Station Master Review: Trains Leave On Time!
Intent: Inspire you to try playing Station Master!
Do your trains run on time? Are the train stations efficient? Well, here there’s only one person responsible, the station master, which happens to be you! Will you satisfy your passengers and guide them efficiently to the right train, or were you simply just not trained properly? Station Master is a hand management, betting and bluffing card game by Calliope Games, designed by Chris Bayliss with the art done by Andrew Hepworth and Drew Perkett. This game was restored and reimplemented from the 2004 version. This game plays 2-6 players and takes about 30-50 minutes to play. How truly efficient are you at assigning carriages and passengers? Don’t let your points go down the train. (Okay, no more train puns, I’m sorry.)
Overview
You’re a Station Master. Your goal is to ensure the passengers board trains efficiently and that trains are built in a cohesive and efficient manner. Lots of efficiency here folks, mainly because the winner is determined by the individual with the MOST efficiency points by the time all trains leave the station.
In Station Master, you’ll take turns taking one of two actions: assigning a passenger to a train OR playing a Station Master card. The station is first set up, it will contain locomotive cards (essentially the front of the train) equal to the amount of players. Each player will be dealt three Station Master cards and six passenger pawns represented by all sorts of fun shapes.
If you choose to assign a passenger, you will select one of your six passengers and place them on one of the locomotive cards with the value hidden, making sure not to exceed the passenger limit on the card. If you choose to play a Station Master card you will either place a railcar on one of the locomotive (trains), or play an action card, which will have various effects on the game, such as moving various railcars, passengers or shifting how scoring is done for that particular locomotive, just to name a few.
Now, how does all of this work together? Well once that train hits the number of railcars equal to the number on the locomotive card it leaves the station. Once it leaves the station, scoring occurs. The way each train is scored is the number of points added from the railcars (could be positive or negative) multiplied by the total value of passengers per type of passenger that is on the locomotive card. For example, a locomotive train with 4 rail cards with their total adding up to 7 has three hat tokens and one perfume. The hat tokens add up to 4, while the perfume is unfortunately a -1 token, this means that the player who the hat belongs to gets 28 points, while the player with the perfume token loses 7 points.
As you play Station Master cards and place passengers you’ll have to think critically and attempt to outwit your opponents by getting the most points out of the trains you board and sabotaging the trains opponents board at the same time. You’ll not only have to be cunning but efficient as well as if you don’t board the right train at the right time, you may lose out on a chance at quite a bit of points.
First Game Impression
Well… I guess this is an opportunity to share a bit about how I learn games. I need to read the rulebook, I’m not an auditory learner whatsoever, which means I am usually the one to read the rulebook before any of our playthroughs teach Tylor and whomever else the game. I enjoy the role simply because if it were any other way I’d be slightly lost and confused. I was particularly tired when we had our first playthrough of this game and Tylor graciously volunteered to teach me. As he was explaining it, I was particularly excited about this game, there’s a lot of mechanics I really enjoy in this game, clever comebacks, slight bluffing, math orientation, and a theme that makes a lot of sense with what is happening. I was ready to be an absolute champion at this game.
I lost. Not only that, I lost miserably, I was nearly in the negative compared to Tylor who was in the many hundreds. I genuinely don’t know what happened, there were moments I’d get excited and go in on a train and all of the sudden Tylor would pile the many negative railcars and there simply was nothing I could do but watch myself lose points. I also may have forgotten the rule of there being a “Freight Locomotive,” which essentially reverses the points making all negatives positives and positives negative. I was so excited to earn my 115 points, except it was negative 115 instead!
Regardless of my shameful defeat, I was intrigued by the game, I was ready to dive back in and get my redemption, especially after essentially being dragged through the mud my first game.
Thoughts After Five Games
This game is an absolute blast! There’s a really dynamic level of player interaction as you each turn you can significantly alter your own strategy or hinder your opponents. The tug and pull of wanting to strive for your own points versus ensuring your opponents don’t score big trains is especially fun as each turn that choice evolves in various capacities. It feels fantastic to make a clever decision and either score or limit scoring of your opponents and even more rewarding to win a close game (which I now have, I redeemed myself after my tragic loss).
After five games, I really enjoy the game for what it is, it’s easy to get to the table and play. As the experience is so dynamic and engaging each playthrough, I found myself liking this game more and more. The one element I didn’t particularly like was the luck of the draw, as you only have three options, sometimes you’re just stuck and there’s nothing you can do except watch an opponent collect a massive amount of points or lose a significant amount yourself.
Other than that, I look forward to bringing this game out and playing it at a larger play count. We’ve only been able to play it at three max, so I certainly look forward to that six player game where the trains and passengers are rushing to be the most efficient. At a lower player count we found ourselves both stacking many of our passengers on similar trains and sharing the maximum points, while at higher player counts I foresee a significant amount more bluffing and strategic placement. I certainly look forward to experiencing that as I am betting it’ll be an entirely different experience.
MERIT Report Card
Overall Letter Grade: B+
Strengths: The game is quite dynamic and engaging in nature, the theme although not super immersive is clever and fitting, there’s opportunities for some big plays and moments and the game is a joy to play.
Areas of Improvement: It can feel defeating losing a significant amount of points or making a pretty big mistake. It’d be interesting to see a recovery ability or a potential save you can make to prevent yourself from losing many points. Increasing hand size would also make the game slightly more strategic.
Memorability: B+
Did this experience stick with me after playing this game? Yes, it definitely did. It was actually quite a nostalgic game for me because when I was younger we would often take the train from Russia to Kazakhstan to visit my mom’s side of the family for the summer. Having fond memories of rushing through train stations, particularly outdoor ones as well really made this game special for me.
How does this game resonate with the folks we introduce it to? I feel like this section is me consistently apologizing for the pandemic, but just you wait these sections will be vibrant and offer so much diverse insight in the future! Having said that, we were able to introduce this game to one friend who really enjoyed their experience with it. Certainly look forward to introducing it to more folks. (Particularly because it has capability for up to six players, which WE LOVE!)
How many memories can be built from this game? This is certainly a game for many grand moments. You’ll build yourself up for nearly a hundred points and then an action card is played and hinders your plans entirely! DERAIL! The tug and pull of the scoring is so interesting and although the player interaction can feel quite defeating at times, it is always so engaging. You really get the whole range of feelings from complete and utter joy to oh… that just happened.
Education: B+
Well to start off, math. If you’re afraid of math and it is not your friend, fear not! There is a handy sheet that makes it simple that essentially does the scoring for you, so don’t let that be a deterrent, however with the amount of scoring that you do, you might just improve your multiplication table in the process.
Beyond the obvious that is math, I get excited about this game because of the various educational elements lumped together here in one. Three in specific that particularly stand out, let me go into them one by one:
Waiting for the Right Time: Games that implement this learning objective well are already great in my eyes and this game is certainly one of them. As you have the agency to place your passengers whenever and wherever you want, the part that offers tremendous educational value is the decision of when to place those passengers and where. Timing when you place the passengers is important as if you place them too early you could be trapped into receiving many negative points, but if you wait too long all the room may run out on that locomotive card. Timing your decisions is such an important element not only in games but real life as well, knowing when to make your decision and being comfortable in doing so is an important skill to have.
Yourself versus Your Opponents: This element is hidden in many games and I love chatting about it. How often in life have you heard “Don’t worry about Olaf, focus on yourself.” Well there are many games where you can base your strategy entirely on what other players do, and this is certainly one of them. Sure you can just do your own thing, build your trains and try to score many points, but look… Tylor placed ALL his scoring tokens on this one train, it would certainly be a shame if someone was to SABOTAGE IT! There’s jest and fun in it, but that valuable life lesson of focusing on yourself more than others is often shown as well. You’ll find yourself lost in your opponents and realize that you haven’t really spent any time building your own points or utilizing your own strategy, which provides a great reflection point. It’s a great metaphor for those folk that need to see it for sure.
General Decision Making: Games generally create a safe space where you can make decision with little to no risk, which I find extremely important. I often found myself nervous to make decisions in the past, heavily outweighing all the outcomes in such a granular way that by the end of the process the fatigue sometimes made me avoid the decision all together. Playing board games, I found myself taking risks and yes, at times making mistakes, but often succeeding and reaping the benefits as well. Through these experiences I found myself more comfortable in making decisions, making mistakes and learning from them in a real world setting. For that alone, I would encourage you to try a board game and see how much self discovery you can get from critically analyzing your own experience. Enough about me, this game does a tremendous job at the decision making space, the choice between placing a passenger and playing a Station Master card is incredibly dynamic and you’ll have to adapt to the circumstances nearly every turn, which certainly exercises and creates an engaging experience for your brain.
Replayability: B
Although the game experience doesn’t particularly change from game to game, I still find this game fairly replayable and enjoyable each time. As the locomotive cards and their order is always different and the Station Master cards you draw are varying as well, the combination essentially ensures you’re never playing the exact same game. The replayability is really focused on what players choose to do though, different players, different strategies, and the dynamic interaction certainly make this game quite enjoyable.
It would be interesting to include different sets of locomotive cards as a potential expansion? Maybe a specific City station where all the trains have a different theme and add a bit more complexity, I feel like that would increase the dynamic nature of the game even more but then again that might just be a bit too exciting? I definitely found myself lost in thought of many “What Ifs.”
Overall I really enjoyed the replayability because generally this is my type of game, I can see this category falling short for others because the players certainly influence replayability more than the game itself.
Imagination: B+
I personally really enjoy the theme and lost myself a little bit in nostalgia as I mentioned earlier. Trains have a super special place in my heart but although the theme and immersion isn’t in your face, I thoroughly enjoy the feelings this game captures as it’s just as exciting as trying to board the right railcar at the right time at a bustling train station.
Again with imagination and a lot of theme, it’s really what you make of the experience. Do you make “Choo Choo” noises as trains leave? You certainly should because it adds more to the game and really allows you to embrace your inner child. Let yourself fall in and ride the trains, feeling joyful.
What I really enjoy about this game is the player tokens, these could have easily been cubes or meeples, instead they’re a tea cup or is it coffee? A briefcase, what is in it? Perfume, a boot, all of these tokens give you the opportunity to create some great stories if you choose to.
Target: A-
I personally love when games are essentially given a reimplementation, because not only do they celebrate the longevity of a wonderful design but they invite many new folks and give a spotlight to a game that has made an impact on the community. This is a fantastic game as it fits in that magical category where essentially anybody can really pick it up, I can see someone enjoying this game if they haven’t played board games before as well as seasoned Kallax gamers as well.
The box and size of the game is exactly what it should be and the presentation is just wonderful, the insert of the box is remarkably beautiful as well, this is certainly a game I would love to show off to folks and invite them to take be a Station Master alongside myself.
Tylor’s Stars ⭐⭐⭐
This game is a nice light filler. Unfortunately with COVID, we have mainly played this game with two players with a couple chances to play it at three. I imagine it would be more intense when you add more players as there is an obvious pattern in your passenger placement when you are trying to score lots of points. I think I struggled with the scoring of the game at two players, the trains end up being filled up by the similar passenger multipliers and winning felt like it came down to the odd numbered trains so you could get ahead slightly.
I definitely think this is a game we will play to start or end off a night. I enjoy the blind betting mechanic - makes it feel like a push your luck type of game. I look forward to playing this with more people since I think bidding games are always better with more people!
Final Thoughts: I’ve really enjoyed my experience with this game. I’ve lost miserably and also had grand moments of scoring as well, in both scenarios I’ve had fun and felt quite satisfied with my experience overall. The variability player tokens make me incredibly happy. The dynamic nature of the choices you make certainly make the game what it is, the complexity lies in the actions of the players and I look forward to exploring various strategies and maximizing my efficiency score moving forward.
MERIT Report Card Letter Grade: B+
Note: A copy of this game was provided to us by the publisher.