Ticket to Ride owns my soul

So I was attending a game night with friends yesterday, which is always fun because I've become "that cheap guy that recommends on dates with girls that we should just stay at home and watch a DVD, wait screw the DVD that costs money, let's watch the Andy Griffin show" guy. In other words, board game night is now my new way of having a crazy Wednesday night.

(Sign #456 that I'm getting old)

And after royally owning one team in a game of Cranium there was a push to change the type of board game we were playing.

Then Dylan Kitzan of Unforgivable pulled out "Ticket to Ride," which I was at first very skeptical of. The box art had me thinking that I was about to take a visit back to second grade with Thomas the Train.

You build trains? You need tickets? Nobody thinks trains are cool over the age of 10.

However, I couldn't have been more wrong about the game - after Dylan explained me the jist of the game, I instantly saw how this could be a blood-curdling, screw-your-friend over kind of game. As pretty evident by me giggling like a small child before the game started and a slight "oh this is going to be good."

(And to be fair it was great, I don't think one person is talking to me for a small period of time after blocking his route between Portland and Seattle. I know nobody know's what the heck I'm talking about, but this is just how nerdy - and awesome - this game is at the same time.)

And since I don't want to spend 30 minutes typing the jist of the game, here's a rundown from Wikipedia.

(For those of you too lazy to click on the link) Basically you try to build railways on a limited amount of spaces and cause your friends to curse and spit at you. Think Risk but with out all the dice rolling. You have to make your railways click up between different cities and you also want to see if you can make the longest train.

Okay, now I'm just digging myself into a hole of nerdiness here, but keep in mind I've played the game once and I keep thinking to myself "Now if I would have just taken the route over to Denver, not given away that I was trying to link of with Toronto and.. oh, oh, crap, that's what I should have done"

I'm probably now going to go to sleep tonight and dream about trains. This is exactly what the game designers (who are German) planned... I need to buy this board game.

And I'm probably going to die alone, but I'll have a box of "Ticket to Ride" in my hands.