Pyramid Review
Around the World in 80 Days
Published by Rio Grande Games
Written by Michael Rieneck
Illustrated by Bernd Wagenfeld
Full-color boxed set with mounted fold-out map board, 24 gold coin counters, 18 bonus chips, starting player piece, 15 event cards, 60 travel cards, six pawns, six time markers, six betting slips, & rules; $37.95
It may seem like an outdated property, but if you want to secure family fun, it's not a bad idea to dip into some older franchises that come from a more innocent time. Around the World in 80 Days may be a relic of the early 1870s, but it continues to be remade into movies, so why not a board game of the sort Rio Grande Games excels at?
The object of the game is to circumnavigate the globe in the fewest days.
Everyone starts their journey in London. They have a handful of travel cards, a pawn, and a gold coin for expenses (read: dice rerolls and buying additional cards). Their itinerary is on the map board, which shows a series of major cities like Paris, Calcutta, and San Francisco. Between each pair of locations on the trip are symbols showing what you need to cover that leg. Usually this is a combination of trains or ships.
The travel cards are all railway or water travel, and the numerical values are added together. For example, going from Suez to Bombay takes two ship cards, so if you have cards with a two and a seven, you make the trip in nine days. If the numbers match, the trip only takes as many . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: March 31, 2006
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