On tour
On Tour was not at all the game I thought it was going to be. Besides the font making me think it says Our Town every time I look at it, On Tour has this gorgeous art on the cover that makes you think this is going to be a thematic game with wonderful art. That honestly couldn’t be more from the truth.
The game is incredibly simple, with a double sided play board (map of the US on one side and Europe on the other), two 10 sided dice, dry erase markers, and two decks of cards, one with US states on them, the other with European countries. That’s it.
Gameplay is equally as simple. On your turn you roll the two dice, and flip over three cards. Everyone will be using the same die rolls and cards that were turned over. Players will create two numbers from the dice. Say you rolled a 3 and a 6. You will have 36 and 63 to write on your map. The map is divided up into 6 sections: Northwest, North-Central, Northeast, Southwest, South-Central and Southeast. Where you write the numbers is determined by the cards which have a state/country and a region (West, Central, East, South, and North). You can write the numbers in the region and get an additional point if you write the number in the exact state/country. If you roll doubles or all three cards are in the same region, you can put a wild star in that region.
Everyone takes turns rolling the dice and turning over cards until only two states/countries are empty. Then you just roll the dice and put the two numbers in those remaining spaces. Then you determining where the best route is by starting at one point and drawing a continuous line from state/country to adjacent state/country with a number equal or greater than the previous state/country you started in. Stars are wild and can count as any number. When you are done you count up all the states/countries and add bonus points.
And that’s it.
So, even though this game was NOTHING like what I thought it was going to be, and is super simple, it was strangely difficult to sus out the best route to take and more fun than I was expecting after I opened it. Plus it plays up to 8 players and would be a nice choice for camping or backpacking.
