Transport links have been inspiring armchair adventurers since their inception. From Around the World in 80 Days to the Thomas Cook European Timetable, the next best thing to hopping on the fast train to the continent has been daydreaming about it.
Board games inspired by travel fit neatly with this: it’s just a case of a few more armchairs, some friends to daydream with, and port and cheese if you’re really going for it. Think Ticket to Ride, Rivers, Roads and Rails or the map-geek element of Risk.
Obviously we’re three paragraphs into a CityMetric article, so readers will be asking, “Where’s the tube map angle?” and the answer is right here. Metrum is a card game based on the iconic Harry Beck tube map: think rummy for transport nerds. The pack consists of underground stations on various lines, drivers (like jokers) and ghost stations which enable you steal cards from other players. What better way to start a row about the optimal place to change with your friends, or instruct small children in the hierarchy of tube lines (Victoria Line FTW).
Alas, for those of you wanting to rush out and buy a pack, there’s a slight hiccup: it’s not in production yet. Designer Richard Boreham did a Kickstarter campaign before Christmas but unfortunately got held at a red signal at 58 per cent; he’s not sure the pricing model was right, and notes that Kickstarter isn’t the first place people go to looking for board games.
The video promoting the kickstarter.
“I think the appeal is probably more for tourists, actually, people going to the London Transport Museum.” he said. “If you wanted it to sell you’d kind of want it with TfL branding, it would look a bit more official.” Sounds like a great idea, though, so if TfL, or any eccentric millionaires who love transport-themed game evenings are reading do get in touch.
In the absence of funding to produce the cards, he’s working on an electronic version to make available through TableTopia, where board game enthusiasts can play their favourites virtually, rather than plunge back into another Kickstarter. “Going through the hoops of doing social media doesn’t appeal,” he added. “It’s much more interesting for me to go and create the game electronically.” His post on diversity in board games, and how he came to redesign the driver cards, is also well worth a read.
While he works on that, there are plenty of other public transport-themed amusements around. Ravensburger’s Scotland Yard – which won the 1983 Spiel des Jahres, a sort of nerdalicious Oscar for board games – involves the players tracking secret agent Mr X through London, knowing only what mode of transport he has taken. It’s noteworthy not just for its beautiful map of central London but also how hard it is for Mr X to escape.
If it’s a London-centric game you’re looking for, the people behind Smoke: A London Peculiar created Soho!, a game of skill and judgement inspired by the two things this corner of the capital is most famous for: its pubs, and its one-way system. The players are literary magazine editors struggling to round up the articles promised by a “motley bunch of recalcitrant writers”. It even includes Boris bikes as an option for getting from A to B.
Another transport-theme classic is Ticket to Ride. This involves building cross-continental railways networks with grand 19th-Century maps and fiddly little train carriages just the right size to send flying when making post-port emphatic gestures.
It’s more complicated than Scotland Yard – it could be called Settlers of Ca-train, to be honest – but is also great, tactical fun. It also, in the Nordic version, adds further to the fascinating and under-reported “is Estonia Nordic” debate with an emphatic “jah”. And if public transport isn’t your thing, Mille Bornes is the classic French card game where you compete to win a 1000 km road race.
All of these successes show there’s an appetite for transport-based board games, so let’s hope Metrum gets a second wind. In the meantime it’s back to leafing through the collected works of Mark Ovenden, listening to Ewan Campbell and snuggling up under this tube-theme bed linen.
And at the risk of sounding like an inspirational talk about failure, the game’s creator had a good time, and hopes the electronic format will allow fans to play. “For some people it’s the best thing ever, but that group of people is quite small,” he concludes. “Very, very, enthusiastic but also quite small.”
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