Alan R. Moon Discusses Ticket to Ride

In a recent post to an email discussion group, game designer Alan R. Moon said this about his most recent game, Ticket to Ride: "I was working on a more complicated railroad game with tiles and stations as well as trains. I tested three versions of this game and while each verison was better than the previous one, the third version still wasn't much fun. Ticket to Ride was born out of my frustration with that game."

Following is Moon's full post:

"In this month's issue of The Games Journal, Greg Aleknevicus suggests that Ticket to Ride was inspired by Union Pacific. An easy assumption considering how similar the board and pieces look. However, Ticket to Ride was not inspired by UP at all. In fact, I was working on a more complicated railroad game with tiles and stations as well as trains. I tested three versions of this game and while each verison was better than the previous one, the third version still wasn't much fun.

"Ticket to Ride was born born out of my frustration with that game, the basic idea coming during my daily walk and then refined while messing around with the cards from Freight Train. It was only when I starting placing the trains on the first prototype board (I was using the UP trains for the prototype) while playing solitaire that the resemblance to UP struck me.

"I'm now working on two games that have definitely been inspired by Ticket to Ride. One game with Bruno Faidutti and the other with Richard Borg. I hope you'll know a lot more about these games in 2005."