We planned an epic tour across the United States for our bands in On Tour, the next game in our A-Z game shelf play-through.
Basic Info: On Tour
Players: 1-4
Time: 20 Minutes
Designers: Chad DeShon
Artists: Anca Gavril
Publisher: BoardGameTables.com
On Tour is a roll and write game where players act as a band manager planning out stops for a U.S. tour. Each round, players will use the same numbers to mark candidate states on their maps. Whoever can connect the most cities in a path of ascending numbers will not only have a monumental tour, but will also win the game.
To set up the game, shuffle the state cards and give each player a player board and marker. Everyone “seeds” their board. This is done by rolling the two 10-sided dice and drawing cards. the lowest number made from the two dice goes in the state shown on the first card, and the larger number goes into the state on the second card. (For example, if “3” and “9” were rolled, “39” would go in the first city and “93” in the second.) This is repeated one additional time, so that each player has four states marked with the same numbers on their boards. These numbers are circled.
Each round, three cards are revealed from the deck — they each show a state and a region. Then the dice are rolled. Each player writes the higher and lower value formed by the dice on their board. However, they must place each number in different regions depicted in the cards drawn that round. If they place a number in the state shown in a card, not just the region, they circle the number.
In the case that either doubles are rolled or all three cards show the same region, players all put a * in one state that round, instead of marking two. The marked state must still be in one of the regions depicted on the cards, and players still circle the state if it’s the exact one shown.
When just one or two states remain, players just roll the dice and do not pull cards. The last state or two are marked as usual.
Finally, players connect up the different states, trying to make the longest/most valuable path of ascending numbers (connecting the same number is also okay). Then players count up how many states they connected, counting an additional point for each circled state on their path. The player with the most points wins.
I backed this game on Kickstarter, because it looked like a fun game that can accommodate a lot of players (I have twelve player boards!) — which was something we looked for often when we had game nights.
I like the tension of waiting (and hoping) for just the right number to show up to fill a gap. Of course, that comes with the aggravation when it comes up just a turn or two after you’ve given up on it OR the right number comes up, but the wrong regions. It’s a relatively fast game with some fun and frustrating decisions.
How is it as a 2-player game? On Tour works well at all player counts! It’s fun to see how different everyone’s tours are, even though we’ve all played with the same numbers and regions/states.
How about the art and component quality? The boards are very high quality. I love the art style. Even the dry erase pens that came with the game still work!
Will this stay in my collection? Absolutely. We love pulling this out when we need a quick game in between larger games or at the end of the evening.