Welcome to The Game Shelf!

After getting into the board game hobby at the end of 2014, we've decided to share our thoughts on the games we're collecting on our shelves. The collection has certainly expanded over the last few years and we've been making up for lost time!

Sometimes our opinions differ, so Amy will be posting reviews every Tuesday and Fi will post on Thursdays. We hope you enjoy reading some of our opinions on board games - especially those for two players.

Get in touch by emailing thegameshelfblog@gmail.com

Wednesday 6 September 2017

Fi's Mum's First Impressions of Ticket to Ride: Germany

I've invited my mum to write a guest blog for The Game Shelf...She wanted to call it "Thoughts from the Menopausal Meeple" - let me know if you think this sounds like a catchy name?

I really appreciate that she's happy to play games with us when she visits and it was great to introduce her to something new. So, here are Gill's (un-edited) thoughts on Ticket to Ride: Germany after her first play!


So here I am staying at Fi and Amy’s for a few days, earning my keep by helping build Ikea furniture, cleaning, cooking meals and offering general home-styling advice.

After a particularly exhausting day in Brighton (yes I was allowed a leisure day) flexing my credit card and enjoying a deckchair siesta, I experienced first-hand the ‘delights’ of travelling by Southern Rail – delays due to a broken down train/trespassers. I returned back to base but no rest for good old mum though – I was promptly dispatched with a massive gin and tonic to prepare tea. Hot, sweaty and tired I was just ready to put my feet up when the words I had been dreading came ... “Let’s play a board game!”

Now, I am not a player of board games, I am a large gin and tonic with Coronation Street type of girl. However any family gathering with Fiona and Amy will obviously involve a board game or two. I have zero patience or understanding of rules etc but will lose at Blokus and Codenames, pretending I’m not bothered until it’s the 4th time of playing and I’ve still come last, and then I throw my teddy out of the cot and sulk in a corner.

Ticket to Ride Germany was proposed (another large G&T was offered as a bribe) and as it was pointed out that one Christmas in the dim and distant past I did actually win Ticket to Ride Europe (everyone either felt sorry for me or was more drunk than me). I therefore relented and agreed to give it a go.

Ok, the downside – as a non-game player I NEVER understand rules I cannot think ahead and I never have a strategy – I see Fiona and Amy making moves and decisions and cannot for the life of me see why.  With the German version I struggled with the complicated place names and couldn’t find them half of the time even with the cards showing me the location of the routes – this could, I admit, be gin-related and cannot be blamed on the makers of the game.

On the upside I got to collect men J. The more men I collected the more points I got and I seemed to be good at collecting men (unlike men in real life which I don’t collect very many of at all L) in fact I collected more men than Fi and Amy and this helped boost my otherwise appalling points score. I thought I had completed more routes than I had but somehow had missed middle sections of the routes so ended up with minus points (again don’t be put off by my experience as it could also be gin-related or a problem with the German language).

Ok so I lost again – I came last again - but the game wasn’t complicated and I did quite enjoy it - I enjoyed it more than the Europe version with tunnels etc which just blew my mind. If Fi and Amy suggest the game again I will give it a go but maybe with less gin.

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