The Game – On Tour

On Tour is going to be another roll and write, and a pretty straight forward one at that. In it, you are just trying to build out the best possible route for your band to tour. To do that, you need to plot a course around the states in the United States so that you have a path going from low to high. You are limited, though, as to where you can put your stops though, based off of location cards flipped each turn.

I knocked out two games of this in about an hour while chatting as we went. So without that, I could probably play a game in 10-15 minutes. And with the app, which there is a solid app, it is maybe 10 minutes to get through a game. If you want a high quality production roll and write but one that isn’t to challenging, On Tour is quite good.

The Drink

Nothing fancy this week, though, I guess I ended with a more interesting drink. The first was an Old Fashioned, nothing special about that. I drink those quite often. The second drink is Copper & Kings Cr&ftwerk Brandy which was aged in Oskar Blues Imperial IPA Barrel. I normally don’t have brandy, but I find that Cr&ftwerk, and in particular the IPA Barrel finished one, is nice for sipping.

Upcoming Streams

So, next week we are getting into a new schedule. In particular, we are going to be starting our new campaign game with Pathfinder Adventure Card Game in it’s newest edition. I am curious to try it and compare it to what I’ve played of the original game. And I do own some of the original game that I could play and stream as well.

But beyond that, I talked about some things that I wanted to do. In particular, that I want to stream every Monday, if I can. It’ll go between a conversation and maybe light game play like last night. To a Top 10 list, or maybe coverage of Kickstarters and Gamefound. To be determined on everything that it might be. But I want to start doing more coverage so that I can help Malts and Meeples grow more as well as Nerdologists.com. Let me know what type of content you would want to see?

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How To Play On Tour

On Tour is a simple route building game. You roll two dice, and get two numbers. Let’s say a seven and a two. So on your board you put down 27 in one spot and 72 in another. And you try and build up a route as long as possible connecting numbers in ascending order.

There are two things to know about how you do that. Firstly, you connect your route at the end of the game. So that means you don’t need to put those numbers next to existing numbers. And secondly, and as importantly, there are three cards flipped per roll. This affects where you can place the numbers. In the maps, US and Europe, it is split into North and South, and East and West.

Each of the cards also has a location on it. Generally a country or state depending on the map. And if you put the number in that specific location, you get to circle it as well. What do circles do? Well, they get you a point if you route goes through there. So let’s talk scoring. You get one point for each stop for your band. If the location is circled you get an extra point. Most points wins.

What Doesn’t Work?

The game play might be too simple for some gamers. I personally like it because it kind of has a push your luck to it. But All you do is flip cards and roll a die to figure out a route. There are no combos, there is no clever game play. So for some gamers, On Tour is going to be too simple.

I also think for some people the route connections at the end might be tricky. There is a limited number of spots that you can go, so that helps. But you look at your board full of numbers and it can be hard to find all the connections and what is your longest. I think it is useful for a second player to look at it and see what they can find.

What Works?

On Tour plays in a great arc. What do I mean with that? When you start the game, you push for things, like maybe pushing to get more circles. And as the map tightens up, the tensions increases. Towards the end you need specific numbers, and about half way through the game, you know where you’ll need them. So the game feels like the tension is growing as you play it.

I also think that the simplicity of the game works. Like I said, for some people who really want combos, the game will be too simple. But the game plays in a very smart way. It gives you this balance of risk and reward, like of like No Thanks that I wrote about yesterday. It really asks you how much you want to push your luck. Because a shorter route will score you more points than the player who pushed for a long route but missed one connection they needed.

This game also plays fast and scales well. It is, like many roll and writes, a game where the difference between solo and multiplayer doesn’t exist. What I do on my board doesn’t affect what you do. But we all play at the same time, so that means the game moves along really well. Yes, choices can be hard and slower in the middle of the game, but they are still limited well by the cards and dice, so even then it doesn’t take too long.

On Tour Final Thoughts

I really enjoy On Tour. Clearly if I own the app and I still wanted to own the game. And I think for a lot of people On Tour is going to work very well. It falls into that category of Railroad Ink for me. It is a challenging game, but it also isn’t too complicated. The difference is in Railroad Ink you need to think about four dice placement, and in On Tour, it’s just two numbers. So the options are more limited in On Tour.

I also think that a lot of people will like how fast the game plays, it really moves along quite nicely. But it doesn’t feel like it is too short, it feels like it’s the right length and really does give you that arc of game play. Where the tensions builds towards the middle of the game and into the end game. But the game itself doesn’t drag out too long. No one can optimize their last few placements or turns, because the game limits them.

My Grade: A
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: B+

I think this game probably skews a bit towards the more casual gamer. But I can see gamers liking this one as a palate cleanser between games. It is fast enough to be a filler, but for some groups it’ll be big enough to be the main course. For me, I know it’s a roll and write that won’t be leaving my collection.

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Now, On Tour is a game that I’ve only played in app form but one that I’m interested in getting a physical copy of. It’s a roll and write game where you are trying to plan out the best tour for your band across the United States. You can stop once in each state and to do so, you are putting a number of the states and you are trying to create a string of states where the numbers are increasing. That doesn’t sound too bad, but you have limiting factors as to where you can place those numbers, because you have cards that will determine what region that you can place the numbers, north, south, east or west. Along with that, the numbers can be pretty random. They are off of two ten sided dice, so each round those dice are rolled and you’re placing, if it was a 5 and 8 a 58 and 85 on the board. You can get bonus points if you place one of those numbers in on the city from the card that determines the region and it’s part of your route.

So the app itself, how is it. The App is pretty slick, it allows you to zoom on on the game board, so it works on a phone, it does all the end game scoring for you, though I have noticed that be wrong once, though, only once in 50+ games that I’ve played of it. And it gives you the ability to mark your route between places so that you can keep track of where you want to go and what numbers you need there. So I’ve only played this in the stand alone form because that’s what it was when the app launched. I know that there is some online play, but I haven’t dug into that yet. I like it because it’s so fast to play solo.

I don’t have any major negatives for the game. For me the whole game works slick as an app, and possibly better as an app. Now, obviously I said I haven’t played this in person. But with the scoring of the game, figuring out your longest and best route is not going to be easy. Just because this game, you’re going to have a ton of different options, so while you might know how the end route goes or the start, there are going to be spots where you have similar numbers by each other and circled cities that will give you the bonus points, so figuring out your path through that might be tricky. Now, with that said, I do want to get a physical copy of the game because I like the game a lot so I want to play it with more people.

Overall, if you’re looking for a good time filling app, this one fits the bill. On Tour is an enjoyable game that plays fast on the app. I will say, though, if you don’t like luck based games, this might not be the game for you. The dice rolls, while they are the same for everyone, and the card flips, give this game a high amount or randomness, because you might get the perfect roll but not be able to place the number or numbers where you need based off of the region. Since this isn’t a free app, it’s probably worth noting that before you pick it up. Personally, I like it quite well and it’s one that while I won’t play it all the time, I do always come back to it.

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