Railroad Ink Challenge
By: Horrible Guild
I don’t play a ton of board games these days, but I do appreciate when one adapts well to digital form, especially mobile. Horrible Guild’s Dragon Castle is one example, and it was designed so well that I knew to be on the lookout for any future games from the developer. Railroad Ink Challenge is their latest and it’s adapted perfectly to mobile devices, working in landscape mode on iPad and portrait mode on iPhone. It’s also a solo game that plays out over just seven turns, making it a great game to pull out just about anywhere and anytime.
The way the game works is that you’re given a board made up of a 7×7 grid. The goal is to lay down roads and railroad tracks over seven turns, trying to rack up as many points as possible. The board itself always looks the same. What changes between each run is the dice rolls and the objectives. Each turn, you roll four dice that have road and railway sections on them, called Routes. Whatever they land on, those are the pieces you have to work with that turn. The idea is to place them in a way that will lead to the most points, planning your layout without knowing what your future dice rolls will be. There are also special routes that you can use at any time, though you can only use three of the six available unless you meet certain requirements to earn an extra.
Some tiles have buildings on them, and if you plan things out, you can make the points pile up. For instance, you can only activate a village by placing a Route with a Station on it. Stations are usually present where road and railway meet. Villages give you extra points, so it’s worth trying to build them. But you also get extra points for filling in the central nine spaces. On top of that, there are factories that let you duplicate one Route that turn, and universities that allow you to earn an extra Special Route. You need to take all this into consideration with every move you make. But since so much of the game is reliant on dice rolls, a large part of the strategy is mitigating luck.
There’s some other luck involved, too. At the start of the game, you’re given three random objectives — such as filling in three corners or making a track that’s six tiles long. If you complete any of these objectives before the turn number indicated, you get four points. So you can earn up to twelve points for those three objectives, less if you take too long to complete them.
The controls work great, too, as you simply tap on a piece and then tap on the tile where you want to place it. The game automatically rotates it to fit the existing layout, but if you’re not happy with that, a simple tap rotates it again. If you want to move it elsewhere, you simply tap on a different tile while it’s still selected. Everything feels great, whether you play on a large iPad or a small iPhone.
Now, the game is mostly a solo experience. But you can challenge your friends to play the same board as you with the same dice rolls and objectives. You each play at your own pace and then compare scores, so it just adds another layer to the experience without messing with the quick, mobile-friendly gameplay. There’s also a Score Attack mode in which you compete daily, weekly and monthly against players around the world. Unfortunately, the dice rolls and objectives are not the same for everyone here, so it’s not quite the same experience. I would love to see a way in the future to compete one a daily board against everyone to see how you really stack up. Or even a way to challenge strangers if you don’t have any friends playing. But as is, the game is still pretty robust and feature-packed, including dozens of achievements you can show off.
Aside from the enjoyable gameplay, this digital adaptation also features lovely ink-style artwork and atmospheric sound effects that pull the whole experience together. There are also expansions planned for later release, which I’m eager to try out. Railroad Ink Challenge is the full package — a bite-sized mobile-friendly game with enough depth to keep you coming back for more. This is one train you won’t want to miss. So grab Railroad Ink Challenge here and start building the perfect rail system.
