Designed by Mark Miller and published by Blue Token Games, Taxi is a tile placement, route-building game for 2-6 players. Each player has a card showing their taxi route between two locations. Players will be placing out tiles in a shared tableau that builds into your town's road network and all you have to do to win is declare your fare (ie: an open route between your locations) and still have that route open at any point on your next turn. The six location tiles are seeded in the top half of the draw pile, and if you have one of them in your hand, you must play it unless it's one of the locations shown on your own fare card - in which case you must pass it to another player to place out.
Sounds simple. And, indeed, the rules for Taxi are commendably straightforward: you draw tiles so that you start your turn with a hand of five tiles and you play one from your hand and discard another. The tiles players pick up tho' aren't all road segments; players will also be picking up 'traffic' tiles that you can play on an opponent to mess with them. These include tiles that force them to miss a turn or exchange hands. There's even a 'steal a fare' tile that forces players to swap their fare cards (tho' not after a fare has been 'declared'). In addition, there are tiles that temporarily screw up routes by placing obstacles on them: road works, a traffic jam, a blizzard, a parade - even a slow-moving hearse.
Together the traffic and obstacle tiles make Taxi a fun but most definitely 'take that' game. Once you've established your route and declared your fare, the other players will naturally focus their efforts on blocking your route to prevent you from winning. Ideally, you'll have defensive tiles in reserve that help to counter the tiles played against you - letting you, for example, reposition an obstacle. From our plays at Board's Eye View, early runaway wins have been rare: games mostly run to around 30 minutes, by which time there are likely to be multiple players within snatching distance of victory.
Tho' it's a 'take that' game, Taxi feels good-natured. It's straightforward enough to be very playable as a family game. You can play it with two, albeit with slightly modified rules, but for us the game is at its best with at least three players, and we've especially enjoyed the joyful chaos of games with a player count of five or six.
The Kickstarter campaign for Taxi launches on 18 March. Click here to find out more.