B O A R D G A M E
Informative - Fun - Hobby - Leisure

I've made a boardgame for my own pleasure, just to have it done once. I wanted to create a game that could be played by my six year old daughter and it had to have some learning value. This is what i made.

Type of game

The game is a boardgame with 7x9 square fields. The idea behind the game are railroads. You have to accomplish an given to move to a particulair location on the gameboard. And from that location you have to bring goods or people to an other spot on the board. After doing so you then go back to your starting location to collect your next order.

Sound simple, isn't it? Now, the gameboard has 20 railroad pieces glued to its surface in a pattern such that it allows other pieces to slide between them. All the pieces together will form a landscape filled with railroad tracks. One rail piece is left over. This piece of railroad is the piece with which the playe will play. The player who's turn it is must place this piece on the gameboard by pushing it into a row or colom. On the other side of this row or colom a other railroad piece will be pushed off the gameboard. This will be the next playing piece. By moving a row or colom the player tries to connect a railroad track in such way that he can travel as far as possible to his destination. Since every player wants to make the best track on the gameboard, the tracks will change all the time.


At your starting position you will get a card with the location printed on it where the train has to go. When the train arrives at that location then the player will receive a destination card. This card will tell the player where to go next. Childeren can read the card or look at the picture where they have to go. When they reached this new location they have to return to their starting position. As they arrive there they have accomplish one order. The player then will get a new order card. This continues until one player has fullfilled three orders. [The advanced rules are slightly different.]




The gameboard is made from cardboard. On top i've glued a colored piece of paper. In the middle i've connected the two cardboard plates with tape to make it possible to fold the gameboard to a smaller size. On top of this gameboard i've glued the fixed railpieces. All the railpieces are made from triplex wood. Their size is 65x65 mm. All the artwork is made with MS Publisher 2.0 and printed on a Epson styles 600 printer at 360 dpi. The rails is glued on top of the wooden pieces. There are two sets of cards. One set order cards, here shown on the left. And one set destination cards shown on the right. The cards are made from normal playing cards. If you glue the artwork on top of the card then the motief of the card will be still visible. So, first you have to glue an empty piece of paper over the card. On top of this you can glue the printed design. This way you will have a rigid set of cards.



If you like to know more about this game then please contact me by email.

Have fun.
Bram
A.A. van Zoelen / vsim@mail.com
Updated: 16 Jan. 1998