Next Station Paris: Paris is just a dream (in four colors)

It's strange to want to make a game about the Parisian metro... it seems to me that it's more likely to reactivate the trauma experienced by the twenty-year-old I once was, lost in the center of Paris with a hiker's backpack, a big suitcase on wheels and a guitar in its heavy case, who was trying painfully to enter said metro without ever getting any cooperation from the other travelers. When the doors of the beast opened, the tsunami of travelers in a hurry to get out would knock me over, and when I had regained my senses and it was time to enter, I would see, stunned, that the other travelers had entered before me, fighting against the wave that was coming out (they didn't have suitcases, themselves) and that there was no more room for all my gear. So I would wait patiently for the next metro so that the experience could be repeated again.

Trauma aside, with Next Station Paris , we're going to play in the Paris metro, but we feel much less cramped there, we don't have to deal with other hurried, unpleasant or smelly travelers (but that also depends on the relative cleanliness of your games room...) What more could you ask for?

You may be familiar with the other two titles in this series: Next Station London (the original) and Next Station Tokyo . If so, Next Station Paris will round out your gaming experience with a few minor additions that I believe make it a little more accessible to younger players.

How does it work?

A game of Next Station Paris is divided into four rounds where you will draw a colored metro line (red, blue, green, purple) on a somewhat abstract map of the city of Paris.

Up to four players can play simultaneously during a round, each drawing a different colored line; the colored pencils will circulate between players.

A player, nicknamed the Controller, has the task of revealing one by one the cards from a small deck on which there is a symbol (Square, Triangle, Circle or Pentagon). This card indicates to which station the players can extend their subway line during their turn. The round ends when the controller has revealed a fifth card with a blue background (which means that each round lasts between 5 and 10 turns).

The rules for drawing our lines are easy to understand: except in exceptional cases, we must always draw from one end of our existing line, we must extend the line by following the dotted lines that indicate the possible paths, the same line cannot pass through the same station several times, and we can never cut a line drawn during a previous turn. That's all!

At the end of each round, we will count the points scored by the freshly drawn line; the value of a line is determined by the number of different districts of Paris crossed by the line X the number of stations created in the same district. We also add points if our line allows travelers to access famous monuments of the City of Lights.

We quickly understand that, to win, we must therefore find the best possible compromise between the development of our line in the same district AND its extension in the greatest number of districts, while leaving space to develop our other lines during the subsequent rounds. It's a joyful puzzle!

At the end of the fourth round, after counting the points of the last line drawn, we move on to the end of game counting. Points will be added for all matches (stations connected by several different colors) and for completed objectives (if we chose to include them in the game).

So, what do we think?

I enjoyed my games of Next Station London and found the same enjoyment in the Paris version of the game. I would say that if you don't own any of the other titles in the series, Next Station Paris would probably be the one I would buy first, because the Paris map is a bit more forgiving and offers more possibilities, especially through the air crossings (waypoints where lines of different colors can exceptionally intersect) and the huge central station, where all lines can go with any symbol. And if you already own the other titles in the series, the Paris version will add a bit of variety to your games.

Next Station Paris offers a fairly well-balanced mix of luck and strategy; despite chance deciding the possible destinations, the map always offers possibilities and we rarely find ourselves in a situation where we absolutely cannot draw a new line (even if it can happen). This version of the game also offers optional modules that can be integrated into the games (and which, generally, guide the strategies and allow us to score more points, without really complicating the gaming experience further).

However, you should know that, as each player draws their lines on their own map, there is no interaction between players during the game, except to pass around colored pencils and compare final scores. I know that this may please the most pacifist among you, as it may also put off the most belligerent! The advantage is that it plays very well solo (you have exactly the same gaming experience as in multiplayer mode); the compact box and the speed of the games make it an ideal game that you can leave lying around on the corner of your desk to play when you take a little break from work!

The material is very comparable to what could be found in other versions of the game: a notebook of double-sided maps of Paris, good for at least a hundred games, good quality route cards, colored pencils (they are wooden pencils that will last longer than felt-tip pens, but which need to be sharpened from time to time). Only criticism: I find that the different districts of Paris are difficult to see (they are delimited by a very pale yellow line that my old eyes struggle to distinguish) but I had the same criticism for the London version. We will easily overlook this tiny flaw since, if you like this type of game, Next Station Paris offers a quality-price-replay value that is difficult to surpass.

I'm looking forward to the Montreal version, where half of the lines will be blocked because of broken-down trains, and where you'll earn points by avoiding areas of the city where there are construction sites. As you can see, this will definitely be the expert version...

-Mat

Next Station Paris

A game by Matthew Dunstan, illustrated by Maxime Morin

Edited by Blue Orange

1 to 4 players

8 years and over