The Railroad Ink games are some of my favourite board games, period. They’re a series of roll-and-write games about creating a road and train network using routes rolled on dice. Thanks to this randomness, the base game is endlessly replayable, but there are also countless expansions that add even more replayability.
Tell me about the base game
Railroad Ink Challenge: Shining Yellow comes with four player boards, and four “route dice”. You can play with as many players as you have boards, from single player all the way up to 20 if you have every version. Each round, you roll the four route dice, and draw the routes on the squares on your board. For round one, you have to start from one of the exits around the board, and going forward each route must connect to an exit or an existing route of the same type. It’s very simple to pick up and immediately intuitive - of course a good transport network would connect as many exits as possible, and obviously you can’t directly connect railways to roads.
After seven rounds, the game ends and you score points for your longest track, longest highway, connected exits, and more. You also lose points for any unconnected route ends. One of the challenges of Railroad Ink is that you have to draw every route on the route dice, no matter how inconvenient, so ending the game with a perfect network is almost impossible. However, that just adds to the “one more go” feel of the whole game.
The Railroad Ink games are some of my favourite board games, period. They’re a series of roll-and-write games about creating a road and train network using routes rolled on dice. Thanks to this randomness, the base game is endlessly replayable, but there are also countless expansions that add even more replayability.
Tell me about the base game
Railroad Ink Challenge: Shining Yellow comes with four player boards, and four “route dice”. You can play with as many players as you have boards, from single player all the way up to 20 if you have every version. Each round, you roll the four route dice, and draw the routes on the squares on your board. For round one, you have to start from one of the exits around the board, and going forward each route must connect to an exit or an existing route of the same type. It’s very simple to pick up and immediately intuitive - of course a good transport network would connect as many exits as possible, and obviously you can’t directly connect railways to roads.
After seven rounds, the game ends and you score points for your longest track, longest highway, connected exits, and more. You also lose points for any unconnected route ends. One of the challenges of Railroad Ink is that you have to draw every route on the route dice, no matter how inconvenient, so ending the game with a perfect network is almost impossible. However, that just adds to the “one more go” feel of the whole game.
Is there a difference between Railroad Ink and Railroad Ink Challenge?
There are two main differences between the original versions and the Challenge versions of Railroad Ink - Challenge adds a couple of new mechanics, but also comes with two fewer boards. The first new mechanic is factories, universities, and villages. These are new little icons on the board that unlock various abilities when you fill in that space: factories let you duplicate one of the route dice, filling three university spaces gives you a free junction route, and village spaces score you more points. Plus, to emphasise how flexible Railroad Ink is, you can play without these if you want a less complex game.
The other (also optional) new mechanic of Railroad Ink Challenge is goal cards. These are additional goals to aim for during a game, and award points based on how soon you complete them. They include things like connect three exits, create a loop in your network, and fill in a whole row/column. They’re not difficult on their own, but juggling them with your other aims can be a challenge, plus the timed element adds an extra bit of tension
In a multiplayer game, that tension is multiplied since points are awarded based on who completes a goal soonest, but in single player games they’re based on which round you complete goals in. Personally, I’m not a fan of using the goal cards in solo games, but they add a fun interactive element to multiplayer games. Without them, multiplayer games of Railroad Ink can be a bit unsociable, with each person quietly filling in their own board.
What about these expansions you mentioned?
Shining Yellow edition comes with two expansions, Desert and Canyon, that each add two extra dice. You don’t have to play with an expansion, but they change up the game in interesting ways and give you more opportunities to score points.
With the Desert expansion, your aim is to add as many cacti to your board as you can, without them getting wiped out by the arid sun. Each dice has a sun side, a cacti side, and four route sides with either a cactus or an oasis. The cacti can be drawn onto blank squares, and the routes can be added as normal, but if you roll a sun, you must erase any cacti not adjacent to an oasis. You score points for every cactus still standing by the end of the game. I really enjoy Desert - it’s simple to understand and adds some nice variety to your board, especially if you get some coloured markers.
Canyon is a bit more complicated. Each dice shows a pattern of canyons which can be drawn along the edges of the squares on the board. Canyons can be drawn anywhere, starting from the edge of the board or another canyon, but any railways or roads must use a bridge to cross them. You have a limited stock of bridges, but I rarely find myself running out of them. Since the canyons are completely separate from your transport network, it’s reasonably easy to use them to rack up the points, but you do need to pay attention to your bridges.
There are also standalone expansion packs you can get as add-ons. I haven’t tried them all (yet!), but I'm a fan of the Electricity pack and Underground pack.
Give me the overall verdict
Railroad Ink Challenge: Shining Yellow is a superb roll-and-write that’s easy to learn but with endless options for expansions and customisations. It plays in about 15 minutes, which along with the replayability will have you playing “just one more game” over and over. It especially shines as a solo game, but also works as a quiet multiplayer game with a little bit of competition. The artwork is gorgeous (in my humble opinion), and the road and railway symbols have been smartly designed to be easy to read and draw. It’s overall just a fantastic little game.
