Around the World in 80 Days
A game for 2-6 players by <PERSON>.
Sir <PERSON>: One thousand pounds for an elephant? It's outrageous! You've been diddled.
<PERSON>: Undoubtedly. But it's not often one needs an elephant in a hurry.
― From the 1956 movie, 80 Days Around the World, starring <PERSON> as <PERSON>
Introduction
Around the World in 80 Days, or if you prefer, Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours is one of <PERSON> best known works. In it, wealthy gentleman <PERSON> accepts a bet that he can travel around the world in 80 days. He sets out with his trusted butler, amusingly named <PERSON>. An overzealous Scotland Yard detective named <PERSON> spots <PERSON> en route, and thinking he matches the description of a man who robbed the Bank of England, sets off in pursuit. Hilarity ensues.
This premise is translated beautifully in one of the most vicious little racing games it's been my pleasure to play. I acquired it in a trade almost exactly five years ago, partly because I was interested in the theme, and partly because the nice guy I got it from had made a set of laminated event cards in French, making it an attractive proposition to play with my family. My daughter was still little at the time, so I put this on the shelf and didn't think much about it until recently.
I'm now kicking myself because I could have been playing this a lot!
Please note that all games photos are used from the BGG gallery. Images of the 1954 movie linked from IMDB.
The Components
The game features a nice small board with the ten cities players need to visit on their race around the world. The map is both attractive and highly functional, with the graphics being very clean and clear.
Photo: <PERSON>
The components include figures for each player, time markers to show how much time each player has spent so far, cards to allow movement, money which has several uses, an attractive die, reward markers for the first and last person to each city, and a deck of random event cards.
Photo: <PERSON>
The components are, like the map, nice and easy on the eyes and serve their functions well.
Game Play
The game begins with each player in London, discussing the latest news from around the world and betting that they can be fastest around the world! Now, ok, this varies from the book in that only <PERSON> went on the journey, but nonetheless, this is a game, and games need to take a few liberties to make it interesting for everyone. 92
Otherwise we'd just be sitting around watching someone play a solo game.
You start the game with some travel cards, and these will be either trains or ships, and will have a number on them. The number on the card represents how many days it will take to travel using that particular train or ship. More on that in a moment.
Everyone begins in London, and the race is ten cities long. The path, starting from London is to
Paris, via train and ship, then
Brindisi, via train, then
Suez, via ship, then
Bombay, via two ships, then
Calcutta, via elephant. WHAT? Hang, on, I'll explain in a moment. Then
Honshu, via two trains, then
Yokohama, via either two ships, OR a train and a ship, then
San Francisco, via two ships, then
New York, via two trains, and last but not least,
London, via two ships and a train.
WHEW!
Ok, so let's parse this out. Ten cities, eighty days, an average of eight days per leg, and ideally less than that. You're going to also need seventeen travel cards and a minimum of nine will be ships and seven trains.
BUT WAIT!
There are also balloons.
If your head hasn't exploded yet, then let's go back to the beginning. You're in London, and you know that you have to go around the world in a certain order, and you want to make it as quickly as you can.
You know you need certain kinds of cards to succeed, and so planning is going to be essential. However, I will warn you now that there is luck, both the luck of the draw from the card deck, and the kind of dumb luck some people just can't handle where the die will screw you over, on purpose, because that's what dice do.
If you can't handle a bit of dumb luck in your game, the proliferation of games where you have to convert goods into refined goods to manufactured goods that convert into victory points are for you. 755