| Game
Overview
Based on Jules Verne's famous story, Around
the World in 80 Days pits its players in
a race around the world in the early 20th
Century. The board is well designed in the
traditions of Ticket to Ride with a score
track around the outside. In addition to
the score track, the board consists of 10
city destinations and most importantly the
action track. For the most part it is the
action track that advances the play and
lends the game its strategy.
Each new destination requires that a cost
be paid in the form of transport (represented
by icons). This cost can be a train, boat
or combination of both - including multiples
of either. Travel cards depicting steam
boats and engines form the travel deck and
it is these cards that the players must
acquire in order to progress. The action
line consists of 6 different actions and
play can begin once a travel card is placed
under each of these actions. On a players
turn they choose one of the actions and
collect the card beneath it. In addition
they can use the special action they chose.
These include gaining gold coins, accessing
hot air balloon travel (ignore a travel
icon), moving the detective, gaining event
cards, getting to go first next turn and
trading travel cards for new ones. Once
an action has been taken in a round it cannot
be taken by another player. This makes the
clock (getting to go first in a round) fairly
popular. The detective is also nasty because
if you end your turn in the same city as
the detective you will lose two days travel.
The aim of Around the World is of course
to complete the journey in the shortest
possible time and the score track is used
to keep track of how many days each player
has taken to reach London. Each of the travel
cards has a value and it is the total of
these numbers that determine the length
of time needed to travel from one city to
another. For example playing a 4 train and
6 boat would cost a player 10 days in travel
time. However if a player can play 2 travel
cards of identical value (2 boats of value
8) they only use 8 days travel instead of
16. Unfortunately this only works with the
same type of transport (boats and boats
or trains and trains). Finally each city
has two bonus tokens placed next to it,
blue and red. These are awarded to the player
that reaches each city first and last. They
help reward those that take risks to reach
cities first and also help the last player
catch up to the pack. Not surprisingly this
helps make the finishes very close and this
is always a good thing.
That is the game in a nutshell. As soon
as a player reaches London the other players
must take a 1 day penalty every turn until
they reach the finish. This is an excellent
mechanic as it forces players to take risks
and not always wait for the perfect cards
to become available.
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