In Rack-O some of the cards have abilities that players can take when they discard those cards from their rack. When it comes to deckbuilding games, many can point towards Dominion as one of the classics up towards Marvel Legendary. or Love Letter), but it is nice in the way it feels like you are playing a classic card game with a twist to bolster its appeal. Regardless, you definitely won’t mind the gap between your turns – there is very little downtime in Game of Trains. There are 16 piles of cards to arrange in a common area; 8 of these are static from game to game, while the other 8 are determined randomly through the use of an included randomizer deck.

In the game, players are tasked with transporting passengers along a railway before their opponents. If you’ve thought about Dominion, but weren’t really intrigued by it’s dry theme, you should really give Trains a shot. From laying down rails, expanding into rivers and mountains, to building stations and even putting down a rail with another person, you gain a Waste card, giving you nothing but an extra card of nothing.The core of the game is a deckbuilder: you start with a tiny deck of basic Normal Train cards, some Lay Rails cards, and a Station Expansion. These 500 cards come in 39 unique flavors; 200 of them belong to the 8 “always available” cards that are involved in every game and the Normal Train cards included in players starting hands.

These force every player to discard a specified carriage and replace it with one from the draw pile. Note that the Japan and Osaka boards contain un-crossable bodies of water, but they’re clumped together in a corner of the board and serve only to make space a little more precious. It’s not the kind of game I’m always in the mood for–I prefer games with a little more meat on their bones–and I won’t often suggest it with my regular gaming groups, but it’s one I’m always willing to play because there are meaningful decisions in the game, the art is pleasant to look at, and I find the puzzle in the game a fun one to solve, especially since the whole game, start to finish, doesn’t take very long to play and doesn’t involve much rules-learning investment from the players. In Trains, players act as burgeoning industrial planners seeking out the most valuable routes for their high-speed railways and stations.However, I did enjoy my plays and it is good enough to be added to my case of travel games I like to carry around in the back of the car. To win the aim is for a player to have 7 carriage cards arranged, from the engine, lowest to highest, at the end of his turn. Actions include things like swapping cards in the lineup, moving cards in the lineup, forcing every player to discard a specific card in their lineup, or protecting a card from discard.

There are 3 types of cards in your base deck: Normal Train, only useful as the game’s monetary unit; Lay Rails, your means to expand into adjacent areas; and Station Expansion, necessary to build the stations that will score victory points at the end of the game. Many cards have both a purchasing figure and an action or effect – these cards may be used for both purposes when played. A deckbuilder at heart, it gives players the opportunity to build a network of delays through a hand of trains and rails. Finally, 30 neutral-colored wooden Station markers are placed near the board for use by all players.

This game has subtle enough strategies that I think it would appeal to “Strategy Gamers” and “Avid Gamers”. Players will get an engine card, which only states where the front of their train is and are then randomly dealt 7 carriage cards, which they will arrange from highest to lowest from their engine. This is not a good game to play after you have become accustomed to (and addicted to) games that require attention to multiple areas – think Agricola. You can either take a card from the deck and replace any existing carriage with the one you have just drawn, or you can use the ability of one of the face up cards next to the draw pile. My 8 year old also played but did need a little help, I think with a bit more practice she would be fine, but the train theme had less of an appeal to her.