30 rolls. 30 rails.

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You’re staring at a blank grid.

Six rows. Six columns.

And on it, mountains will rise. A mine will hum. Four stations will wait on the edges. And over thirty dice rolls, you’ll try to stitch everything together with rail and build your tiny city.

That’s 30 Rails in a nutshell. A free solo roll-and-write designed by Julian Anstey back in 2016. A decade ago!

The setup is as simple as it can be. Print one black and white sheet. Grab a pen and two D6 dice. That’s it.

But the moment you start marking the grid, you realize this is not just doodling.

Before you start laying rails, a few key pieces need to settle into place.

Mountains rise across the grid, quietly blocking paths before you’ve drawn a single track. A mine claims its spot beside one of them, waiting to be connected. Four stations sit on the edges of the city, like fixed destinations you’ll eventually need to reach. And somewhere on the map, a bonus square appears, tempting you with extra points if your network happens to pass through it.

By the time you draw your first rail, the city already feels teasingly constrained. The puzzle begins.

For up to thirty rounds, you roll two dice. One tells you the row or column. The other tells you the type of track you must draw. Straight. Curve. Junction.

You get two overrides in the entire game. One for track type. One for row or column. Use them at the right moment and you feel clever. Use them too early and you regret it for the rest of the game.

30 Rails looks light, but it rewards planning. You cannot just throw tracks down and hope it works out. The grid fills up quickly. Mountains choke paths. A badly placed early curve can haunt you twenty rolls later.

And yet, it never feels stressful.

There is something calming about sketching rails across a tiny city. Especially if you lean into it. Doodle your mountains properly. Give your stations character. Use different colored pens for tracks and terrain. It turns from a roll-and-write into a strategic doodling therapy.

Should you laminate it? I wouldn't.

This is a pen on paper game. The friction of the page feels right. The slightly messy lines feel good. Print multiple sheets and embrace the imperfection.

It plays in fifteen to thirty minutes. And because the mountains, stations, and mine placement change every time, each city feels slightly different.

Is it a brain burner? Not at all.

Is it clever enough to make you pause before placing a single track? Absolutely.

Worth trying? 100%.

-Tas

Click to read my detailed blog on 30 Rails [includes link to game file]

PS: Kudos to Morning Brew for sponsoring this issue. 🥂 👇

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