Review
Mini Rails
Mini Rails shows its shape with three players. At five, it turns that shape into a compact family argument, and does it in half an hour.
- Published
- 2017
- Designer
- Mark Gerrits
- Publisher
- Moaideas Game Design, funbot, Kobold Spieleverlag
- Players
- 1–5
- Playing time
- 60 min
My three-player teaching games of Mini Rails showed there was something going on, but they did not exactly shake the room. Put five people round it and it becomes hell in the complimentary sense: a small, fast game that has everyone giving the table a slightly different look.
Its core is the set of choices around the railway companies: when to extend a line, and when to put your money behind one. There is no room for casual moves. Every choice builds something for you and, rather often, leaves a useful door open for somebody else.
Put five people round it and it becomes hell in the complimentary sense: a small, fast game that has everyone giving the table a slightly different look.
TheCuttlefish
At the higher player count, that interaction tightens at once. Opportunities become contested ground, other people's moves redraw the situation before you have had time to enjoy your plan, and suddenly the little choo-choo is less a toy train than a warning noise. Who gets there first?
It is a terrific half-hour game for the whole family, provided everyone accepts that they may not speak to one another for a little while afterwards. Here, that is praise.
It is a terrific half-hour game for the whole family, provided everyone accepts that they may not speak to one another for a little while afterwards.
TheCuttlefish
Source: BoardGameGeek
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