Ticket to Ride: First Journey takes the gameplay of the Ticket to Ride series and scales it down for a younger audience.
In general; players collect train cards; claim routes on the map; and try to connect the cities shown on their tickets. In more detail; the game board shows a map of Europe with certain cities being connect by colored paths. Each player starts with four colored train cards in hand and two tickets; each ticket shows two cities; and you're trying to connect those two cities with a contiguous path of your trains in order to complete the ticket.
On a turn; you either draw two train cards from the deck or discard train cards to claim a route between two cities; for this latter option; you must discard cards matching the color and number of spaces on that route (e.g.; two yellow cards for a yellow route that's two spaces long). If you connect the two cities shown on a ticket with a path of your trains; reveal the ticket; place it face up in front of you; then draw a new ticket. (If you can't connect cities on either ticket because the paths are blocked; you can take your entire turn to discard those tickets and draw two new ones.) If you connect one of the westernmost cities (Dublin; Brest; Madrid) to one of the easternmost cities (Moscow; Rostov; Ankara) with a path of your trains; you immediately claim a special cross-continent ticket.
The first player to complete six tickets wins! Alternatively; if someone has placed all twenty of their trains on the game board; then whoever has completed the most tickets wins!
Ticket to Ride: First Journey (Europe) features the same gameplay as the first Ticket to Ride: First Journey game; but with the players claiming track in Europe instead of in the United States.
