Trailblazers

Now, let’s talk about what drew me to Trailblazers. When someone mentions a solo game it isn’t like I automatically go out and buy it. Though with my game collection you might think so. But, no, I do look into games and figure out if I’d like it.

What works for me, or I should say, interested me is the route building and card laying. I like games where you are creating paths. I also like it when you can overlay cards, to improve what you are doing. It’s a multilayer strategy, really, to get a good score in the game. Because you might do a less than ideal play with the plan to overlay it to get a great play in the game. And I utilized it a few times.

And there is a twist that I really like. I really like that you don’t start with all your main locations on the board. You build out trails one round around either rivers, hiking trails or kayaks. Then you build the next round about the one you had and a second one. Final two rounds all three of them. So you add in decision space as you go. But you also lose decision space as you go because you’ll have surrounded locations.

I also enjoy the solo play. As I said in the stream, it’s a drafting game. But to simulate the drafting you go from a hand of eight cards down to four. That makes it closer to a multiplayer game of Trailblazers which I think that sometimes the solo version of the game lacking in that. And I also like the scaling of the solo play. It isn’t beat your score, it’s beat your score and add in other challenges to make it harder or trickier.

Upcoming Streams

So tomorrow at 8 PM Central, join me for 90 through 81 of my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition. You can find the link to that here. See what games make that section of the list. I believe that there are some new games and definitely some games that have moved around on my list from last year. So see how the new list compares. And that’ll be every Wednesday for a little while, possible week off around Thanksgiving, so into December.

And then on Monday, join me for another solo board game. There is a chance I might just play Trailblazers again because I enjoyed it that much. But more likely, now that I’m remembering, it’ll be opening up Doctor Who Magic the Gathering set. I should have a collectors box in to open up, though maybe I’ll try to find another time to open it so I can keep up with my solo gaming. I have other games like Number Drop and Iron Helm that I want to get to the table as well.

But the best way, if you want to know when I go live or a new video goes up (it’s basically always live), please consider subscribing. You can do that here. And click that notification bell on the channel and you’ll always know when I go live.

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Recently games like Deadly Doodles, Ganz Schon Clever, and MetroX hit the table for those solo plays. Railroad Ink is a new game that is in the mix. I sat down and learned how to play and played several games in one evening. However, I need to play it more because I only played the base version.

The Game

Railroad Ink, as I said, is a roll and write game. In it you try to connect rail and road routes together to create an interconnected network. That doesn’t seem like it’s too hard. You, however, can’t transition between road and rail at random. And, of course, the dice rolls are random as well. This makes it a whole lot more of a puzzle. Like Deadly Doodles you track your rounds as well, so there is always more that you want to get done than you can get done.

Game Play

In the base game, it is a very simple game. You roll dice, and you put them on the board. The main tricks come in when you are trying to build long routes to score more points in both road and rail, and you are trying to keep as few open connection as possible so you don’t lose more points at the end of the game.

Now, I think diving into the mini expansions, which just add some small dice, would be easy enough to do from the start. But I wanted to learn it at it’s simplest first, and it was late at night. But I like that you can keep it so simple, that means that it is very accessible for new gamers or people who maybe don’t want that added complexity to the game.

The Components

This game has really nice components. Even the box it self is very nice as it’s a flip open box with a magnetic latch. It doesn’t have sheets of paper you use, instead it’s dry erase out of the box, which I really like. I wish that all roll and write games did that, but the ones, like Welcome To… which can scale infinitely, I get why they don’t do that. The markers seem good as well, so no complaints at all about the components. Even the dice, which sometimes are overlooked as an upgrade in a roll and write game are really nice.

Comparisons

So when looking at other roll and write games, I think that Railroad Ink stacks up quite well. The game play is fast, and everyone is always doing something. Turn based roll and writes generally are going to hit the table less for me. Now, some make it matter like the Clever line of games, you use one die per turn, but there still are turns. Games like Railroad Ink, MetroX, Deadly Doodles, Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade, Second Chance all keep you playing at the same time. With adding in the expansion dice, I expect that Railroad Ink will continue to be a pretty simple game but offer a few more choices as well.

Initial Thoughts

I like Railroad Ink. No real surprise there, I like most roll and write games that I’ve played. But Railroad Ink is more accessible than some, and while it won’t be the game for everyone, especially just out of the box, I think that a roll and write fan will like it quite well. I also like that I knocked out three games of it in half an hour or maybe forty-five minutes, and that included learning the game. It seems like a fast teach, so one that I can get to the table easily whenever I want.

Have you played Railroad Ink? How does it compare to other roll and write games for you?

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