Players:2-6
Playing Time: 30-45 minutes
Difficulty: 2 (of 10)

This game was preusly released in German by Queen Games.

The Components

Metro comes with:

• 1 game board
• 6 metro line cards
• 61 subway cars
• 6 colored pawns
• 60 track tiles
• 1 rulebook

Gameboard: A small six-panel gameboard printed on sturdy, linen-textured cardboard. The majority of it is an 8x8 grid. There are 32 stations around the edges and another 4 in the middle. Each station has two tracks leading to it, one "in", and one "out". It's all very clear on the board. There are also a lot of nice, period nuances, including a scoring track around the edge that's a tiny bit hard to use (because there are only numbers every 10 spaces), but is very attractive in a sort of Art Noveau way.

Metro Line Cards: At the start of the game each player takes control of a share of the metro stations along the edges of the board. These cards list exactly which stations are taken by which color in which player game. (They also define what colors must be used, as there are more pieces of each of the colors used in the two-player game, and considerably less of the color used in the six-player game.) The lists are printed on medium-weight card stock, full color, and and overall easy to reference. Like the board, these cards have some nice artistic nuances.

Subway Cars: These are little bread-loaf-shaped wood bits, each one fairly evocative of a subway car. They're in the six player colors (yellow, blue, orange, green, purple, and black). As already mentioned, there are more of the two player colors (16 each in yellow and blue) than the six player color (5 in black)

Color Pawns: More wood bits in the six player colors, these medium-sized wooden pawns are used for the scoring track.

Track Tiles: These track tiles are printed on medium-thin cardboard. There are 60 in all, to fit in the 60 spaces on the gameboard's grid.

Each track tile has a red directional arrow (for orientation) and two tracks on each of the four sides.They're not particularly exciting, but are relatively clear and easy to use.

Rulebook: A four-page, full-color, glossy rulebook. It's got lots of illos, and a couple of examples, but I still found it a little hard to follow in some places. In particular, there's one example (apparently showing that it's illegal to connect two stations across a corner) that's never actually explained in the rulebook; there was at least one other situation where something was implied rather than stated. After a couple of read throughs, however, and excepting that one point about the example, the game was easy enough to play from the instructions.

Overall, the game is beautifully produced with above average components. I did have a couple of usability problems, with the rules and the scoring track, and I wish that a few of the pieces were on a bit thicker cardboard (the metro line cards and the track tiles), but nonetheless the game still looks stunning and so I've given it a high "4" out of "5" for Style.

The Gameplay

The object of Metro is to ensure that your stations connect up to the longest lines (and preferably the very valuable central stations).

Setup: Each player starts out by taking a Metro Line chart appropriate for the number of players. This will define his colors and his stations. Each player then places subway cars in his color to mark control of his subway stations around the edge of the board; every player will have an equal number, from 16 each in the 2-player game to 5 each in the 6-player game.

Each player also draws one track tile and also places his pawn on the scoring track.

Placing Track Tiles: Each turn a player gets to play one track tile. He may choose to either: play the track tile in his hand (and at the end of the turn replace it) or else choose to draw a new track tile (keeping his current one in hand), which he must immediately play.

Tiles can only be placed on empty spaces, adjacent to other tiles or one of the edges of the board. In addition, each tile has a red arrow which displays the required orientation of the tile (basically meaning that there is only one possible way to play each tile in each space, not four).

Each edge of each tile has two rail lines, essentially an outgoing line to the right of each tile and an incoming line to the left of each tile. Each station also has an outgoing line and an incoming line. The idea of the game is to connect up the outgoing line of your station to some other station, but to do so with the maximum line length possible.

This leads to the last rule for tile placement: you can't loop a station back to itself, unless there's no other legal play.

It should be noted that you can either play offensively (trying to shorten opponents' lines) or defensively (trying to lengthen your own lines). Or, more likely, some combination thereof.

Scoring Points: Whenever a line is completed, because it connects up an outgoing station to some other station, it is scored.

A line is worth 1 point per tile it runs over, with tiles being counted multiple times if the line goes over it multiple times. (See, for example, the 10-point yellow line in the picture nearby. The third tile in the route, which has a triple-crossover on it, actually scores three of the points for the route, because the route runs over it three times, from the left, then from the top, then from the right.)

In addition, if the route connected to one of those four stations in the middle, its total score is doubled.

The rules suggest rotating a subway car after its route has been scored. I suggest just removing it from the board instead, for increased clarity of play.

Winning the Game: The game ends when the 60th and final tile is placed. At this point whomever has the most points wins.

Relationships to Other Games

Metro is essentially a pipe game, a genre where you're usually trying to maximize or minimize the value of specific connections. Other examples of pipe games include Steam Tunnel (which is also scored partially on pipe length, but which includes a fun majority control system) and Knots (where you're just trying to get your pipe all the way across the board).

Compared to the rest of the genre, Metro is fairly simple, largely depending on the core mechanism of pipe length as score, but it features a large enough board to allow for interesting game play.

Like most pipe games, Metro is a subset of the edge-matching tile-laying genre (best known for Carcassonne) and is also a type of connection game, which tends to include railroad games of all sorts.

Metro was originally produced by Queen Games, which produces a lot of Dirk Henn's games. I'm not aware of any similiarities betweent his and other Henn games, however.

The Game Design

Metro is a simple but well-designed game. Here's some of the better elements:

Multiple Levels of Strategy: There are multiple ways you can play well, including: building out your own tracks; hurting your opponent's tracks; and setting up long unconnected tracks that you expect to later connect to. Some of the strategy is actually quite subtle (such as the fact that there's no point in finishing up a line if you're going to get minimum points for it, given its current potential; or if the variation between minimum potential points for a line and maximum likely points for the line isn't very much).

Two Tile Choices Allow Additional Strategy: Many tile-laying games just allow you to have one tile at a time, which hurts strategy; Metro instead lets you choose between your current tile and an unknown tile. There's still a lot of chance here, but a bit more opportunity to do what you want.

Overall, Clever Tile-Laying: Overall, the tile-laying aspect is pretty clever, as you often have to make decisions about whether to make a long route or a shorter route going toward the center, and there's enough going on in every tile that you need to see how a play could affect multiple stations.

I have one complaint:

Possible to Get Stuck: It's possible to get irrevocably behind in this game if many or all of your stations get closed early with low scores. In this case, you're forced to play on with no hope.

And finally, one notable point:

Requires Good Spatial Thinking: Even more than most tile-laying games, Metro requiers very good spatial thinking. The network of train routes can be quite intimidating and some people will not be able to see the results of their actions. The game is made even more tricky by the fact that's it's carefully designed to have "out" routes (the right-hand side of each tile) and "in" routes (the left-hand side of each tile), meaning that if you're building out from a station, you're only going to ever be able to connect up to right-hand routes. I couldn't convince anyone else this was the case, meaning that some people were hoping to connect up to long, unconnected routes that were actually impossible for them to merge with.

Overall, I didn't find any of the play of Metro particularly innovative However, it was definitely fun (everyone had a good time) and well-designed and the sort of game you'd be excited to play again. As a result I've given it a low "4" out of "5" Substance rating: above average.

Conclusion

Metro is a connection-based game lightly set in turn of the century Paris. It's a well-designed pipe game, though one that requires a particularly good spatial sense. If you're looking for a well-produced full-length game about connections, it's a very good choice.