Pretty soon you'll be laying track just about wherever you go
Just yesterday, a freshly-discounted Scribblenuats Remix stormed the App Store and de-throned the venerable Angry Birds. Now a new challenger has entered the mix with a strong fan base and similar under-a-buck pricing. Days of Wonder has launched an iPhone version of their hit board game Ticket to Ride, which has already sold over 2 million physical copies and had its iPad version named Apple's Game of the Week. Now the only remaining question is how much mainstream success this hobby gaming hit can have as it attempt to climb the App Store ladder.
Ticket to Ride Pocket includes the standard USA map and three game modes: solo, pass-and-play multiplayer, and local wifi multiplayer. Separate leaderboards for the 2-3 and 4-5 player modes, as well as 20 achievements, are included to spur score-based competition among your friends.
A sneak peek at the Game Center enabled achievements screen
The only absent feature is online multiplayer, which Days of Wonder addressed in their press release, stating "Online play has been purposely omitted to prevent the interruptions inherent to mobile devices that would otherwise mar the online game experience for other Mac, PC and iPad players." While the existing player community will be relieved to not be bombarded with dropped connections, it is unfortunate that a more elegant solution could not be achieved to allow iPhone players to participate in some form of online play.
For those unfamiliar, Ticket to Ride is a railroad-building board game where players collect matching sets of cards and use them to connect cities on a map. The longer the connection, the more points are earned. Players are also given specific city pairings, which are kept secret from other players, and can grant significant bonuses if they are connected.
Ticket to Ride is a prototypical European-style board game in that it can be taught in just a few minutes, has fast-moving turns, and lasts only 60 minutes (although digital matches can transpire in a quarter of this time). As such, it's a frequent ambassador of the hobby, and its previous successes come as no surprise.
Publisher Days of Wonder is quickly becoming known for their digital versions of popular board games, but the iPhone represents a new venture. Ticket to Ride has previously been seen on the iPad, Xbox 360, and in-browser at http://www.daysofwonder.com/en/play/. Other titles such as Small World and Memoir '44 have gone digital, but none have yet made the leap to iPhone.
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