Trains

The London Underground is the world's first underground passenger railway, having opened in 1863. Its 11 lines move about 5 million passengers a day to 270 stations, along 400 km (250 mi) of track.

The massive network of London Underground stations makes up one of the most complex transportation systems in the world, and On the Underground challenges you to develop it. Build the most successful lines, connect them to landmarks, and attract passenger traffic!

Gameplay Overview

In On the Underground, the players build the Underground lines in London or the U-Bahn lines in Berlin. Each player controls 2-4 different lines, depending on the number of players.

On each turn, four destination cards are available, corresponding to stations on the map. You can take up to four actions; an action is either building track by placing one of your track tokens on the board or taking a branch token. A player may use two branch tokens to branch out of an existing line (whereas normally lines can be extended only at the endpoints).

After each player's turn, a passenger token is moved along players' lines, avoiding walking as much as possible, to reach one or two destinations determined at the beginning of the turn. The destination cards corresponding to the visited stations are then replaced by new ones, then the next player takes their turn.

Players score points in two ways:

By building track and connecting their lines to various types of stations, by building a circular line (in London), or at the end of the game if they have collected tiles from specific landmark stations (in Berlin).
By having the passenger use their lines when moving.

After all destination cards have been drawn and all players have taken the same number of turns, the game ends.

Differences from the First Edition of On the Underground

For their first turns only, the player first in turn order takes three actions, and the player last in turn order takes five actions. (Previously, everyone other than the start player had a few points added to their score as a balancing mechanism.)
The passenger is no longer removed from the board immediately when the draw deck is empty.
There is a new Berlin map, along with its corresponding cards and tiles.
On the London map, these single connections have been made double connections: Paddington-Shepherd's Bush, Shepherd's Bush-Goldhawk Road, Goldhawk Road-Hammersmith, Waterloo-Borough, London Bridge-Bank, Stratford-West Ham, and West Ham-Canning Town.
On the London map, this double connection has been made a triple connection: Borough-London Bridge
On the London map, the New Cross station has been removed, as has the connection between Aldgate and Canada Water.

You trainhop aboard the Silver Ferryman, chasin’ a dream or runnin’ from the past. What you find is a welcomin’ hand - white glove, stretched skin… and a fiddle player in the distance, playin’ a tune that’s awfully inviting. Makes you never wanna leave.

In Vagrantsong, a cooperative and story-driven boss battler, you will take on the role of a Vagrant trapped on a supernatural ghost train. Face off against ghosts lingering on the train (called Haints), adjust your playstyle with Skills and Junk acquired along the way, and uncover the secrets of the Silver Ferryman in this spooky and challenging adventure.

In each of the 20+ Scenarios in Vagrantsong’s campaign, players will take turns spending their 3 Coins to take actions, such as: moving around the train board, investigating the unknown, and rummaging for items that might help them get out of a tight spot. Additionally, players can spend their Coins on more exclusive actions to remind a Haint of their lost Humanity, all in the hopes of freeing the spirit from the ghost train’s bone-chilling grip, and winning the Scenario in the process. But be careful! Each Haint has their own bag of tricks and gameplay mechanics. They will stop at nothing to make sure that the players lose all of their Humanity and stay aboard forever.

After each Scenario, players will have a moment to rest, allowing them the opportunity to change out their Skill and Junk cards, heal their Vagrant, and prepare for their next encounter aboard the Silver Ferryman.

—description from the publisher

For San Francisco, the first half of the 20th century is an era of dynamic growth and new opportunities. It's also a chance for you — junior urban planner — to take part in a contest for the most amazing reconstruction plan of the city. Sit down with your sketchbook and create a project that will make you stand out from the competition. Design a beautiful city in this game by Reiner Knizia, world-famous board game designer.

In the board game San Francisco, you become an urban planner whose goal is to create the greatest redevelopment plan of the famous city in California. Design districts in each of the five types, racing against all the other planners. Choose the right moment to take on new projects — but be careful, if you take on too many projects it'll be harder to gain more. Earn more prestige by cleverly designing a system of cable car connections. Lay foundations and carefully design the nearby landscape, allowing you to build new skyscrapers. Create a new vision of San Francisco that will gain the most rewards, and win through fame and recognition.

Ticket to Ride: San Francisco features the familiar gameplay from the Ticket to Ride game series — collect cards, claim routes, draw tickets — but on a map of 1960s San Francisco that allows you to complete a game in no more than 15 minutes.

Each player starts with a supply of 20 cable cars, two transportation cards in hand, and one or two destination tickets that show locations in San Francisco. On a turn, you either draw two transportation cards from the deck or the display of five face-up cards (or you take one face-up ferry, which counts as all six colors in the game); or you claim a route on the board by discarding cards that match the color of the route being claimed (with any set of cards allowing you to claim a gray route, although some require ferries); or you draw two destination tickets and keep at least one of them.

When you build a line that connects to a souvenir location, such as Lombard Street, the Embarcadero, or the Golden Gate Bridge, you take a souvenir token from that location.

Players take turns until someone has no more than two cable cars in their supply, then each player takes one final turn, including the player who triggered the end of the game. Players then sum their points, scoring points for (1) the routes that they've claimed during the game, (2) the destination tickets that they've completed (by connecting the two locations on a ticket by a continuous line of their cable cars), and (3) the souvenirs that they've collected, with a full set of seven souvenirs being worth 12 points. You lose points for any uncompleted destination tickets, then whoever has the high score wins!

In 1871, with Canada only four years old, the Prime Minister calls for a massive undertaking: a transcontinental railway to link the established eastern provinces with the newly-added western province. Between them lay the vast, undeveloped interior. It would be a nation-defining project, opening up the resource-rich Canadian shield, the fertile prairies, and the breathtaking Rocky Mountain Cordillera, shaping not only the economy of the young country but its identity as well.

The Transcontinental is a medium-weight Eurogame with worker-placement and pick-up and deliver mechanisms about the development of the Canadian transcontinental railway.

Players are contractors who work to complete the railway. They send out telegrams along a linear worker-placement track — reserving those action spaces for themselves — then take turns in telegram order, loading and unloading to a shared train that travels across the country. Players can use these resources to complete developments ranging from lumber mills and farms to cities and national parks, or they can use the resources to bid to extend the railway. Powerful one-time-use ally cards, themed around a rich and inclusive cast of Canadian historical figures, allow players to make powerful combined actions.

—description from the publisher