The board depicts 10 cities, in order, with arrows going from one to another. Each of the cities other than London gets two bonus chips, one pink and one blue-they'll be rewards for the first and last people to arrive in that city.Įach player also gets 1 gold coin and 4 to 6 travel cards.Ībout the Board. Setup: Each player chooses a color and puts his pawn in London and his time marker at 0 (days). The object of Around the World in 80 Days is to make it around the world in as few days as you can-and that'll usually be closer to 70 days than 80. As such it earns a solid "4" out of "5" for Style. The only notable complaint is in the price:component ratio. Overall the components of Around the World in 80 Days are high-quality and they have very good usability, with lots of easy to use icons. As is, I just shake my head at the huge amount of wasted space in the box. If the box were a quarter as deep it would have been a better fit for the components which are actually included. It's also grossly oversized, one of the worst excesses I've ever seen. There are some special cases in the rules which didn't particularly stand out when you tried to reference them, but that's a relatively small issue, and as much one of the game design as the rule layout.īox: The box is a standard square Kosmos box. Rulebook: A four-page full-color rulebook with good listing and good examples. These cards have simple line drawings on them, which are period appropriate, but not as nice as the full-color art which appears elsewhere. The differentiation was good and increased the playability of the cards. 13 of them have a tan background, while 2 of them which must be played immediately instead have a blue background. The event cards are largely textual, but their explanations are easy to follow. Each value has a different full-color piece of art on it, which is a nice touch. The 60 travel cards each clearly show a mode of transport (rail or boat) and a value (2-8). They're not linen-textured, but are a respectable weight. There's also one black pawn used for the detective both groups I played this game with inevitably called it the "fat ritter".Ĭardboard Bits: A set of attractive full-color linen-textured cardboard pieces including 24 circular gold coins, 6 betting slips (in the 6 player colors, and a pretty good color coordination with the wood bits), 18 bonus chips (9 each in blue and pink, each of which has a clear icon showing what the chip does), and 1 starting player marker (a pocket watch).Ĭards: The cards are all half-size. Each player gets one circular score ("time") marker and a cute little gentlemanly pawn (in the player colors, blue, green, red, yellow, purple, and gray). Wood Bits: A collection of quality wooden bits.
The art by Bernd Wagenfeld is nice and period-appropriate. There's also spaces for the deck of cards and a score ("travel time") track around the edges, generally increasing the usefulness of a fairly minimalistic board. Gameboard: A 4-panel linen-textured gameboard depicting the world in 1900 with ten cities highlighted and travel routes between them clearly shown via icons. Around the World in 80 Days is a casual strategy game by Michael Rieneck, published by Rio Grande Games and Kosmos.