Brass: Birmingham

I already loved Brass, but the first edition had a map that seemed determined to pick a fight with my eyesight. Roxley’s edition removes that grievance with considerable relief: at last, a game this dense and industrial looks as substantial as it feels.

On a turn, you play a card and decide how to push your industrial presence forward: build, develop, sell, borrow, or take a new card to widen your options. The menu is tidy; the consequences are not. A building that looks sensible in isolation can do very little if the network around it is wrong.

The network, naturally, is never yours alone. Links and markets create the lovely discomfort of watching other players benefit from the ground you have prepared, while you look for a way to make use of theirs without doing them a favour for nothing. These are not little trains on a scenic outing. They are little trains with accounts to settle and elbows out.

The production lets all that heavy economic business breathe. The map no longer tires the eye; after a Tuesday at work, it makes me want to lean over the table as though I were looking down on a small city just as its lights come on. The components and the table presence are not mere decoration. They allow a favourite game to feel complete at last.

For our group, this is Ticket to Ride for Serious Children, and I mean that with all the affection a night of loans and closed markets permits. Brass: Birmingham is quietly excellent — a game we will bring back often, now that loving it no longer requires squinting.