1950s, maybe. Could be anywhere from the 1950s to the 1970s, that’s how good…I can almost read the bus but I can’t quite. St. Johns, it maybe says. It’s actually not a…maybe it’s not a bus. Maybe it’s an electric street car.
There’s the subway, we can see the Chrysler Building and I think just the tower of the Empire State Building. That’s pretty much the cover of the game. Let’s see, what do we need to know? Oh, Ticket to Ride. Some of you are saying Ticket to Ride, oh boy, Scoots, that’s a classic. I don’t know where this game is most popular. I would assume it’s not the US but maybe it is the US. Because on the internet, I’ve encountered people that play Ticket to Ride but I’ve never encountered it in someone’s home or just in my small circle. I’m not friends with a ton of board gamers but I haven’t been anywhere where someone’s like let’s play…let’s sit down and play Ticket to Ride, but people do. My experience with Ticket to Ride, and I’ll try to keep this meander tight but you never know, I have a lot of experience with Ticket to Ride on the iPad or the iPhone. 99.9% of it is very positive except for the fact that they changed something around or something but I think I was…so, okay.
There’s a game called Ticket to Ride; let me explain that. Yeah, let’s do that. It’s a board game and then ideally, an iPad-based board game which actually makes it a lot easier to play. I’ve never played the board game version because there’s no setting up or organizing of the pieces, or the scoring is all automated. I don’t have the verbiage of the actual game in front of me so this is all off of my memories but I do play it on the regular, until they made a change to the app. Also, it kind of…oh, my phone gets old, too. But I would say if you’re thinking, Scoots, I’m looking for a new game. Like I said, I don’t have the most…newest version of the app so I can’t endorse it but I will say that it is an unbelievably good board game to play, to do pass-and-play with two or three people. I’ll give you the contextual parts of that coming up here. We have that, so basically, the game…my familiarity with Ticket to Ride was I heard about it probably on Life Hacker or somewhere.
I was like oh, okay, this is of all the great board games, you know, after Catan and Carcassonne or whatever. You know, the big dogs, which of course, my familiarity with those isn’t great, either, but Ticket to Ride’s usually up there. Not the top, top of the top, I mean, no offense to the game, but up there. Then, I think it’s a little bit more age-accessible ‘cause my daughter and I have been playing it for at least, I’d say, six years, maybe. Maybe even seven or eight years but again, I could be…all of this could be wrong. Okay, so…oh, what’s the game? Yeah, you’re right. The game of Ticket to Ride is a ticket to ride a train. It’s not really about riding the trains, though. The edition I play is a continental US edition and I think I tried to buy…again, I had some issues with the app and I may have tried to get a European edition or another edition ‘cause there’s other maps and other add-on versions of the game which would be very cool and make it more fun.
I’ve heard that some of the other editions are cool ‘cause they have tunnels and things like that but I haven’t played that, so one day. I don’t know what I’m waiting for. I mean, I guess ‘cause I have Carcassonne on my phone and my daughter and I have been playing that on and off when we have to wait for something, in a line, particularly. We still haven’t even figured…we’ve probably played like, eighty-five games of it and we still haven’t figured out exactly how to actually win, the scoring. But Ticket to Ride is much easier to figure out. Basically, you’re trying to be a train tycoon and build train lines across the continental US and you get certain cards. There’s different…I don’t know, I guess maybe the rules will come out in this in a little version but basically, you’re trying to connect cities. You get a couple cards…this is like, unboxing the game in my mind but you get a couple cards that are routes.
Let’s say you want to…you get a route to connect New York to Miami. Now, that’s pretty far and you probably have to…you’ll have to stop in some cities on the way. Then you have train cards that are in a variety of colors and you want to have…you have to have matching colors that match the…you’re trying to match colors and collect cards, and then connect those two cities. There’s a variety of ways to do that but if your card is connect New York to Miami, [00:30:00] you need to find a way to control a route between New York and Miami. I guess you could sell tickets on it. Then there’s other ways to add on points with longest route and you’re trying to obviously get more routes, and you get points for other stuff. That’s basically not the rules but a general idea. This game, so on the phone, I don’t know if they have…’cause again, I bought a early version of the app.
I think this was before Freemium, I think, so I can’t even be sure if I bought an early version of the app or if they went to a Freemium model or they had to pay a $0.99 version, or they just went with a premium model because this is a premium game. Even on the iPad, if I had a fully-functioning version with other maps, I’d have to say…somewhere between $10 and $20, it’s worth it. Also, World of Wonder send your cheques over here, or whatever the heck your company’s name is. They probably will say well, actually, the app rights are controlled by, you know, Laser Beam Enterprises. Okay, but this game is so good. It’s beautiful on the iPad and a little bit easier to read and stuff but it’s a really good pass-and-play game. The only criticism I would have is that there’s no timer and I tend to try to play really fast, and I’m not that patient, so then when I pass it to somebody else, sometimes they take their time calculating everything.
Because it’s kind of a strategy game, once you get down the basic rules, it’s more about…there’s not a brute force way to win. It’s always about taking risks and there’s randomness that evens…levels the playing field. Then, if you’re taking on more risk like holding out for certain cards or trying to connect really distant routes, in order to win, it is good to play with a kid that’s six, seven years old up to other adults, or a mix of those. Because it’s pass-and-play, especially if a few people are waiting in line, you can pass it between the people waiting in line. Now, we would also play with computer competitors which are not always the most intelligent but I feel like it just adds an extra challenge. Also, because there’s slight competitiveness to it, usually you’re competing more against the randomness. If you’re only playing with the people you’re pass-and-playing with, it can be the V-I-N-D-E-C-T…that word, where the competitiveness could manifest itself in taking property or something, like a monopolization.
You say well, I’m just gonna get that property so you can’t have it. I found having a full game…if two or three people are playing, having the rest of the roles filled by AI or whatever, of differing skills or whatever, or chaos-ness, it makes it better because it’s like, other people don’t try to watch what you’re doing and then say well, if I just block that, then that person will be SOL. But it really is a fun game and it really helps pass the time, especially if you’re waiting in line at a theme park as opposed to those friggin’ games that kids like, where you gotta embarrass yourself or do charades. This one is just much more focused. Like, Scoots, let’s just focus, let’s not draw attention to ourselves but let’s calculate. I don’t know, I really do find it a very enjoyable game, especially when the competition is robust; I really find it…and because the randomness. You could be constantly frustrated.
It kind of feels like…again, there’s a ticking clock but it’s more based on number of cards or something, or number of train cars you used. I don’t know, it’s a really good game. That’s my thing. Then I saw this game on sale, which I hadn’t heard of it; this is a two-player fast version of it and we’ll just go on the back…oh, okay, we’ll just go on the back to read it because this is where it’s supposed to be for promotion anyway. It says again, Alan R. Moon, Ticket to Ride: New York. Introducing a New York ticket to ride state of mind. Oh, and here's the air: Welcome to the 60s. Admire the stunning view from the Empire State Building, the world’s tallest skyscraper, or take a walk through the magnificent Central Park. Go from Times Square to Brooklyn to do some sight-seeing and enjoy. That’s the marketing…then the specific speak…that was in script. This is in type; In this fast-paced Ticket to Ride game…so fast-paced.
The other one is slow. Players race one another through the busy streets of New York City to visit the most prestigious tourist attractions and complete their Destination Tickets. This elegantly simple Ticket to Ride gameplay appeals to both beginners and seasoned players. Learn the game in three minutes; play it for hours! Exclamation point. It has a website; ticket2ridetogame.com. It contains one board game, one board map of New York transportation networks, sixty plastic taxis, fifteen in each color, forty-four transportation cards, eighteen Destination Ticket cards, one rule leaflet, one score pad, one pencil. Two to four players, you’ve got to be eight plus. Sorry, little kids. Ten to fifteen minutes per game, no zero-three, no little kids. It has Days of Wonder: Europe and then Days of Wonder: US. 2004 – 2018, so I could have played it as long…yeah, I could have played it a while ago and that’s about it.
Then I had some beautiful pictures of the cards and stuff like that, so that is the back of the game and it’s a square box. I’ll open it up now off of mic and then get back to you. Okay, so the first thing is like…is this the rules book? Oh, the rules book is made to look like a brochure, so I think that’s cool. It says welcome to the Big Apple, New York City. Introducing famous originals, so some internal New York jokes there. It has a watercolor in the background of Central Park and maybe Central Park West, a couple buildings. Then, opening it up, we won’t read through the rules but enjoy your visit going from Central Park to the Empire State Building and from Times Square to Brooklyn. It has yeah, everything that’s included. The setup, which you set…place the board game map in the center of the table; each player takes a set of plastic colored taxis. Shuffle the transportation cards.
Deal a starting hand of two cards to each player and then place the deck near the board, flip the top five cards from the deck, face-up. If by doing so, three of the five face-up cards are taxi cards, immediately discard all five cards and flip five new cards face-up to replace them. This is like the game where you could either draw from the flipped cards or a random card. That’s kind of thrilling ‘cause there is a wild card. Then you shuffle the Destination Tickets and deal two cards. You start off with two destinations, two cards to each player. Oh no; each player must look at their Destination Ticket cards and decides which one they wish to keep. You may keep one or both. If you choose to keep only one, the returned card is placed on the bottom of the Destination Ticket deck and then this is placed next to the board. You have to keep your Destination Tickets secret ‘til the end of the game. Yeah, again, in the box, it has everything.
Well, this’ll be good…I don’t want to go…well, we could go through all the rules. This is good. I’ll try to paraphrase. The object of the game is to score the most points, of course, and you score points by claiming a route between two adjacent locations, successfully completing a continuous path of routes between two locations on your Destination Tickets and by connecting tourist attractions. You also lose points for each of the Destination Ticket cards you do not complete by the end of the game. That’s like, the risk or reward if you’re trying to really win. Okay, the game turns; youngest player goes first. You go clockwise and you take turns ‘til the game ends. On your turn, you can only do one and only one of the following three actions: draw a transportation card, claim a route or draw Destination Tickets which is the same in the main game. Okay, so draw transportation cards.
Transportation cards match the route colors [00:40:00] on the board. There’s blue, green, black, pink, and red, and orange. Except for taxi cards which are wild cards, multi-colored, and they can replace any card when you’re claiming a route. You can have any number of transportation cards in your hand at any time but you can only draw them, obviously, one at a time. This action allows you to draw…oh, wait…oh, you get to draw two transportation cards. You can take the top card from the deck, a blind-draw, or you can take any one of the five face-up cards. In this case, immediately replace it with the top card on the deck. As an exception, if you take a face-up taxi card as your first card, you can’t take another card on your turn. You cannot take a face-up taxi card on your second turn, either…second card, either. That’s good clarity. Thank you, whoever wrote these instructions ‘cause these would be arguing points.
So, do you understand? You could take a taxi card but because it’s a wild card, you can only take one. Here’s just a pro tip that I’ve learned, is as you’re looking at this…there’ll be five cards face-up that you could choose from or you could choose to draw blind from the face-down card. This is your first risk/reward decision ‘cause there is a whatever, one in seven chance that the face-down card could be a wild card, or one of the colors you need. It’s kind of about are any of the colors you need face-up or are there two face-up colors you could take to start accumulating cards of one color? Is there a color you need, yes or no? If it’s yes, probably take that color, then on your second turn, decide well, the same thing. If, on your first turn, it’s no, there are no colors you need, then ask okay, are there two cards of the same color? ‘Cause then you could consecutively draw two red cards, for example.
This is just Scoots’ strategy coming at you for free. You could do that or you could draw from the face-down deck and then hope you get the color you need, or if there isn’t…either or, if there are two color cards, or two cards of matching colors, or there are not, you could draw from the deck and then hope you either get a wild card or a color you need, or a color that’s in the face-down deck on your first turn. You could also just say Scoots, every time you do that and it doesn’t work out ‘cause the majority of the time it’s not gonna work out. Really, what I try to do in the early phases…I’ll talk more about some of my strategy for the main game. It could be different for this game. My strategy is high-risk, especially at the beginning and then at the end. In the middle phase of the game, it’s like, accumulating phase. I guess my gameplay is four stages; first, well, let’s just say okay, I guess I got mixed up.
When you’re drawing, those are some ideas of how to draw cards. I always look at it…am I trying to accumulate cards or am I trying to take a risk? If it’s really early, you could take a risk to try to build up some wild cards and a healthy amount of things. Now, we’ll talk about the destinations in a minute. As an exception; if at any time three of the face-up cards are taxis, immediately discard all five cards and flip five new cards from the desk face-up to replace them. That happens automatically. I always wondered what triggered that so that’s interesting. When the deck is empty, shuffle the discarded cards to create a new transportation card deck. Okay, claim a route. A route is a set of spaces of the same color on the board that links to adjacent locations. I’ll talk about that when we open up the map. Some locations are connected by double routes; two routes of the same length connecting the same locations.
A single player cannot claim both routes of a double route, okay? In two-player games, once a route of a double route is claimed, oh wow, it’s locked down and cannot be claimed by the other player. That’s gonna cause trouble for me and Sophia, probably. To claim a route, you must discard a number of cards from your hand equal to the number of spaces of the route, and place a plastic taxi on each of those spaces. Most routes require a specific set of cards; for example, a blue route must be claimed by discarding blue transportation cards. There are grey routes, though; those can be claimed with any set of cards of one color. You can claim any open route on the board, even if it is not connected to a route you’ve previously claimed, but you cannot claim more than one route per turn. If you don’t have enough plastic taxis left to place one on each space, you can’t claim that route.
You can’t claim a route that is three places wrong. Then you could also use wild cards, right? They try to show some examples; okay, destination and ticket cards. Each destination card shows two locations and a point value. At the end of the game you score the point value of each destination card you’ve completed. To complete a destination, you have to connect the two locations listed on the card by creating a continuous path of routes you’ve claimed. Now, I’ll tell you that it can be as meandering or…and this is another pro tip on Ticket to Ride; you could go from New York to Toronto, to Cleveland to Chicago and then down through Texas and then over to Florida in a giant C, and then still, if you had New York to Miami and New York to Chicago, and Toronto to Louisiana. That’s one thing I like to do just ‘cause it’s clean and sometimes it doesn’t always win the longest route but I tell myself it's efficient.
It just brings me some joy, some condo-level joy too, of order. But I am decent at the game, I mean, when I’m playing against an eight-year old and limited AI computers. Okay, so connect the destinations; this action allows you to draw more…oh, you could have any number of Destination Ticket cards. If you take this action for your turn, you can draw more Destination Ticket cards. To do so, take two cards from the top of the Destination Ticket stack. You have to keep one of these cards and you can’t keep both of them. Any returned cards are placed on the bottom of the deck. You cannot discard a Destination Ticket once you’ve chosen to keep it. If there’s only one Destination Ticket card left in the deck, you can still do this action but you must keep the card. The destination cards, in their completion, must be kept. Even their completion must be kept secret from other players at the end of the game.
Here’s my one-time strategy; I don’t always do this but I might take my…I’ll see what destination cards I get to start the game and then I may take my first two or three turns drawing more Destination Ticket cards to see if I get lucky. What I mean by that is destinations that are overlapping. So, say you did have New York to Miami and then on your next turn, you draw destination cards and you happen to get like, Toronto to Atlanta. Then on the next turn, you happen to get New York to St. Louis or something. Those are all tickets in the same general direction so then you can really pile up some points. That’s the reward. The risk is that you could also get really unlucky and then you have New York to Miami, which is a pretty long route, and then say I also have New York to Las Angeles; then I might not draw ticket cards ‘cause it’s like oh, that’s gonna be tough.
Let’s say you just had a short route like New York to Boston. Then, on the next one, if you draw New York to Los Angeles, that’s gonna be tough. Or you draw Los Angeles to Salt Lake City or something; you say well, those aren’t even anywhere near each other. It’s just deciding your risk tolerance and stuff. Game end and final scoring; when a player has two or fewer plastic taxis left in their supply, each player, including that player, gets one last turn. Then the game ends and players calculate their final scores. First, each player scores points for the routes they claimed during the game based on the route scoring table printed on the board. Then, each player reveals their Destination Ticket cards, reveal…adds the value of each card they completed, subtracts the value of the ones they failed to complete. There’s your risk again. Finally, each player scores one point for each tourist attraction that is connected to one [00:50:00] or more of the routes they claimed.
Player with the most points win. In the case of a tie, the player who completed the most Destination Ticket cards wins. If players are still tied, then they share victory. Then, there’s an ad. If you enjoyed your visit to the Big Apple, how about traveling across the whole United States from New York to the Midwest Great Plains, to the Rocky Mountains, to the California Coast? Ticket to Ride, which is a game I must be talking about, is designed for two to five players, features a giant board with a rail network in North America at the dawn of the twentieth century. Then the credits; the game design is by Alan R. Moon. Illustrations are by Julien Deval. Graphic design is by Cyrille Daujean. Special thanks from Alan and DOW. To all those who play-tested the game, Janet Moon, Bobby West, Martha, Ian, Michelle, Scott, Aidan, Adrien, Lydia, Alicia, Jonathan, Casey, Emilee, Lawson, and Ryan. That’s the instructions.
Let me get out the board next. Okay, I just noted the score card is very small. It’s cute but it’s very small, the size of a business card, so for keeping score, that’s funny. Okay, so I’m opening the board and it’s lower Manhattan. It goes from Lincoln Center down to Brooklyn. That’s the only borough. Let’s see, it has a funny, fun grape soda…it has some cute designs on there. It has a fake soda cap on there, it has a New York City, the brochure, it has a ticket to a magic shop, or a magic show from 1925, another theatre show showtime, orchestra February 11th, 1961. Has a key to Room 1209 at the Wonders Hotel. Then, let’s see, down here…looks like it has a transportation…a couple different transportation tickets, and then it has the scoring thing. One taxi equals one point for a route. Two taxis equal two points, three taxis equal four points, and four taxi routes equals seven points.
You can see how they multiply and longer routes are more. Okay, so some of the ones…okay, this is something I don’t understand; some of them have circles with pennies which I assume means they’re a tourist attraction, maybe. But there’s a Lincoln Center that has a red circle. That’s the furthest west, northwest. Then, in the middle of Central Park…then south of Lincoln Center is Midtown West. Then, a little southeast of Midtown West is Chelsea, then south of Chelsea is SoHo, and at the southernmost point of the island is Wall Street. Then, heading south from Central Park is Times Square, then a little southeast is the Empire State building. A little bit more southeast, or due east from Times Square is United Nations. Southeast from the Empire State Building is Gramercy Park, then a little southwest of that is Greenwich Village, then east of that is East Village. South of the East Village is Lower East Side.
West, a little southwest, is Chinatown. Then south of Chinatown is Wall Street. Then, on the southeast of the map is Brooklyn. Those are all the things. I just don’t know what the pennies mean with the circles. It has a number one. Central Park, I would assume those are tourist attractions. Times Square, United Nations, Empire State Building, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, Chinatown, Wall Street, and Brooklyn all have the pennies with circles. Let me just bounce back and see if I could figure out what that means. I’m back opening up the Claim A Route; two routes. Most routes, specific sets of cards, draw transportation cards, connecting tourist attractions…oh, here it is. Finally, each…oh, yeah, it’s the penny…one point, it means one point. Each player scores tourist attractions connected to one or more other route. So, it just has to be connected to your routes.
Okay, so it looks like it comes with four colors of taxis; white, purple, a teal, and a yellow but what’s impress…and they all have their own bags but then also what’s impressive, is it looks like it comes with two extra taxis of each color in case you lose them, maybe. That’s interesting. I have…okay, I have the destination cards and the taxi cards in my hand. The unexposed side of the taxi cards is like a New York skyline with New York in cursive with a USA flag. We have the taxi…oh yeah, good question, how many taxis are there? We’ll count them. The taxi’s very 70s, like in the background with the multi-colors and bubbles. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight taxis. The next one is pink. It’s a pink kind of double-decker Greyhound-style bus. That’s pretty cool and very 70s too. Let’s see if there’s seven of those; one, two, three, four, five, six, yeah, six or seven. Then blue is a subway car. Let me just count those; one, two, three, four, five, six, six maybe.
Yeah, then the next one is green. It’s a city bus, like a 70s, 60s city bus with some green. Probably the same amount, six or seven of those. Then grey is a little bit rougher, so maybe the blue is an elevated train and then…I guess the silver is the elevated train. A little bit rougher silver subway car, in a black…the car is either black or silver or grey. Then, the red is electrified city bus, kind of like we see in San Francisco but a little bit more of a 70s. Then there’s orange which is your school bus. That’s pretty fun. I like that. That makes it a fun part of the game. Then we have the destination cards which I’ll count out; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. So, eighteen divided by four. I think it’s 4.5. That’s interesting when you play with four players, ‘cause that’ll definitely keep it interesting.
Now, the back side of the card, it says City of New York Board of Transportation, New York Transit System. Valid for twenty cents, one fare. It also has what looks like a subway token and a couple transit tickets on there. A little evocative. Then, it looks at the possible destinations and we’ll think strategy. The first one I see is Times Square to SoHo which is worth six points and then there’s also Times Square to East Village. This is what I’m talking about; these haven’t been shuffled. That’s four points. Then there’s Times Square to Brooklyn. Maybe I’ll shuffle these later and just see. Then we have a smaller route worth two points, the Lower East Side to Wall Street. Then, a six-point route, Chelsea to Wall Street. Then, an eight-point route, United Nations to Wall Street. I’m already seeing some opportunities for some big points. Then, Central Park to Midtown West is three points. Central Park to Gramercy Park is four points.
Central Park to Chinatown is eight points. Central Park to Chelsea is five. Then you have Lincoln Center to the Empire State Building is three. Lincoln Center…or, Empire State Building to Greenwich Village is three. Empire State Building to Brooklyn is seven. Chelsea to Brooklyn is eight. The UN to Midtown West is three, Gramercy Park to Chinatown; four. East Village to SoHo is four. Lincoln Center to Greenwich Village is six. Okay, so let’s do a little strategy session here. I’m gonna open the board up again and then we’ll just practice like if I was playing a game. Let’s just practice if in the first two or three turns after drawing…we won’t do any gameplay but just strategy of the destination cards. On [01:00:00] the first…I tried to shuffle the cards. Let me do one more deck switch. There, I cut the cards. So, let’s just pretend on my first…on the setup of the game, I got two transportation cards so I’m looking at them.
I got United Nations to Midtown West. The United Nations is in the upper-east side of the board and Midtown West is right across town, west. It’s only worth three points but it’s also…they’re grey, so there’s only one route to Times Square that’s grey. Then there’s a single grey route to connect Times Square to Midtown West. Also, United Nation…this is an extra thing to think about for me, is the United Nations and Times Square are tourist attractions so that’s an extra two points, I think, or maybe three points, depending on scoring. I would probably…that one is not a bad route because we’d have to think about it. The next one I got is Chelsea to Brooklyn. That’s an eight-pointer. Here’s the good news; Chelsea is only two routes south of Midtown West so I would probably end up keeping both of these because then I could try to connect Chelsea to Brooklyn, and then Chelsea to Midtown West, and the United Nations and then hope on our next two turns we get something that is in that area.
If this was my first beginning, I would just keep both these destination cards and then let’s pretend this is the first round. I’m gonna take more destination cards. Most people are gonna be actually doing things. Let’s see how we did; on our first round or so, what do we have here? We have…I got Central Park to Gramercy Park. This isn’t perfect but it’s not a disaster. So, Central Park is in the furthest north and Gramercy Park is…that’s a four-pointer. Gramercy Park is kind of in the mid-east of the map. That’s four points. It’s like, okay…I mean, I’ve never played this game before but now I’m saying okay, could I use that still? Yeah, I could go Central Park to United Nations to Gramercy Park. That’s a pretty nice route. Then maybe connect Gramercy Park to Chelsea somehow. Yeah, I could do that and then keep working my way towards Brooklyn. I definitely would keep that card, too.
Then, the next one I got is the Empire State Building to Greenwich Village. Now, everything…I would keep this one too because Greenwich Village is on the way to Brooklyn from Chelsea and the Empire State Building’s kind of in-between; it’s in the middle of the map. Now, I have four cards. I probably would stop at this point just because I say well, I gotta get from Chelsea to Brooklyn. That’s a pretty big distance. All the other routes are kind of short and they’re kind of near each other though they’re not interconnected. But let’s just say okay, well, I’m feeling like my competition’s strong here and if I take the next round, I could take two cards I could see and then I only have to keep one. It’s still early in the game. Then I just won’t worry about…then, the rest of the game I’ll play straight through. ‘Cause another thing I would do is do this and then see how fast I could complete all those routes and then if I’m looking like I’m…it’s a high chance I’m gonna complete it all, which I do by locking down any single routes I definitely need and then working my way out and trying to keep it one…just as efficient as I can.
Then I would probably start to take another destination card if it looks like the game’s gonna go on. But if I had a ton of destination cards, then I’m just gonna play the game out, probably. Let’s take the high-risk move here and take two more cards. Oh boy, I think we got very lucky because the two ones we got were Gramercy Park to Chinatown and we already have to get Gramercy Park and…well, that’s only four, though. Gramercy Park to Chinatown but Chinatown’s on the way to Brooklyn. We didn’t have Chinatown but we did have Gramercy Park. We already have Central Park, right, ‘cause the other card is the eight-pointer, Central Park to Chinatown, and we already have to…we might as well just keep both these cards. Now we’re like, this is gonna be a risky game now because we have…now I would start to order my cards. We have Chelsea to Brooklyn on the bottom.
We have Central Park to…this is where having a computer is a little bit easier but you just start to organize your cards. You say okay, United Nations to Midtown West. Central Park…we have to link that. If we’re only linking the small steps, okay, Gramercy Park to Chinatown. Then I’ll go with Chelsea to Brooklyn. We don’t really have to worry about Central Park to Chinatown because that’s gonna be connected as long as we’re doing our job. We gotta start to look at our weak points; do we have United Nations in there? We do, and Midtown West. Midtown West could be our problem area. The first thing we want to do is probably connect Central Park to United Nations. Brooklyn looks pretty good; there’s a lot of routes to Brooklyn, three ways to get to Brooklyn, all of which are near Chinatown. Greenwich Village to Chelsea is robust. I think our biggest risk right now is…well, okay, I do have a strategy.
We would get…our first priority of business is connecting Central Park to United Nations. We don’t have Times Square, right? You were right. We just have…then we would try to look at ideally connect the United Nations to Empire State Building. That’s a two black; Central Park to United Nations is three pink. Those would be on my critical watch list to say okay; we need pink and black trains. Then we want to connect probably the Empire State Building to Midtown West or to Chelsea to finish out those routes. That would be great. Then we say okay, if I could connect the Empire State Building to Midtown West, that’s two green. Then I almost don’t have…Chelsea’s pretty safe. Then we’d have the top half of the map locked up. We’d get three pink, two black, two green, and we’d have our top part of the map locked up. Then, we know we have to get…Gramercy Park we have to get to, which is another option with that.
We have to get Chelsea in there and Greenwich Village. I’d probably look at trying to connect Chelsea to Gramercy Park. I’d just go with whatever ‘cause we could connect to Midtown West or the Empire State Building, or the United Nations. There is two orange between Chelsea and Gramercy Park but there’s also ways to connect it to the Empire State Building so that’s pretty good. Once we have connect…either we have to connect some part of our monster route to either Chelsea or Gramercy Park, right? So, either way, if we connect one of those and it’s interconnected to our whole route, then alls we have to do is connect either Chelsea or Gramercy Park to Greenwich Village. We don’t have the East Village, right? So, we don’t have to worry about that. Oh boy, so then we’re in pretty much…I mean, I don’t want to start bragging but once we get Greenwich Village attached to…is that really it?
Wow, yeah, we would be…I don’t know how many trains you get. We could be in trouble for that, so I might’ve taken too many cards for that but then we really are in a dominant position because basically, alls we have to do is connect Greenwich Village to Chinatown and Brooklyn, and we could do that if we need to by indirect means because lower Manhattan is very busy. We could use…we could go a long route from Chelsea to SoHo, we could go from Greenwich Village to SoHo, we could go straight to Chinatown, we could go from Brooklyn to Wallstreet to Chinatown, we could go from Brooklyn to Wall Street to SoHo to Greenwich Village to Chinatown. If we needed to, I bet you those options would be more limited. We could go to the East Village in the Lower East Side. Yeah, I wouldn’t feel terrible about that. This would be a high…we would probably win the game but we would have to get kind of lucky.
On some of our card draws, we’d have to be very efficient in card-counting as far as okay, how many cards do other people have left? How many taxis are left? And putting down trains as we get them but locking down routes and making sure the other player’s not trying to block us ‘cause we wouldn’t want to lose any of those main northern routes, just ‘cause once those were locked down, then it starts to be inefficient. We want to try to place things efficiently but I would think we’d be in good shape. It would be really…how well are we getting lucky [01:10:00] with getting the colors we need? How aggressive is the other players? ‘Cause there’s sometimes players…especially the AI players that just start playing, playing, playing, and they’re putting down routes even if they’re not connecting destinations. They’re playing really fast and if you get a couple of those fast players, then we’re gonna be in last place.
This strategy that we played with that many destinations is really…it is a all-or-nothing thing but it wouldn’t be all-or-nothing right away. We would be in the game until the game ends and then we’d probably either win or come in last. But it is a kind of an aggressive play I do like to do for the bigger games. I probably would…and you’ll find out with this one; be like okay, there’s just not enough taxis and cards to go for that many destinations. Then you can adjust in the next game. That’s a little bit about this game, Ticket to Ride. It’s a great game. Buy the app version. Maybe I’ll buy the new…yeah, I’ll buy the new app version and let you know, so when this comes out, what the latest version is like so that yeah, you say okay Scoots, I’ll pay whatever, ten, twenty bucks. I mean, it’s definitely worth it to me. By the time this episode comes out, I’ll have played a lot of this home version so yeah, let me tuck you in there. I hope you have dreams of choo-choo-chooing and bus, bus, busing off to dreamland. Goodnight.
Alright, I wanted to thank everybody that commented on Castbox and YouTube but now I have to look up Castbox searching comments. Okay, someone asked why is the intro so long? They must not have liked it. Someone else…can’t even make out the words they’re saying. Okay, so that’s another…then someone…ain’t no party like a census party and the census party don’t stop. That was Chad, I think. Then another Chad, Chad B said yeah, my cats like to jump in bed when the Mystery Bard sings. A couple other people commented on that ‘cause they liked that comment. Then Daniel said love this one. This was pop…this is a pop sock…a pop…latest Pop Mop episode. Cindy said she can’t even last for ten minutes with that episode. Deandre says puts you to sleep. I can’t even make it through. Don’t even know what you’re talking about. Sawyer agrees in a good way. Stephanie wanted to lay in disliking the podcast.
Chad always sleeps better with it in the phone. Matt…people are very honest on here. Matt said it was awful but I guess…I think sometimes people think we’re getting paid for the listens or two, so then they get extra-mad, like I’m gonna unsubscribe. But it’s free, so…stutter…someone didn’t like the stutter on one of them but the podcast still helps them in general. Taylor was a new listener; they liked it. Wow, this is a bit like YouTube. Then John weighed in in different way. Eric weighed in positively and Archie; the podcast helps him. They learned a lot about…oh, they liked the Australia Sleepy Slang Tour. Zander slept for thirty minutes. Jazmine with a Z really fell asleep deeply and then Mary B said hey, here’s how you set a sleep timer. Good old Manny T commented…Manny T’s a regular commenter on how the podcast helps. Gemstone; they say jeez, I fell asleep really fast.
Jenny fell asleep, has been sleeping to the podcast for years. Jenny with a Y. Betsy likes listening…sorry, Bessie. I’m sorry, Bessie; falls asleep to it and started running for it. That’s actually funny ‘cause that’s one of the inspirations for the podcast for me, is before I started making the podcast, I listened to podcasts ‘cause I don’t enjoy running but it was tolerable when I would listen to a podcast ‘cause I’d be distracted. I’d have the thoughts in my head, and the podcast, and then running, so I wouldn’t have my thoughts about running. That was always helpful for me, so I agree. It’s like okay, then I can either have my internal monologue going or listen to a podcast but I don’t have my internal monologue going about…I’m not focused on the running part. I mean, I’m focused on where I’m going and stuff but not how much I loathe running. Anyway, thanks so much everybody for sharing about the podcast on Castbox.
I really appreciate it. Those positive comments were really a boost. It can be humbling though, like YouTube and now Castbox, you go on there and holy moly. But that’s great, ‘cause people get to express their honest opinion. That’s actually how the podcast grows and it doesn’t work for everybody. I mean, that’s just a natural thing. If it does work for you, or there’s any other podcasts in the world you love, please let people know about 'em. That’s really…only in the US, only 50% of people listen to a podcast at all. Growing that number’s going to help everybody ‘cause you say well jeez, when you find podcasts you love, it just makes your life richer. In this case, it hopefully helps you fall asleep, too. If you can, let someone know about the podcast. I’m gonna let you know about a podcast from Night Vale Presents right now. Take it away, Scoots.
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