Under The Microscope – 10 Days In Asia

10 Days In Asia
Designed by Alan R. Moon & Aaron Weissblum
Published by Out Of The Box

This is a game of connecting countries in Asia to build a 10 day trip through those countries. It mixed fun and geography to produce a fun family game.

What You Get:
A game board with a map of Asia with each country in one of five different colors
57 country tiles – each tile depicts a country on the board in a corresponding color
21 transportation tile consisting of 5 railroad tiles, ten airplane tiles (two of each color), seven ship tiles (four for the Indian Ocean and three for the Pacific Ocean)
4 sets of wooden tile holders marked for the 10 days
A four page rules booklet

How Do You Play:
Set up is pretty easy. The game board goes in the middle of the play area. Each player gets a set of tile holders. With all tiles face down, shuffle or mix them. Players then choose tiles to fill their tile holders. Players may put a tile in any open slot. Continue this until all players have ten tiles. Players may not move or reposition a tile once it is placed in their holder except to discard it. This is covered later. The rest of the tiles are stacked into a draw pile. The top three tiles are turned over and placed face up beside the draw pile to form the discard piles. The first player now begins his turn. On a turn a player may do two things: draw a tile and place a tile. The player may draw the top tile from the draw deck OR one tile from one of the three discard piles. If he can use it, he discards one of his tiles and replaces it with the drawn one. If he cannot use it, he discards it. Players continue in this fashion until one has completed a ten day journey through Asia. But what is a ten day journey? A ten day journey is when there is a connection from the country at Day 1 to Day 2, Day 2 to Day 3, Day 3 to Day 4, etc. until Day 10 is reached. How are countries connected? They are connected if they are adjacent, are linked by train or ocean, or through an airplane. Airplanes are a special case. Air connections are made by placing a same colored airplane between two countries whose colors match each other and the airplane. Rail connections are made in the same way between any two countries so long as they are on the same railroad line. Ship connections are made between two countries that touch the same ocean. The ship tile goes between them. Adjacent countries are travelled between by foot and go side by side in the holder. There are some special structures on the map – bridges and ferries. Bridges connect two countries and are solid black. Ferries are dotted lines and also connect two countries. Countries connected by either of these are considered adjacent.
The winner is the one who completes his 10 day journey first.

What I Think:
This game is fun. It makes you think ahead and plan. It frustrates you when you can’t pick up the one tile you desperately need. Or when the player ahead of you picks it up. It teaches geography well. The names of the countries and their capitols are listed on the tiles as well as the shape of the country. My kids are learning country geographic relations and how to strategize to get where they want at the right time. We own all five 10 Days games and enjoy each of them.

Microscope Ratings (out of 5):