10 Days in

Beautiful is a Swahili word meaning hideously ugly.

10 Days is a series of games containing pretty yet functional maps.  They even included small countries that are not playable to increase accuracy of geographical renditions.   When buying the Africa version, I ended up unwittingly getting a version called "Beautiful Africa."  It is the same game as 10 Days in Africa, but with different art.  Art that is both ugly and non- functional as the colors are inconsistent and difficult to distinguish.  10 Days is always easy to get to the table, except the black sheep pictured above.

Publisher:

Out of the Box

Designer:

Alan Moon, Aaron Weissblum

Elevator Pitch:

You are attempting to go on a ten day trip, where each day's journey is connected to the next.  You start by drawing ten tiles and placing them, one at a time, each into a specific day of your journey.  Then each turn you draw a tile and may use to replace a tile.  The difficulty lies in the fact that you can never shuffle tiles around, so it can be trickier to get things to line up in the order you want.  

Personal Impression:

10 Days is a perfect filler to spend 20 minutes on at the beginning or end of a game night   It is an educational game done right.  You get some interesting choices and get to plan a trip albeit one that you usually wouldn’t want to go on.  Or perhaps you would like play it twice within 40 minutes.  Or three times within..

Good for People who Grew up Playing:

Rummy

Ease of Learning:

Pretty simple even for a gateway game.  Most players should pick up the rules within a couple of minutes. The challenge here is that everyone’s game board is secret, so if a player is misunderstanding a rule it can be difficult to tell.

Fidgety Index

Not a whole lot to play with, but you can stare your route or the pretty maps and make travel plans.

Universal Theme:

Most people enjoy planning trips and you can learn geography along the way.  One of these times, I'll even be able to place Lithuania on a map.

Player Count and Length:

2-4. Works fine for all count, though can drag a little with 4 players when everybody needs tiles that are already taken.  Still it should never take more than 30 minutes to play and is more often 15-20.

Expansions:

None

Spin Offs:

There are five 10 Day games, USA, Africa, Asia, Europe, and The Americas.  They all have similar mechanics, though there are a couple of rule tweaks or transportation option changes depending on the set.  They are minor so just choose the area of the world you are most interested in.  If you are feeling particularly crazy, you can combine maps and play 20-40 days around the world.  It is fun to fly across continents, though it takes far longer to find that tile you are looking for.  If you want the same mechanics without the geography you can play Racko instead, which replaces countries with numbers.

Introducing the Game to New Gamers: 

If possible, start with a map where players are familiar with the geography.  Make sure all rules are clearly understood before beginning play.  Watch for strange plays, and if able have a non-participant keep an eye on the novices. 

Apps:

None

Links:

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