SNAP Review – Railroad Ink: Archipelago

I love trains! I mean, who doesn’t love trains?

But I’ve never ridden a train that ran between islands.

But now I can build my own island network – with Railroad Ink: Archipelago!

Game

Railroad Ink: Archipelago is a new set of boards for Railroad Ink. They were designed by Hjalmar Hach and Lorenzo Silva, and they’re published by Horrible Guild.

You can use these with any Railroad Ink or Railroad Ink Challenge game, with up to four players. These are best for players who are already familiar with the basic game.

Art

The art on these Archipelago boards match perfectly with the rest of the Railroad Ink universe… it’s just BIGGER.

The board is almost four times bigger than a normal Railroad Ink whiteboard. It spreads all the scoring boxes around the outside edge, so at least it’s not as gigantic as it could be.

Mechanics

So let’s talk about the mechanics of this expansion.

I’m going to assume you are familiar with at least the basic rules of Railroad Ink. To play on the Archipelago board, you use the four standard Route dice, but you can also add on most kinds of expansion dice, like these.

There are four major adjustments to the rules: Rounds, Drawing Routes, Buildings, and Bridges.

Rounds

First: this game lasts TEN rounds, instead of the normal seven. You shorten this to only eight rounds if you’re also using expansion dice (that would normally shorten the game to six).

Drawing Routes

Secondly: Drawing routes is mostly the same, but all the routes you draw on a turn must be on the same island. This only applies to the routes you rolled on the standard Route dice, it doesn’t apply to special routes, expansion dice, or routes you obtain through using buildings.

Buildings

Speaking of buildings! Let’s talk about those.

The Archipelago board adds four kinds of special buildings, but three of them you might already recognize from the Railroad Ink Challenge:

• There’s the Factory, which lets you draw a second copy of any rolled route on the turn that you fill it.
• There’s the Village, which gives extra points if you build a station junction in its space.
• The University: activating three Universities lets you build an additional special four-way route.
• And the brand-new building, of the Warehouse.

The Warehouse can store a route to use on a later turn – or even on the same turn. You begin the game with two unlocked Warehouse spaces – here, along the side of your board.

Anytime you build where there’s a warehouse on the main board, you unlock another Warehouse space. Only basic routes (not expansion dice or special four-way routes) can be stored in Warehouse spaces, but you can choose to store one at any time.

Once you decide to build a route that you’ve previously stored, cross off its entire Warehouse space – you’re not going to be able to use this again.

Bridges

Lastly, this board has BRIDGES between the islands. As you might expect, you automatically build a bridge when you connect a route to either end. It counts as an extra space if it’s part of your longest route at the end of the game.

Scoring for this works exactly like any other version of Railroad Ink. Tally up your points for connecting exits, longest highway, longest railway, your central spaces (there are four on each island!), and subtract points for each error, or each incomplete route. And of course, you can also gain points from expansions or from Goal cards.

Expectations

So let’s talk about what I expected from this expansion. I enjoy the Railroad Ink games, and especially Railroad Ink Challenge. I was excited for something that could breathe new life into my existing “Lush Green” set, and islands seemed like a cool new way to shape your choices in the game.

Since it can play with either Railroad Ink or Railroad Ink Challenge sets, I figured it wouldn’t use the “challenge” piece at all – and that’s fine.

Also, I really like this purple color.

Surprises

So let’s talk about surprises.

First – these boards are HUGE! When they’re folded up, they look almost the same as any other Railroad Ink board, so I was really surprised – and a little overwhelmed – the first time I opened one up.

Secondly – there are rules in here to use Goal cards, if you have them. So that was an awesome surprise – I much prefer playing with the Goals, to give me different priorities each time I play.

Thirdly – I wasn’t expecting a new kind of special building in here! The warehouse can be really handy, especially because of the rule that I kept forgetting – you have to place all your routes in a turn on the same island!

That same-island rule was surprisingly hard to remember. It took quite a few plays for it to start to feel intuitive, rather than something I needed to constantly check each turn. This rule doesn’t apply to special routes, doesn’t apply to expansion dice – or to the routes obtained from special buildings like the warehouse and the factory.

So use that warehouse to temporarily store routes so you can put them exactly where you want them, and not be limited by that same-island rule!

Recommended?

If you’ve played a Railroad Ink game in the past and thought “this game is great, but it’s just a little bit too short” – this expansion is for you. Yes, it adds some new elements of strategy – but the main thing this board does is make the game longer.

And I LOVED that about this game.

I used to walk away from a game of Railroad Ink feeling a little unsatisfied. This completely fixes that, for me. This game is almost 50% longer, and now it feels like it’s just the right length, at least for me.

If you enjoy Railroad Ink, I would give these a try. I rate the Archipelago boards 4 ½ stations out of 5.

And that’s Railroad Ink: Archipelago, in a SNAP!

Get it from Amazon, direct from Horrible Guild, or at your local game store.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Railroad Ink: Archipelago boards from Horrible Guild (via Flat River Games) for this review.

This post contains affiliate links, which do not change your price, but help support The Family Gamers.

SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?