Welcome to “Board with Myself,” a feature in which I talk about solo board games and board games with solo modes. Sometimes you don’t have a lot of friends. Sometimes you don’t have many friends at all. That’s when you have to be board with yourself.
Railroad Ink is your classic “roll and write” game. If you don’t know what that means, congratulations on having sex before. Also, it means - and you’ll love this - you roll dice and then you write down what the results were. Ah? Ah? You get it? You get it.
Like many roll and write games, Railroad Ink is about beating other players’ scores. And since it’s a score-based game, playing solo just means playing against yourself. Here’s a fun fact about me: I don’t know all my cousins’ names, but I do have a running list of board game scores in my notes app. Are those priorities wrong? I dunno, but you’re reading this post, soooooo…
To go down the track a bit more (pun doesn’t work), Railroad Ink plays over seven rounds. Each round, you roll dice that have different track and/or road designs on it. These tracks and roads can connect to exits and each other on the dry-erase maps included with the game. There are also special tracks and roads you can access three times each game. It’s pretty simple.
At the end of the game, you calculate exits connected, your longest track, your longest road, and a few other things to get your final score. And… that’s the game! Depending on which version you buy, there’s also an included expansion that adds additional rules along the same basic gameplay cycle. Sadly, to get all the expansions, you basically have to buy the base game again and again. I think. I could be wrong. I dunno. I’m not paid for this Substack.
To be frank, I have no idea how Railroad Ink plays with other people because I’ve only played it solo. I’m sure it’s great. You talk to your friends. They tell you about what’s going on in their lives. You share a drink. Whatever it is people with friends do, you do.
As a solo game, though, Railroad Ink is smooth and fun. Games last only about 15-20 minutes, making it a nice morning warmup if you need a nice morning warmup. It’s small in size and easy to learn, two of my favorite qualities. While the theme isn’t exactly something that excites me (there are weirdly a lot of games about infrastructure), it works for what it is. And the actual play itself does match the theme nicely rather than feel like bland wallpaper.
Railroad Ink is cheap and you can hide it pretty easy in case someone comes over and you don’t want questions. And if you have someone coming over - good news! - it comes with extra dry erase boards and markers. Because they assume you’d be playing this with a group.
Which I haven’t.