Free Ride Review - with Chris and Wendy Yi
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- Опубліковано 5 вер 2024
- Chris and Wendy Yi take a look at Free Ride, a train game designed by Friedemann Friese.
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BGG Link: boardgamegeek....
Chris, check out how i fixed the same problem you had with some dice (in my overview). Makes it a million times more enjoyable!
I was going to suggest your video. And, during Eric Martin’s first play at BGG Con they came up with a cube color system and just left them in the box for the other attendees. It’s not as good as it having colors in the game, but there are quick options if you have other games around to borrow colors from.
I just played this game at Geekway To The West in St. Louis, MO. Our game was at 6 players and it didn’t feel congested and no one person racked up tons of money because their route was the best, the simple one time and then a public route gimmick really worked. It was tough to be at the right place at the right time to get tickets. Typically one or sometimes two people would be closer or even race and be able to snag it. Simple and quick paced game indeed.
We did have the readability issues, both the map and locating the cities and connecting the routes. I don’t think the map needs colored sections or anything, simple color coded flags was our idea. First column of cards is (insert color) and the first card is 1, second is 2, third is 3, repeat for the other columns per player count making sure each column gets a different colored flag. Then place the colored flags on the cities in the 1, 2, 3, order and when a train arrives at the colored route at the 2nd card, pick up the 1 card flag leaving the 3rd card flag on the board and the player knows where to go. Repeat this process for each new route that comes out and all players can help set out the flags and the owner of the route picks up the one flag they don’t need from the 1, 2, 3 city cards.
That game sounds like a lot of fun for me, as I do know all the locations as native German. But what is the point to buy it when everyone else at the table has problems and no fun playing :( What a missed opportunity to make an excellent game for everyone :( Thanks for the honest review!
Another great duo review - Chris and Wendy showing off what excellent additions they make to the Dice Tower lineup :)
I love Ticket to Ride (TTR) and train game themes. I understand from your review and others that there is a flaw with the design and lack of visual cues. I think there are some workarounds for it. Nor is the artwork exciting as table presence. It would be nice to have a similar or step up game to TTR. Still giving this game consideration as a purchase.
Great review! Reminds me of TTR Europe in that it can be hard to remember where all the cities are and you might have to keep looking at your routes and scanning the board. I still love the game though.
Great review! Always appreciate getting the perspectives from both of you around what you enjoyed and what was a challenge. This game is definitely a hard pass for me given the readability issues. Maybe they’ll fix that somehow in the future.
Fantastic review guys!!!
I played this on Tabletopia where being able to zoom in on the cards area when needed and get close up to the board if needed and such made it easier to find my way around. Also I'm European, so there's that privilege to factor in, but I didn't find it an issue. I might have had issues in a real-world game though, so the cubes/dice hack mentioned elsewhere in the comments here sounds interesting to me.
it should have been called Free Freight from Friedemann Friese
ordering some sharpie colored highlighters now!
I had a similar experience. Thought the game was fantastic but I will never play it again until they fix the visual cue issues. It's so tedious otherwise
This European had to look up where Zagreb was.
I've seen people use dice or cubes or other markers to help track the locations and routes. It adds a bit of time when the cards come out, but it sounds like it makes the game play much easier.
I might consider coloring on the cards AND doing the cubes/dice thing. It just blows my mind regions aren't color-coded, something that was even done right in the original printing of Risk.
Such a bummer. It looks really good but without the color organization it is a pass for me. And that’s not from groupthink. Looking over at the cards seems like it would be such a pain.
Its so sad to see this glaring problem in production.
It does feel like this guy can’t win though. I have faiyum which i find is incredibly easy to see what everything is and it has great components but then people hated on that too.
Daiyum, what did those people hate about that game?
@@revimfadli4666 mostly that the art is too simple and the components are super basic wood blocks of different size ,shape and colour. But it makes it very usable and you can clearly know what everything is.
It does come with crockameeples which i 100% enjoy.
I ended up 3d printing components for my copy cause i think the game deserves the upgrade.
I think Game Boy Geek had a clever fix for the usability issues using dice.
W. Eric Martin had the same hack; cubes instead of dice but it was the same idea.
Reminds me of Risk. Short easy turns can make things bland
I'm good at geography and I still have issues with maps like this. Especially the farther east you go. There are actually two reasons this is dumb, because colored regions would also make this map far less boring! Ugh!
BTW, Chris, in case you care (you probably do)... Once you get into Germany, most of what's east of that pronounces Ws like our Vs, even at the end of words. (I was in Krakow and kept calling it Krakk-kow until I went to a WWII museum and read how much they hated the German spelling and pronunciation of their name, which was Krakau. Krakk-kow has Nazi connotations so I've become very cognizant of that final W... So I think it's Leveev.)
I feel like all of Friedemann Friese's games have just terrible, TERRIBLE artwork. Both from an aesthetic standpoint, and in cases like this even from a usability standpoint. I mean, Faiyum still looks like it's a bad prototype, they really need to invest in decent artists for their games!
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
@@entrecruzado I suppose, but the Faiyum board is something I could literally make in MS paint in a few hours..
@@ko9 I really like the faiyum board. Its clear, tells you what’s what and by the end of the game the board is mostly covered with really clearly defined, nice wood pieces. I know its not “beautiful“ but i dont need every game to be ian o’tool or vincent dutrait. Would I appreciate a prettier game, sure. But i would chose function over form.
Look no further than feudum for the polar opposite of this.