Free Ride

The structure of this game is intriguing. Players gradually construct the network of railway lines between European cities. They use it to complete pick-up-and-deliver routes, choosing a pair of cards for the starting and finishing cities. It's these cards that score points at the end of the game. A neat touch is that duplicate cards score fewer points, so there's always an incentive to go to different cities.

Coins (earned by connecting particular cities on the edges of the board) are also worth points, so well worth collecting. However, you have to pay other players to use their lines. Only once, though, the line becomes free to use after that. This is an intriguing twist as players try to make the most of the free railways.

I do like a pick-up-and-deliver game and this is a particularly clever one. I was warned it was a counter-intuitive, tricky game to play, but I found it straightforward. Though winning is a different matter. And there's now a revised version played on a map of the USA: Free Ride USA.

Note: this is the English/German edition published by Friedemann's imprint, 2F Spiele, and only has the German title on the front of the box.

For 1-5 players, aged 10+, playing time 50-90 minutes

Free Ride was designed by Friedemann Friese and is published by 2F Spiele

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