Review
The Grand Trunk Journey
The Grand Trunk Journey is an honest Pick and Deliver design with worthwhile hand management and a small deckbuilding layer. It is dry, occasionally tiring, and oddly paced, but its central system makes it a train game I rather enjoy.
- Published
- 2020
- Designer
- Claude Sirois
- Publisher
- Spielworxx
- Players
- 2–4
- Playing time
- 120 min
The Grand Trunk Journey begins with a sound Pick and Deliver core, then declines to leave delivery alone. Hand management gives each choice some weight, while the modest deckbuilding element gradually alters both your options and their timing. The interesting decision is how to preserve a useful hand without falling behind the journey’s tempo.
That tempo is also the game’s peculiar feature. When time-sensitive contracts enter the picture, it develops something close to a race: players hurry to get there first, turns become more burny, and quiet railway logistics briefly turns into a contest of arrival times. The tension works precisely because it is not the whole game.
The interesting decision is how to preserve a useful hand without falling behind the journey’s tempo.
TheTrainSpotter
This is not a design that cossets its players. It can feel dry and tiring, and its pacing is not always comfortable or intuitive. It is not perfect. Still, I find it a particularly agreeable train game, because the central mechanism has enough promise to carry it through its more rigid moments.
Still, I find it a particularly agreeable train game, because the central mechanism has enough promise to carry it through its more rigid moments.
TheTrainSpotter
Source: BoardGameGeek
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