Connecting Flights

Auctions, route building, airplanes: the three words that made me press the button on Kickstarter. Then the game arrived to remind me that a good list of keywords is not design. Connecting Flights is tragically tiring and flat, and that hurts even more because it looks good on the table and its production is high quality.

At its core, the game revolves around auctions and building airline routes with airplanes. There is even a respectable, fuel-demanding core engine which, under different circumstances, could support an interesting economic race.

The flow, though, has been flattened in an attempt to avoid the snowball effect that often appears in games like these. The decisions and the pressure we put on one another in the auctions do not build the tension I expect; instead, the system becomes so smoothed out that you can practically do nothing until the final round and still win. Fantastic incentive to participate, truly.

It is a great shame, because the physical production is good and the fuel mechanism has a decent foundation. I would not play it again in its regular form, but the cooperative/solo mode rescues the situation a little: it is different and works as a fairly tough optimization puzzle. For anything else, stay away and stay well.