A Puzzling Homage to Ticket to Ride

I'm an avid boardgaming enthusiast and will be heading off to hang out with a bunch of boardgame luminaries, designers, reviewers and publishers as part of Alan R. Moon's annual Gathering of Friends. Alan is the award-winning designer of Ticket to Ride, one of our family's favourite boardgames.

One of the traditions of the Gathering is to bring along a new game or a special item to exchange with others as part of a "prize table". I wanted to offer something special this year and thought a Ticket to Ride puzzle would be très cool. Well, after 3 weeks of solid design and prototyping work, I can confirm that it is! Here's a sneak peek.

Now I don't have image licensing rights to sell the puzzle so this is a bit of a tease... but I do hope to one day be able to use some of the design in another puzzle. But for now, I'm just happy to showcase some of my favorite elements of the puzzle.

Part of the puzzle features a locomotive mini-puzzle that is very satisfying to put together. I also included a number of historical railroad company logos.

The puzzle also contains characters that will be familiar to Ticket to Ride players, inspired by Julien Delval's wonderful art, including the player colour personalities depicted on various Ticket to Ride expansion covers, as well as Alvin and Dexter. There's also a very subtle nod to the North American Ticket to Ride map as puzzle cutlines are aligned along a loose route framework. You might even be able to recognize the Great Lakes.

All in all, I'm very happy with this little design exploration. Choo! Choo!