With a price tag of nearly fifty American dollars, it is the most expensive
game on the list. For your money you get: a game board, various chance decks,
several cards used for bookkeeping, two charts, poker chips, crayons, dice
and two copies of the rules. All this comes packaged in a white three ring
notebook.
The players gather around the uniquely designed gameboard representing a map of
Colorado, USA. The gameboard is laminated for drawing on using crayons. It
also comes in four parts that are joined by a fastener for easy storage in the
notebook's pockets. Seventeen of the mines depicted on the map are opened by
randomly drawing their mine cards from the chance deck. The remaining mines
are separated into their various decks by colour. Players start with an
opening stake of cash and choose their starting cities.
A round begins with a change of seasons. The season is either Summer or
Winter. During the Winter turns the players collect half their normal fees
for mines and there are fewer phases. A Mine Event card is drawn. Each
Mine Event card lists three mines, all from the same quadrant or from three
different quadrants of the gameboard. Each open mine listed is now closed
and vice versa. A Historic Event card affecting all players is drawn and
acted upon. The players now take their turns starting with the player with
the most cash on hand.
During a player's turn a player will spend cash to build a rail line and
use the crayon on the gameboard to mark the player's progress. There is
nothing new here; this is typical for this type of game.
What makes this game different is that thirty of the hexes on the gameboard
are designated as passes. During the Summer turn, before building track,
players declare which passes, if any, they will attempt to build through.
Players may attempt to stop each other's progress by paying a small fee
but risk a larger fee upon failure.
When a player completes a track from the home city to an open mine, the
player can add the deed to the mine to his possessions at the end of the
game turn. Immediate cash can be generated as the player draws track by
reaching a city. When the Historical Event deck is depleted or, more
likely, when someone connects Denver to Grand Junction the game is over.
One final Mine Event card is drawn and those three mines listed are closed.
The object of the game is to own the most valuable mines at the end of the
game.
Tracks to Telluride has many good points: It is easy to learn and
play. There is a high degree of player interaction. Players may decide to
impede another player's progress through Colorado for a price. There is a
rate war phase where players may extort money from each other by risking
profits from that game turn. Too many multi-player rail games are everybody
against the game system with no player interaction.
On the flip side, Tracks to Telluride has some heavy negatives: Most
passes allow only one player to use them and all of the other players will
need several game turns to recover after losing a contested pass. Many
Historical Event cards penalize the player with the most cash. This is
devastating if you are in last place and have been saving desperately for
a last ditch stab at victory. It is very unfair when a player loses the
game because of the final Mine Event card.
In conclusion, Tracks to Telluride is not a bad way to spend two
hours with four or five friends. However, fifty bucks could be better
spent elsewhere.
Alfonzo Smith