Switch & Signal
Players: 2-4 (but playing solo would work)
Playing Time: 45
Board Game Geek
I think trains are neat but I’m not the type of guy to stand by a railway and yell when one comes chugging by. I also think train games are neat too but I’ve never really played an 18XX game. Growing up, my dad was interested in model trains for a few years but he never took it so far as to renovate our basement around the idea of it or anything. To me, there is something wayward and almost mystical about trains even though they are just a mode of transportation that is on a rail.
Switch & Signal is a train game but it’s not a train game, if that makes any sense. You play as a continental mastermind (Europe is one side of the board, North America on the other) that has to carefully and strategically plan the operation of switches and signals (get it?) and move trains around to deliver goods. It starts simple enough but can get hectic right quick. Oh, it’s also a cooperative game.
The entire game is a puzzle of mitigating risk. By playing cards from your hand of either a switch, signal, or train movement (or two of any card as a ‘wild’ action) you have to manipulate the board state as best as you can. You are trying to avoid trains colliding with dead ends, going off errant routes, and crashing into each other. You are also trying to pick up goods in major cities and deliver them to destination cities.
Deliver the goods to the required city (or cities, if you’re playing the North American map) and you win!
There are three differently colored trains to accomplish all of this – gray, brown, and black that correlate to slow, medium, and fast. Train movement distance is decided by dice rolling but with a funky die face distribution for each colored train. Slow gray trains have three sides of 1 movement and a maximum of 3, but only on one face. Fast black trains have a 2, two 3’s, two 4’s, and a 5 movement. Medium browns have a similar distribution as black, but from 1-4 instead of 2-5. On each player’s turn, they will flip a Destination card that requires either train placement, train movement, or some combination of both.
For example, a player might flip a card that requires brown train movement and there are two brown trains out. Both trains must move but the player gets to choose the order in which they are rolling for them. You might be hoping that the car you’re rolling for will move through a switch that you need to change to open in the opposite direction, or enter a major city so you can turn the signal green to exit on another line leading to the delivery city.
What’s that? You needed a 4 but rolled a 1 instead and now that train is just going to sit there, blocking everything while the world around you collapses as you curse the dice gods for allowing you to roll so poorly? That’s trains, baby!
The beauty of Switch & Signal is that almost every move you make is just a best guess of the most urgent problem. Most of the time you’re fairly certain which problems are the worst of them, but it’s never a sure thing. The train movement dice rolling monster is always peeking around the corner, wringing its hands together, and maniacally laughing at you.
But when everything clicks and you get the trains going where you need them to go, on time and ready to deliver? It’s an accomplishment. For a game that could end up feeling totally abstracted from its theme, it actually does make you feel like a switch operator controlling everything. It’s a fantastic puzzle that allows players the freedom of prioritizing the least worst problem at that particular point in time without having so many choices that decisions become impossible to choose without agonizing over them. Turns are generally snappy and never feel wasted.
Before wrapping up, I’d be remiss to not mention the designer, David Thompson, has been absolutely crushing it lately with his games. The Undaunted series alone should earn him recognition as a household name. I have yet to play a game of his that is boring or even what I’d consider to be ‘average’. Switch & Signal isn’t like any of his other games that I’m aware of, but it has the level of sheen to it that I’ve now come to expect. For more gushing from another voice of All For One Games, if you want to read Allie’s reviews of Undaunted: Stalingrad and War Story: Occupied France, she is also a big fan.
Is Switch & Signal for you? That depends on your feelings about cooperative games, puzzle games, and generally how train-curious you are. For me, I think the puzzle of it is fantastic and extremely satisfying without feeling hopeless. The bonus is that I get to indulge my train fandom side of things and easily introduce other people to the idea that games about trains can actually be fun.
Presentation
+ Easily accessible game with trains
+ Board state is easily readable
+ The train car pieces have satisfying little cube holders in them
+/- Box is fairly large and mostly empty space
– My box insert arrived broken, but it’s a very basic insert so it’s not a big deal
Getting it Played
+ Short rulebook, easy to understand rules
+/- No rules index or player aids included, but the game is straightforward
+/- Setup can be a bit of a drag
– Likely hard to find a copy
Gameplay
+ Takes about an hour to play
+ Setup and gameplay is varied so no two games feel the same
+ The pacing of decisions starting easy but getting more difficult is brilliant
+/- Dice rolling randomness may be a turnoff
+/- Can be very prone to ‘alpha gamer’ issues, since the information is all public
– It doesn’t look like we’ll get expansions, so the two maps that come with the game might be the only official ones ever released
Fun Factor
+ No turns feel wasted
+ Puzzle-y gameplay without the burden of being overwhelmed
+/- Cooperative puzzle games may not be for everyone
I hope you enjoyed my review! If you want more, you can also follow us on our Instagram page.Or you can see my other reviews in my geeklist!
Allie