10 Days in the USA

This is another game we got from Geppettos.  10 Days in the USA has a big game board map of the USA, a deck of cards and some plastic holders for organizing player hands and discard piles.  The goal is simple: to build a 10-card trip across the country.

Most of the cards are states, including Alaska & Hawaii.  Other cards include cars that let you skip a state, and planes that let you jump to any state of the same color.  Note that the color of the plane must match the card before and after it, so you can't use a red card to hop between green states.  Side note: any color plane can get to Hawaii or Alaska.

We do like rules-light games and that's about all the rules to be found here, except for one rule about how the travel in the four corners area.  You draw a card each turn, replace one of the cards in your rack, and discard one.  Once a card is in your rack you cannot move it.

Actual gameplay was moderately frustrating for Anne, and like usual with any game with geography, I kept being asked to show where the states were.  That's fine, happy to help, but it does give away what cards the other player has.

We found that the trips do start to come together up after 8 to 10 draws, and it was mildly entertaining to have the feel of trying to plan actual road trips -- the flights never seem to go exactly where you want to go.  But toward the end, it drags because we are each looking for one or two cards to complete the trip.  Also, if I get all the way from California to Maryland in just 9 cards, that really should count as a completed trip.  Instead, I have to keep pulling cards until I get a neighboring state ... and those might have all been discarded much earlier in the game.  To fix this, or speed up the drag for two players, maybe allow a shorter trip, or let the trip end with a car card, because you made it across the country and then went for a drive.  But what if the only remaining card cards have also been buried in a discard pile?

I was a bit surprised that, considering the size of the game board, you never put any tokens on the board.  The only use of the board, other than seeing how the states are connected, is putting the trips in the #1-10 card spaces at the bottom, so all players can review it.  With two player, we can just tilt the card holders to see the trip -- no need to move cards at all.  I think it would be interesting to put colored chips on the states I have traveled to, for some added tension, and it would be nice to know that Ohio is not available.  But then you would have to keep updating your chips when your trip changes.

It feels like the game is missing something.  The big empty game board doesn't feel right.  It would be good if there was a way to earn a token every now and then, and then spend a token to swap two cards in your tray.