Days of Steam was first published in 2009 and is available from Valley Games Inc. (This post was originally published on BoardGame-Reviews.com)
Days of Steam:
- Designed by: Aaron Lauster
- Published by: Valley Games Inc.
- Number of players: 2-4
- Playing time: 60 min
- Player ages: 10+
A Quick Overview
In this tile laying game, players place tracks and cities creating routes for the delivery of goods. Players who can deliver a variety of goods receive bonus points.
Careful hand management and keeping your engine at the necessary steam capacity will enable you to create the most profitable routes and deliveries.
Game Play
On their turn, a player may do one of the following actions:
- Place a tile from hand
- Move their train
- Place a town tile
Each of these “micro” actions blends together to create an interesting train-themed game.
Each player has a hand of 3 track tiles. Each is valued at a certain number of “steam” points. By placing a tile, a player generates power to move their locomotive. The player’s locomotive can only have a maximum of 6 steam points.
By choosing to expend steam, players move their trains from location to location picking up and delivering goods.
And finally, a town tile can be placed to provide another delivery location and source of goods. This is helpful because each town can only accept a particular good.
The winner is the one who reaches 13 points first or has the most points when the tile deck is exhausted.
Observations
Disclaimer: This game was provided as a sample game by Valley Games Inc.
I have played Days of Steam a few times now and I think it is a fun game. It’s easy enough to teach and plays rather quickly.
I thought this game was interesting in the sense that players were forced to expand the rail network as this was the only way to generate steam to power their locomotives.
If you have been a regular reader of this site, then you know that I enjoy train themed games very much. Days of Steam has a definite train flavor to it but I didn’t like the tile-laying bit.
The tile-laying part was similar to the game Carcassone which I didn’t like that much.
As far as game-complexity goes, Days of Steam is rather easy to learn and teach. There are plenty of examples in the rule book to clarify the game concepts.
I would consider it a nice “gateway” game; a game that introduces people to the genre of train-themed games.
Happy gaming.
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