10 Days in Asia

by Madhujith

(Bangalore, India)

Game:
10 Days in Asia
Game manufacturer:
Out of the Box Games
Number of players:
2-4 Players
Ages:
8+

Quick verdict

A good introductory game that is light and educative at the same time. If you have small kids at home, you should buy the whole series. It will educate your child about world geography in a fun way.

The game and gameplay

Well, go out and see Asia! Not really see Asia, but yes, you can see Asia’s map and get familiar and go to possibly 10 different countries in 10 days! Well that’s what this game is all about.

I had read about this series i.e. the 10 Days series (it comes in 4 variants- 10 Days in Asia, Europe, Africa and USA) and some of them had mentioned that this was the best among the lot and a good introductory board game.

While I can’t comment on how good the rest are, I agree to some extent that this can be a good introductory game for children rather than adults. Well let’s just get into the box and see what you get. For a light game, the box is very heavy! You’ll see why.

78 tiles (Fifty Seven Country tiles and Twenty One transportation tiles), four sets of wooden tile holders, two per set (this makes the box heavy). These wooden holders have Day 1- Day 10 printed on them to keep the tile in the appropriate slot; and a nicely printed map of Asia. The quality of components is top class, though they could have made things light.
On your turn, you pick up a tile either from the face down pile or from any of the face up discard pile. You must place this tile by removing one tile from your tile holder, which is then discarded onto any of the three piles. You may even discard the card you have just drawn.

That’s it, very simple right! The first to complete a logical route of 10 days is the winner. Of course there are some aspects that needs to be adhered to while completing a route:

Any Completed 10 day journeys should start and end with country tiles and not transportation tiles. Two tiles from the same country may be included, so long as they are not next to each other. It is not necessary to include any transportation tiles in your route; transportation tiles cannot be placed next to each other.

Now having said all these how do you connect? Any country that is adjacent can be traveled by road, so just keep it next to each other. On the map is the rail route connecting country and hence you can use a Rail tile to connect those two countries.

Each country has a colour code (five in all). So you can use an aeroplane of the appropriate colour and connect it to another country of the same colour. Eg. India (brown)- Brown Aeroplane- Russia (brown). Countries can be connected so long as they are on the same ocean i.e. Indian or Pacific.

So not fussy at all, pretty straightforward to learn and play. There is very little strategy or tactics as everything is based on tile draw, though some nasty things like placing a tile on one of the discard pile to prevent your opponent from getting a tile that you know he/she wants is a fun thing to do.

Pros and cons
One of the biggest pluses of this game is, it’s short. With a really bad set of tile draws the game can extend to 30 minutes, otherwise 15-20 mins is what you are looking at.

With four people, you can say it might be a 30 min game on an average. So pretty fast! It is simple to learn and there is definitely a learning component that makes it very attractive for kids.

Having said that, this game is not a strategic nor is it even tactical. Of course there are some interesting mechanics like discarding an unwanted tile on top of a tile that you know your opponent wants, but that element is not too game changing. As it is very light, it may not appeal serious gamers. However if you have kids at home, this is a great addition for the entire family to sit and have fun.

The verdict

I would exercise caution before buying this game. Try it out if you can and then venture out buying. But if you are a household with kids at home and looking out for a nice and easy game that is also educative in some sense, this game is for you. I would recommend go buy the whole series and play 40 days around the world to improve your geography!