Ticket to Ride: First Journey (iOS) Review

By Luna Eriksson 01.10.2017

Review for Ticket to Ride: First Journey on iOS

The classic board game Ticket to Ride's younger sibling Ticket to Ride: First Journey launches on iOS in its original shape, and it is meant to bring children into the hobby of board gaming, and especially into the Ticket to Ride line with it's many expansions and base products. This version comes with both the American and European edition to teach children a little bit of geography as well. Will this be an enjoyable ride?

The junior edition of the famous track building game Ticket to Ride has made it to the app store in its full glory. It offers everything the physical copy has, but in digital format for easier on-the-go gameplay, as well as the ability to play solo, which is a really great feature for this version.

The goal is to build tracks by playing same coloured cards to connect the cities on the tickets given to the player, first to six tickets wins, and there are some bonus points to be gained by a feature called coast to coast which rewards players for connecting the coasts, a feat that is sure to cost more than a couple of turns normally. Ticket to Ride: First Journey is a light version of the original, similar to Monopoly Junior. While this might make it into a great entry point to board gaming, it comes at the cost of the gameplay for more seasoned gamers.

Experienced players might get annoyed by the fact that too much of it all is going to be settled due to luck of someone drawing into two or even three scoring tickets in a row, snatching victory out of nowhere. Others might also be annoyed that many choices given in the full game has been removed, such as the train line that players can pick from instead of drawing from the train deck if desired.

Screenshot for Ticket to Ride: First Journey on iOS

It can easily be argued that the gain in simplicity due to these changes is minor as the original Ticket to Ride is by no means a complicated game to play, and if holding back a bit can easily be enjoyed with children as a grown-up. However, as this is an app it is quite easy to let the child play and learn the game on their own in a neat manner, or simply playing with a sibling without having to worry about any of them swallowing those colourful train pieces.

There is, however, a couple of problems with this. First, the sometimes really long animations that show which line has been created, and, second, the difficulty to see one of the most important parts of this: wow many train cards the opponent has in hand. Both of these issues can become really annoying after a while, especially as this part is very relevant later on in the game to weight in whenever or not to draw trains or digging for better tickets.

All in all, Ticket to Ride: First Journey is a faithful digital version of the board game that is extremely good as an application as it removes tiny parts, and makes it easy for children to play on their own versus AI opponents if the parent is busy. It is a good entry port to the franchise. Experienced or older players, however, are strongly recommended to try the original Ticket to Ride, as victory in Ticket to Ride: First Journey is a little bit too dependent on luck and there are a couple of choices too few for people looking for a deeper experience.

Screenshot for Ticket to Ride: First Journey on iOS

Cubed3 Rating

7/10
Rated 7 out of 10

Very Good - Bronze Award

Rated 7 out of 10

Ticket to Ride: First Journey is to Ticket to Ride what Monopoly Junior is for Monopoly. For children with no prior board gaming experience it's going to be a great entry point into the hobby, but for experienced and/or older folks the original is definitely a better choice, as this version is too RNG-dependent.

Developer

Payoff Technologies

Publisher

Asmodee

Genre

Strategy

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  7/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date None   Australian release date Out now   

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