London is in need of a better underground network… that’s where you come in! Only the best project manager can be a big success, will it be you? Optimize your connections and routes, move around the city efficiently, and don’t let your lines get blocked off! Let’s get moving!

What Is It?

A flip & write game where players draw a different underground line each round, starting at a different departure station that matches their colored pencil for that round (total of 4 rounds/lines). Players score points for the districts and stations they hit on each line, how many times they cross under the Thames on each line, total tourist sites visited, and stations that link multiple lines. At the end of the game, the player with the most points wins!

Who Is It For?

  • Ages 8+
  • 1 to 4 players – Simultaneous play, so it scales well at any count
  • Fans of flip and write games
  • Players who don’t mind having no player interaction
  • Players who don’t mind having turns where they may not be able to do anything (i.e. if you have to connect to a “square” station, and can not, you will not draw a line that turn)

Variants

Shared Objectives give players 2 objectives to work through during the game, such as cross under the Thames at least 6 times. They are scored at the end of the game, earning the player(s) 10 points for each one they succeeded in. They were a neat way to give additional ways to score points, without adding any complication to the game. I did think it would have been a little more interesting if there was a race to accomplish them though.

Pencil Powers are shuffled and one is assigned to each pencil, giving it a one-time-use per round ability, such as using the last card flipped as a Joker, instead of whatever it was. I thought these were a really nice addition, that added a little more choice to the game, again, without adding much complication.

Solo – Since there isn’t any player interaction in the game, solo did not feel much different while playing. I do appreciate that there is an achievement table included though, as I prefer something like that to just “try to beat your last score.”

PROS

  • Art – The bright colors and the simple but cute art style is really attractive
  • Plays quickly – no long turns or down time
  • Rules – Good example pictures are included throughout the rules
  • A bunch of different ways to score points
  • I love that it comes with colored pencils instead of plain pencils/players having to provide their own
  • Advanced Modules add a bit more variability to the game
  • Everything you need is right in the box, so it’s easily portable

CONS

  • Rules – I wasn’t big on the layout of the rules. There’s a bunch of “see page x” instead of describing each piece of the game as it comes up. Made it harder than it should have been to learn.
  • Replay Value – The game feels much the same every play, the map is always the same, just the order of cards/number of cards you see is different, so it did not do a lot to make me want to keep coming back.
  • Luck – There are a lot of times where you can not continue your line because you have no way to connect to the station that came out. This gets worse further into the game since you can not go through previously drawn lines. It can just be frustrating.
  • The yellow lines separating districts were hard to see, especially in the corners. I wish a different/bolder color would have been used.

Final Thoughts

I’m usually a big fan of this style of game, but this one fell pretty flat for me.

I didn’t feel like I had interesting choices. If a station was available, I went to it. The biggest decisions came from the Joker cards, since you can pick any shape station to go to, but even then it was usually just a matter of picking the station that had the best options for whatever card might come out next. The advanced modules help with this a little, giving me more things to try and do, but it still didn’t leave me excited to come back.

There were also plenty of times when I could not add onto my current line because there was no station of the right shape attached to where I was – often a problem if 2 of the same shape came out next to each other/if I went to a shape with a Joker and then that came out again. It was often frustrating and led to a lot of “bad feeling” moments.

Ultimately, this one was not for me. It’s quick, so I’ll play it if someone really wanted to, but it’s not one I’ll be requesting to play myself.

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 4/10

Designer – Matthew Dunstan
Artist – Maxime Morin
Publisher – Blue Orange Games
MSRP – $17.99
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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