Super Trains
- Board's Eye View
- 47 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Designed by Dustin McMillian and published by Treasure Falls, Super Trains: First Ride is a family-friendly pick-up-and-deliver game. It comes with a set of chunky all-different anthropomorphic train engine models, reminiscent of those from Thomas the Tank Engine, and art is by Jamie Armstrong.
The 2-5 players are moving their engines around the board to its various locations delivering passengers and cargoes to their destinations. The cargo cards score more points but they also require you to hand in specific colour gear tokens. These aren't too difficult to come by because you roll a custom six-sided die each turn and fill up to your capacity in gears for whatever you roll, and you also get a gear of whatever colour other players roll on their turn. Delivered cards 'upgrade' your train; increasing the number of gears it can accommodate.
There's more... The players can always move their trains along the tracks by up to five spaces but there's also a roll & move element to the game; not for the players but for their arch-enemy 'Rollar'; a standee that advances one space up or one space to the right when that movement symbol is rolled on their custom die. Rollar loops round to the opposite end of the board when it reaches the edge and wherever it ends up it blocks the movement of the other trains. The Rollar die has an 'emergency' icon on four sides and when that is rolled you place out, face down, one of the emergency cards at whichever location is rolled. You can't deliver passengers or cargo to a location with an emergency card so the emergencies have to be 'solved' (ie: dealt with). Again this will mean handing in the requisite gear tokens; tho' you won't know what specific tokens are needed until your train reaches that location. Meet the emergency card's requirements and you take that card, which, like the passenger and cargo cards, will be worth end-game points.
Unless you're kitted out with a gears of all colours, there can be a push-your-luck element to 'solving' an emergency because failure gains you a damage token worth a negative point. But tho' this is a competitive game, there's the semblance of cooperation because, provided you have at least one of the required gear tokens, other players can contribute the token(s) you are missing. You still gain the card but any players that helped you draw a 'Kind Train' card which will either be worth points or which will give them a single-use special effect. Super Trains is designed to appeal to children and this semi-cooperative element adds to the game's family-friendly feel.
There's a lot here that children will find appealing, especially if they are Thomas the Tank Engine fans. Our main gripe is that the locations aren't marked clearly enough on the board; they're distinguished by colour and we'd have preferred it if the board also gave us the text or an icon for the location. That may cause some confusion but only on a first play; once you're up and running then it'll be full steam ahead (and likewise for the electric and diesel powered trains).
