Players: 2-6
Time: 1 hour
Difficulty: 3 (of 10)

The Components

Around the World in 80 Days comes with:

• 1 gameboard
• Wood Bits:
  • 6 game markers
  • 6 time markers
  • 1 detective marker
  • 1 die
• Cardboard Bits:
  • 6 betting slips
  • 24 gold coins
  • 18 bonus chips
  • 1 starting player marker
• Cards:
  • 60 travel cards
  • 15 event cards
• 1 rulebook

Gameboard: A 4-panel linen-textured gameboard depicting the world in 1900 with ten cities highlighted and travel routes between them clearly shown via icons. There's also spaces for the deck of cards and a score ("travel time") track around the edges, generally increasing the usefulness of a fairly minimalistic board. The art by Bernd Wagenfeld is nice and period-appropriate.

Wood Bits: A collection of quality wooden bits. Each player gets one circular score ("time") marker and a cute little gentlemanly pawn (in the player colors, blue, green, red, yellow, purple, and gray). There's also one black pawn used for the detective; both groups I played this game with inevitably called it the "fat ritter".

Cardboard Bits: A set of attractive full-color linen-textured cardboard pieces including 24 circular gold coins, 6 betting slips (in the 6 player colors, and a pretty good color coordination with the wood bits), 18 bonus chips (9 each in blue and pink, each of which has a clear icon showing what the chip does), and 1 starting player marker (a pocket watch).

Cards: The cards are all half-size. They're not linen-textured, but are a respectable weight.

The 60 travel cards each clearly show a mode of transport (rail or boat) and a value (2-8). Each value has a different full-color piece of art on it, which is a nice touch.

The event cards are largely textual, but their explanations are easy to follow. 13 of them have a tan background, while 2 of them which must be played immediately instead have a blue background. The differentiation was good and increased the playability of the cards. These cards have simple line drawings on them, which are period appropriate, but not as nice as the full-color art which appears elsewhere.

Rulebook: A four-page full-color rulebook with good listing and good examples. There are some special cases in the rules which didn't particularly stand out when you tried to reference them, but that's a relatively small issue, and as much one of the game design as the rule layout.

Box: The box is a standard square Kosmos box. It's also grossly oversized, one of the worst excesses I've ever seen. If the box were a quarter as deep it would have been a better fit for the components which are actually included. As is, I just shake my head at the huge amount of wasted space in the box.

Overall the components of Around the World in 80 Days are high-quality and they have very good usability, with lots of easy to use icons. The only notable complaint is in the price:component ratio. As such it earns a solid "4" out of "5" for Style.

The Gameplay

The object of Around the World in 80 Days is to make it around the world in as few days as you can--and that'll usually be closer to 70 days than 80.

Setup: Each player chooses a color and puts his pawn in London and his time marker at 0 (days). The detective is put in Brindisi. Each of the cities other than London gets two bonus chips, one pink and one blue--they'll be rewards for the first and last people to arrive in that city.

Each player also gets 1 gold coin and 4 to 6 travel cards.

About the Board. The board depicts 10 cities, in order, with arrows going from one to another. Each route between cities also depicts the travel cards required, typically a combation of boats and trains. For example London to Paris requires a boat and a train, Paris to Brindisi requires one train, Brindisi to Suez requires one train, and Suez to Bombay requires two boats. To move along this track you must play the appropriate type(s) of cards.

There are two special routes on the board. Bombay to Calcutta either takes 12 days with no card play or else 7-12 days with a special elephant event card. Hongkong to Yokohama is the only route that gives you a choice: a train and a boat or two boats. (Trains are faster than boats on average, but on the other hand if you take the two boat route you can get doubles, as discussed below.)

About the Travel Cards. Thirty of the travel cards depict trains and are numbered 2-6. Thirty of the travel cards depict boats and are numbered 4-8. Boats are thus slightly slower than trains.

About the Gold Coins. Each player starts with one gold coin. More can be gotten through the gold action and through certain bonus chips. At any time during a player's turn he may turn in 2 gold coins for one event card. A gold coin can also be used to reroll your own die (typically, when you use a balloon).

The Card Auction: Each round of play begins with a card auction. A number of travel cards are flipped up equal to one more than the number of players still in the game; these are placed on the action track. Then, starting with the first player, each player chooses one travel card, and then takes the associated action. They may thus take a bad card to get a good action (or vice-versa). The possible actions are:

• Gold: Take one gold coin.
• Balloon. Replace one played travel card with a die roll. And, you can reroll this by spending gold.
• Event. Take the top event card.
• Detective. Move the detective.
• Starting. Be the next starting player.
• Trade. Trade in up to 3 travel cards.

Travelling: After having selected his card and taken his action, a player may now travel, if he chooses. He may only travel forward one city during his turn, and he does this by playing the appropriate types of card or cards: boats or trains. He then adds up the value of those cards and advances his time marker that many spaces; this is the number of days this leg of the trip took.

If a player plays doubles--two identical values of the same type of transport--then he only has to go forward one of those values. So, two "7" boats would result in a 7-day trip, not 14.

First and Last. The first and last player into each city receive a reward, depicted on a face-up bonus chip in the city. These can include: a gold coin, an event card, a travel card, or everyone still in the game advancing one day.

The Dectective. Ending your turn in the space with the detective, whether you moved or not, costs you two days.

Playing Event Cards: During your turn you can also play event cards which do a variety of things, including shortening trips, allowing you to make two legs of a journey or one turn, giving you a balloon to use, etc. However, you don't want to hoard event cards too long, because if anyone draws a blue event card ("Delay" or "Storm") then everyone loses all of their events.

Ending a Turn: A player's turn ends after he's taken his card, decided whether to move or not, and decided whether to play event cards or not. He must then discard so that his total hand (event + travel cards) is no larger than 6.

Ending a Round: A round ends after each player has taken a turn. Except in the case of the 6-player game, there is one travel card left on the action track, which is discarded. A new round then begins with the new start player (which is the person to the left of the current start player if no one took that action).

Ending the Game: As each player arrives in London they're out of the game. They can no longer have days added from various events or chips; the length of their journey is permanently decided.

Once someone has arrived in London, this also adds pressure to everyone else. Everyone adds a day to their trip total at the start of each round.

Once the penultimate player has arrived in London (or the 4th in a 6-player game), the game ends at the end of that round, meaning that the last player(s) may or may not get in.

The winner is the player who made it to London with the lowest score of days.

The Curiosity of Time Travel: Having the score track be a "days travelled" count is nicely thematic, and it generally works, but it's also humorous if you really think about it, because there's time travel going on. Each player is at a different temporal space at any point in the game, and that detective moves back and forth in time depending on who he's harassing at any point.

More practically, it can be slightly hard to see who's winning; how dose 55 days to San Francisco compare to 60 days to New York, for example? I don't think this is a big deal, but it is a notable element.

Relationships to Other Games

Around the World in 80 Days is what I call a play-and-move game. That's in contrast to totally random "roll-and-move games" like Monopoly or Candy Land. Instead play-and-move games introduce clever layers of card management so that you have to decide when and how to use cards to your best benefit (such as here when you have to decide whether to save up for doubles, whether to go for good cards or actions, whether to compete for first and last to each city, etc).

Other well-done play-and-move games, none of which I've gotten around to reviewing include Leo Colovini's Cartagena and Reiner Knizia's Marco Polo Expedition. I find 80 Days sort of like Marco Polo, but others disagree. In any case, the mechanics and types of decisions tend to be similar, even if the specific strategies and tactics aren't.

Beyond that Around the World in 80 Days is a very light, simple game that still has some strategic depth to it. It's implicitly going to be compared to Ticket to Ride. Both are light games, but each has enough strategic grist for a serious gamer to enjoy. Ticket to Ride has more variety of play, while Around the World is going to be more repetitive through continuous plays. Ticket to Ride won the SdJ Game of the Year award in 2004 and I wouldn't be surprised in Around the World in 80 Days did in 2005, but that's because there's nothing of Ticket to Ride's quality up for the award this year (or most years, frankly).

The Game Design

Around the World in 80 Days is an enjoyable, light game. By no means is it a brain burner, but it does have some tactics (mainly in the action versus card quandary) and some strategy (mostly in when to play what cards for what advantage or disadvantage). Beyond that, it's got some plain clever mechanics.

The action/card auction is probably the neatest. There have been some other variant auctions, including Puerto Rico where you have to decide between getting an action and receiving gold and New England where you're trading off cost with turn order. However this one is just different enough to feel original.

Likewise, there's a nice variety of mechanics that make the question of when to go and when to stay in a city tough. The detective, the double cards, the first/last bonuses, and the fact that you must arrive in London all make this interesting and offer some hard choices.

On the whole, the game works and is fun.

On the downside: it feels like there are just a few too many special cases in the rules. In two times explaining the rules I kept missing one specific rule or another until we got started. Also, the game doesn't like a lot of variability, and that'll ultimately limit its replayability.

Overall, Around the World in 80 Days is one of the nicer light games that I've seen this year. I'm very happy that I picked it up, and though I don't expect I'll play it as much as my more replayable games, I still expect it to generate a half-dozen or so fun plays every year. As such I've rated it a "4" out of "5" for Substance: above average.

Conclusion

Around the World in 80 Days is a well-designed, somewhat original, and more importantly fun, light game. It doesn't have the replayability of some games, since the mechanics are ultimately fairly simple, but despite that there's enough strategic depth to keep the game interesting. Generally recommended if you like light games

Help support RPGnet by purchasing this item through DriveThruRPG.