Yesterday was another solo game from Button Shy Games on Malts and Meeples. This time it was The Royal Limited by Scott Almes. Like all the rest of them, this is a game that uses 18 cards total and is going to offer you a challenge or a puzzle to complete. But the question is, for me, is the game going to be good? So let’s look at the game play and then talk about how the game works and if The Royal Limited is good or not.

How To Play The Royal Limited

In The Royal Limited you play four turns and you need to get all of your cards, or all but one into your train either as passengers or as train cars to win at the highest level of the game. If you score four or more points, you lose the game. And two or three points, you’re just starting out as a conductor, so you’ll get better.

Trains and Passengers

How do you get cards out as train cars or passengers? Both are fairly simple to do, but you need train cars before you need passengers so we’ll talk about that one first. To play out a train you pick the card you want to play. The first one can be any card. Then you discard cards totally the number on the train car, so if it’s a three, three cards. Each additional card follows that same rule plus the additional one that it can’t match the color or number of the previous train car.

For playing passengers, most of them are very simple. You either need to match the color or the number to play a passenger onto that train car. There are two VIP passengers as well per game and they have additional special rules. So before they can be placed, you need to meet their conditions. They might have a specific color or be wild when it comes to placement. Each train car only can have a single passenger.

Activating Train Cars

When you play out a passenger you then activate the ability on the train that you play the passenger to. You must do the ability on the card if you are able. There are even some that are more specific than that. They give an ability and then a “next” ability. You must do that ability next and complete. If you are not able to complete that ability, then your turn ends and you draw back up to five cards in your hand.

When you turn does end, either because you can’t play more cards or because you don’t have any or don’t want to, you draw back up to five cards. When you tick down your timer. Then you end a turn and would begin your next turn and the “Train Departed” is at the top of the card, the position marking the turn, the game is over. You then count up the number of train cars/passengers that you didn’t use and the number of VIP passengers you didn’t get played and that determines your score.

What Doesn’t Work

Honestly, I don’t really have complaints about this one. The train maybe gets a little bit wide but with the cards overlapping I think I could fit it onto a TV tray. And that’s about it that I can find that might be an issue, and that’s only a very specific issue of it might not work on an airplane tray, but it also might as I haven’t tested it out.

What Works

Firstly the speed of this game is amazing. I talk while I play and I do intros, grab a drink, and then did some mini thoughts at the end of the video, and it’s a 38 minute video for five games. So the game just flies by, I know it says twenty minutes, I think it’s a ten minute max game.

I really like how the VIP passengers are double sided. I thought that maybe it would start to feel the same with the passengers, but with eight total passengers there are a ton of combinations that you can play. And the more challenging those VIP passengers are, I think it makes the game itself more interesting because I want to or need to to win the game, figure out how to get at least one VIP into play.

And I like the abilities on the cards. Sometimes they are good, and that’s great for you. But sometimes you look at it, especially final round, and it’s discard a card or put a card on top of the deck. Well, you do both of those, you are at a minimum of two cards that you won’t be able to play, and then you’ll just be a beginner conductor.

Final Thoughts on The Royal Limited

I’m skipping the who this is for. If you like solo games, you probably know from the description if you’ll like this game. If you know someone who likes solo games, it’s cheap, get them it and see if they like it.

But I did very much enjoy this game. I think one of the elements that I really liked is the simplicity of play. The powers are the main thing you need to remember, and that’s just part of playing a passenger is using the cars power. It’s not like some of the Button Shy solo games where it’s a bit challenging to keep it straight in the tiny rule books.

This game is fast and easy to learn. That is always going to work for a solo game for me. And I didn’t feel like the challenge was too light. I need to think about what I’m doing, you saw me rewind a move once or twice. But it is not a game where you need to think and agonize over everything. So I see it as that kind of palette cleanser solo game. When you want that brain reset or refresh to happen, I would grab The Royal Limited.

My Grade: B+
Strategy: B+
Luck: C-

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