RAILROAD INK: Blazing Red Edition

Railroad Ink: Blazing Red Edition, is a compact, 1-6 player, family puzzle game designed by Hjamar Hach and Lorenzo Silva, and published by CMON and Horrible Games. Your goal is to connect together as many railway and road exits as you can into a network, the player who does the best job will get the most points and win the game.

Railroad Ink is what is known as a "Roll and Write". Why? Well, because you roll, then you write! Gameplay is refreshingly simple. Each player grabs themselves a dry wipe marker and board with their city area on it. One player rolls the set of four dice which have a variety of rail/road connections depicted on them. Players then use all the faces showing on the dice to start drawing routes. Over seven rounds players use the dice rolled plus some bonus special connections to efficiently and effectively network as many of the 12 exits on the board as possible. Points are awarded for the most exits connected, the longest routes and the use of the central board area. Points are lost for incomplete routes.

Big points come with big risk, can you connect all 12 exits in time or will you be left with your unfinished routes dangling? Maybe you should play safe and pick up guaranteed points, but will you lose out to the risk takers?

The tiny box Railroad Ink comes in makes it perfect for travel. Why not play it on a train?! Play against your friends to see who is the best puzzle solver, risk taker and rout spotter. Get a second box and play up to 12 people. I personally recommend playing it solo for a relaxing way to pass the time where you always win.

The Blazing Red Edition differs from its Deep Blue Edition companion in that is comes with two explosive red mini expansions in the box, only found in this version. They add extra variety, complexity and replay-ability to the game. With the Lava Expansion you roll two lava dice. You must try to stop the lava from destroying your routes and costing you points, dodge the lava flows or confine them for bonus points. In the Meteors Expansion you must use the craters left my meteor dice strikes to your advantage and send routes in to mine the precious point scoring ore.

Plan your route to getting Railroad Ink.