Ticket to Ride: Alvin & Dexter

If you have already mastered the maps of Ticket to Ride and feel like your life as a railway tycoon is missing a bit of chaos, Alvin & Dexter are the perfect guests for your table. This expansion doesn't add a new map, but rather two giant monsters—an alien and a classic Kaiju-style beast—that will make life difficult for everyone. The mechanics are simple but cruel: where these creatures step, no one can build. If you were planning to close that vital route to complete your destination ticket, you better hope the monsters aren't hanging out there. Even worse: if they are in a city during the final tally, the value of your ticket is cut in half. It is one low blow after another! To move these creatures, you need to spend locomotive cards (the famous wildcards). It is a constant dilemma: do you spend your precious wildcards to move the monster away from your route, or do you risk leaving the beast there and hope no one messes with you? Whoever moves the monsters the most during the game also earns an endgame bonus, which encourages the "kindness" of pushing the monster into your opponent's backyard. It is an expansion that completely changes the blocking dynamics of the game. If you were previously only worried about other players' trains, now you have to deal with these beasts that turn any familiar map into a strategic battlefield. It is guaranteed fun for those who enjoy high interactivity (read: mischief) and want to spice up games that were becoming too predictable. Alvin & Dexter is compatible with almost the entire Ticket to Ride line, so dust off any version you have on your shelf and prepare for chaos. Just don't get into a fight with your friends when the monster stops right in the city you needed to finish your longest route!