#8: Ticket to Ride

Alan Moon won the Spiel des Jahres with this family friendly game of train-building. It's well deserved - this is a "gateway" game that has drawn in every non-gamer I've introduced it to. Ticket To Ride was so popular that Alan was able to get the more gamer-oriented Ticket to Ride: Europe published as well.

Pat Korner: "The new champion of 'gateway' games, stealing the crown away from the now-long-in-the-tooth Settlers of Catan. Excellent mix of luck and planning, with enough decision-making and interaction thrown into the mix to keep things from becoming a redundant 'draw a card until you can play cards'."

Andrea Meyer: "Gorgeous design integrating elements of traditional card games with the train theme. Easily explained, fun playinig with any number of players indicated. I wish I had designed this."

Greg Daigle: "I've played this mostly as a two-player game. TtR gets a lot of mileage out of so few mechanisms. It's about as elegant as they come."