Madhujith Venkatakrishna
India
Bangalore
Karnataka
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Well,you don't get to really see Asia, but yes, you can see Asia's map and get familiar and go to possibly 10 different countries in 10 days! Well that's what this game is all about. Traveling! around Asia. I had read about this series i.e. the 10 Days series (it comes in 4 variants- 10 Days in Asia, Europe, Africa and USA) and some of them had mentioned that this was the best among the lot and a good introductory game for people into boardgames.
While I can't comment on how good the rest are, as I haven't played them, I agree to some extent that this can be a good introductory game for children rather than adults.
Before I go into the game- if you have kids at home, get the entire series, it can be a good geographical experience for them, they will surely learn to locate countries and can learn about their capital, population and the size :-)
What do you get in the Box?
For a light game, the box is very heavy! You'll see why :-)
* 78 tiles (57 Country tiles and 21 transportation tiles)
* 4 sets of wooden tile holders, 2 per set (this makes the box heavy). These wooden hilders have Day 1- Day 10 printed on them to keep the tile in the appropriate slot.
* A nicely printed map of Asia
The game is printed by Out of the Box and the quality of components is top class, though they could have made things light.
How does it Play?
* Players take tiles 10 of them from the face down draw pile and place them one after the the other without changing the order
* One placed they cannot be moved
* Place 3 tiles face up, which forms the discard pile
This is the initial setup and then the players start:
* On your turn, you pick up a tile either from the face down pile or from any of the face up discard pile
* You must place this tile by removing one tile from your tile holder, which is then discarded onto any of the 3 piles
* You may even discard the card you have just drawn
That's it, these are the rules. very simple right! The first to complete a logical route of 10 days is the winner!
Of course there are some aspects that needs to be adhered to while completing a route:
* Completed10 day journeys should start and end with country tiles and not transportion tiles
* 2 tiles from the same country may be included so long as they are not next to each other
* It is not necessary to include any trasnportation tiles in your route
* Transportation tiles cannot be placed next to each other
Now having said all these how do you connect?
* Any country that is adjacent can be traveled by road, so just keep it next to each other
* On the map is the rail route connecting countries and hence you can use a Rail tile to connect those 2 countries
* Each country has a color code (5 colors in all). So you can use a plane of appropriate color and connect it to another country of the same color. Eg. India (brown)- Brown plane- Russia (brown)
* Countries can be connected so long as they are on the same ocean i.e. Indian or Pacific.
So not fussy at all, pretty straight forward to learn and play :-) There is very little strategy or tactic as everything is based on tile draw, though some nasty things like placing a tile on one of the discard pile to prevent your opponent from getting a tile that you know he/she wants is a fun thing to do :-)
How long does it play?
With a really bad set of tile draws the game can extend upto 30 minutes, else 15-20 min is what you are looking at. Of course with 4 people, you can say it might be a 30 min game on an average. So pretty fast.
Who would you recommend it to?
Well I would say any household with young kids should have the entire set, just because parents can sit with kids, have fun and also learn some basic geography stuff! Otherwise I would say give this a skip as this becomes too boring with limited replayability.
Any Downsides?
Even casual gamers might not get into this game as it is too light (that's been my experience with my group). One say a very rare occasion you might get a play or two, but that's about it. With luck playing such an important role, very difficult to induce gamers into this game :-)
Final Thoughts!
Well, though this game is simple and fun, I would strongly recommend this to only families with kids as they can enjoy more than a grown up adult gaming group. But as a learning to know where countries are, this can be a fun game of and on! Try it if you get a chance before you buy! I would say for people with Children, get all the 4 games and play 40 days around the World!!
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Aaron Silverman
United States
Halfway between Castro and Mickey Mouse
Florida
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Actually, the 10 Days series can be pretty cool games for gamers, especially with 2 players, as you jockey over the discard piles. Give it a try!
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Madhujith Venkatakrishna
India
Bangalore
Karnataka
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Yes, I completely agree that that jockeying over the discard pile is the most interesting part of the game. I just mentioned that this game fizzles out as I had a lot of other good games with great mechanics. Of course I agree that this game is fun
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Kelly Krieble
United States
Bethlehem
Pennsylvania
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Seems like an enhanced version of "Rack-O". Is that a fair assessment?
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