Free Ride

A solid mish mash of a train game.

I enjoyed my play of Free Ride. The only issue is that you will need to buy some color indicators to make the gameplay a little smoother. Even with the indicators, it's still tough to identify certain cities on the fly. Overall, great game, just could have used a few additional tweaks.

A good pickup and deliver game that benefits from a tight focus on its core mechanism. We did find managing all the cards and pieces to be a bit fiddly and that detracted from the light feel of the game. You also really need a good knowledge of European geography or you will be searching for lots of cities. The less good your European geography is the slower the game will feel and play.

Friese collectors, you have a little gem here! There is a lot to like in the game design of Free Ride - Friese's version of Ticket To Ride - with route building and your train moving from city to city and lots of short-term blocking. The rules are short (on your turn you: build track or move your train or pick up more track pieces) to allow the optimization puzzle to shine. HOWEVER. As a few reviewers have already stated (look up Chris and Wendy Yi's review on Dice Tower, for instance), the geographical requirements of the game are incredibly demanding. The route selection mechanic is wonderfully inventive (this is Friese after all), but demands so much thought and foresight that not even the solo variant will play at or under the hour time limit on the box. Even those without Analysis Paralysis will find their turns either zip along in seconds or take 5-10 minutes of staring at the board. If you play this game, you MUST have some way of designating where the routes are on the board to make the decision process easier ... and then the board gets super busy! In short, this is one of Friese's designs that just misses greatness. Completionists only. (I know for certain there is a crowd that will love this game ... I think that crowd is very small).

Free Ride is a combination of pick up/deliver and route building with a simple economic system. It takes mechanics from other popular train games, some more complex and others that are less so and combines them into a fast-playing, fun experience. One major decision point in the game is when to use another player's track as you must pay them to do so. Anyone who likes the theme of train games should enjoy Free Ride.