Review
Rolling Stock
The first-edition All-Aboard full setup, with its purple companies, makes the complaint about the 2038 companies impossible to dismiss. Even so, Rolling Stock remains an exceptional economic sandbox.
- Published
- 2011
- Designer
- Björn Rabenstein
- Publisher
- (Web published), All-Aboard Games
- Players
- 3–5
- Playing time
- 240 min
We used the full first-edition All-Aboard setup, the one with the purple companies, and after three earlier plays the complaints about the 2038 companies finally made complete sense. Four and a half hours could be settled in the final twenty minutes, as though the preceding stretch had merely been the queue for the actual game.
At its centre, this is still an economic sandbox: the game keeps returning to decisions around its companies and to the positions players establish through them. It is a long structure, asking you to commit to an economy that ought to make those commitments matter from beginning to end.
Four and a half hours could be settled in the final twenty minutes, as though the preceding stretch had merely been the queue for the actual game.
EdgyJellyfish
That is also where the interaction lives. Players are not building in isolation; their company choices alter the value of everyone else's decisions. With the 2038 companies, though, the closing run can swallow the whole journey. An expensive twenty minutes.
It is irritating precisely because the game remains enjoyable even while this setup puts its flaw on display. In spite of this setup, Rolling Stock remains the best economic sandbox available.
In spite of this setup, Rolling Stock remains the best economic sandbox available.
EdgyJellyfish
Source: BoardGameGeek
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