Review

The old phrase, "If it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium," is the perfect way to sum up 10 Days in Europe, the latest game from Out of the Box Publishing

This creative family game about traveling in Europe is for two to four players and includes a colorful game board, four wood tile holders and 66 tiles made from heavy card stock. It also includes a four-page instruction card and a compact storage box.

The game is easy to set up. Each player gets a wood tile holder with 10 slots, one for each day of the trip. The game board, placed in the center of the table, is used to identify country locations and the various ocean sea, and ferry connections.

Play starts by players randomly choosing 120 country or transportation tiles, which are mixed together, and then placing them into their tile holders one at a time. From there, play runs clockwise around the table with players drawing and discarding tiles to attempt to put their trip together.

The idea is to construct at 10-day European vacation in which each day's destination connects in some way with the next. Days may connect by having countries with contiguous boarders, by using a ship to travel from one country to the next or by flying between destinations.

The thing that makes the game challenging is that once a tile is placed in a day's slot, it cannot be moved unless it's discarded and re-drawn later in the game, which can be pretty risky. Players are not allowed to shuffle tiles in their itinerary slots at any time. More than once during play testing, I had two complete five-day trips but couldn't get them to connect without discarding part or all of them. The first player to present a European holiday that connects all 10 days is the winner.

10 Days in Europe is a lot of un to play. The game moves quickly (about 15-20 minutes per round) and has high-quality wood and card-stock components. The box indicates that the game is recommended for ages 10 and up, but I thought it would probably be good for slightly younger players (ages 8 and 9) as well. The game also offers some fun educational value, teaching players the geographic locations, populations and capital cities of European countries as they plan their routes.