How to introduce your friends and family to board gaming 101

We’ve all loved some classic games growing up, but here at Mind Games Melbourne we know that there’s a wild world of exciting new possibilities in board gaming, with many fresh new titles coming out each year! We also know that sometimes getting friends and family to join you on this exciting journey of discovery can feel like pulling teeth. Seriously, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it give Mysterium a fair go. Geez…

With that in mind, today we recommend a “gateway game” into the fun addiction that is board games. With a play time of only 30-60 minutes (dang, that’s not too long!), player recommendation of 2-5 (and such a versatile player count!) and a difficulty rating of 1.8/5 (that’s only 0.2 higher than monopoly y’all!) we present - Ticket to Ride!

Ticket to Ride is a charmingly simple game about building train routes between cities in the USA or Europe (or if you can find the right version or expansion - Germany, India, Italy, Japan, or many other options!). The game is as simple as choosing one of three options for your turn: 1. Pick up coloured train cards (these are your currency) 2. Play down cards that match an unclaimed track on the board to get points (for example, a track that is three red rectangles long costs three red cards) 3. Pick up a destination card which gives you extra points if you can connect two specific cities (but if you can’t do it you lose those points instead of gaining them).

That’s all there is to it! How you choose to play within these rules though is entirely up to you. Do you watch your opponent to try and beat them to tracks they’re trying to build and foil their cunning plan? Are you going to think long-term, saving up cards and then playing them down in quick succession? Do you throw caution to the wind and lay down tracks wherever you happen to be able to, seizing any chance you see? It’s entirely up to you, and each game offers different opportunities for different strategies to win!

Get the most points before any players’ trains run out to win the game!

Thinking Ticket to Ride might sound like the game for you? It’s available now from our affiliate online store Gumnut.com.au

Ticket to Ride: semi-guaranteed to be your first step towards getting your friends and family into Dune, Twilight Imperium, Tapestry, Arkham Horror, Lisboa… the possibilities aren’t quite endless but I swear if I have to be locked down playing Monopoly one more time I’m gonna scream…