So today we’re going to be taking a look at a quasi-educational game where you can learn about geography! Wait, WAIT… COME BACK! I promise it’s also alot of fun. It’s got that cool Carmen Sandiego vibe where it’s a fun game with some light education aspects incorporated instead on an educational game with a bit of fun sprinkled over top. While the game is about geography it’s also about chaining combos to bounce around countries trying to connect a 10 days journey. It’s obviously geared towards older kids and young adults but that in no way kept my wife and I from enjoying our time with it. It’s always a good sign when a game ends with one of us saying “Want to play it again?”

Out of the Box Publishing has been making these “10 Days” games for a little bit now, taking us through Europe, Asia, Africa and more. The latest installment pretty much rounds out the world with a trip through the America’s. If you’re really into it there’s actually a way to combine all the games together and do a trip around the world!

The goal of the game is to use country and transportation tiles to string together a 10 days journey before everyone else does. Each player gets a tile holder (similar to a scrabble tile holder) to keep their pieces in. During your turn you can draw a new tile to replace on you already have, trying to get each tile to connect to the ones around it. You can’t move tiles around in your holders though, once they’re in place they’re set unless you discard them. The next 2 pictures show two different 10 days connections using different means.

Each tile will represent 1 day so you’re goal is to connect 10 tiles. There are a few ways to make connections between countries in order to string them all together. The easiest one is to travel by foot, and you can do that by laying down two tiles that either share a border or have a dotted line drawn between them (island to island connections mostly). The second way is by air, and you do that by placing a plane tile of a particular color between 2 countries of that color (Brazil and Chile in the picture above). Finally you have cruises, which are played as different bodies of water (like in the picture below). Use all these different tiles efficiently and complete the 10 day journey first to win.

The game includes nice sturdy tile holders and really high quality tile cards that are nice and thick and will withstand lots of abuse. The board folds up pretty small and when laid out has a political style map of the America’s with close-ups of the Caribbean. The funny thing is the board is only used for reference, there’s no pieces actually on the board at any time during the game. The entire thing takes place in each player’s holder. Of course you need the board there to know what colors the countries are and what’s connected to what, but you never really physically use it.

This is one of those games that really impressed me after I rolled into it with no expectations whatsoever. The game went by quickly and there’s definitely a certain amount of luck to it, but this is a game that really rewards thinking on your feet and adjusting your strategy on the fly. To top it all off I learned a little geography along the way. This game would be awesome in a classroom setting either with student playing against other or as a last class activity.

10 Days in the Americas was released by Out of the Box Publishing in 2010. You can buy it at Funagain Games, Amazon, or your Friendly Local Game Store.