Base price: $13.
1 – 10 players.
Play time: 30 – 45 minutes.
BGG | Board Game Atlas
Buy on Amazon (via What’s Eric Playing?)
Logged plays: 2
Full disclosure: A review copy of Linkto Travel was provided by Hachette Board Games.
So a lot of the reviews you’re reading right now are trending towards the Mini and the Micro side of things. There’s a good reason for that: I’ve been playing a lot more escape room games and games that are part of a series, and rather than 1) reinvent the wheel or 2) spoil major play or plot details, I’ve opted for these smaller-footprint formats. I still have no idea if y’all like these or not, though, so if you’ve got any feedback, I’d love to hear it. The only thing I can say is that I really feel like I nailed the box shots for these two Linkto games, in a rare bit of self-congratulations, but that’s neither here nor there. Oh, I guess I moved, too, so that might explain the slowdown in reviews. I don’t have access to my main computer with all of my photos on it (or I might; who knows when the movers will arrive with my stuff), so, I opted to write a bunch of reviews and future-proof my website so that I can keep things moving for y’all. It’s … super healthy, thanks for asking. Let’s get to the game.
We talked about Linkto Food, so let’s try another one! Linkto Travel challenges large groups of players to cross the ocean and come back and learn about it the entire time. From Istanbul to Machu Picchu, there’s something to learn and questions to answer if you want to get through all five levels of this trivia challenge. Just like the other Linkto games, there’s always one card missing once you’ve answered all 49 of the other questions, so you’ll need to go through them, answer them, match them up, and hope that the last card matches the Answers Card for the level you chose. If it does, you win! If not, well, you get two more tries. Will you be up for the challenge of this globetrotting trivia game? Or would you just be better off taking a hike?
Overall: 7.5 / 10
Overall, I liked Linkto Travel! This one’s a bit interesting, just in how it compares to Linkto Food. Generally speaking (as you might have read in my other review), I enjoy the Linkto game system, even if it does feel like it’s limited to only five plays before you need to pass it on to someone else. I played this with 10 or 11 people and we were raucous, just all taking turns reading the cards and everyone trying to collectively guess the card and it was excellent. I’d say it probably hit the ideal player experience; that of a massive player count trivia party game. That was, frankly, delightful! I learned a lot, and we also started at Level 5 (having already gotten some practice in with the Food version) and made quick work of it. Well, we got all the answers right, at least; quick work might be an overstatement. I don’t think you can ask for a better three games of Linkto than the ones I got. I tried them again, solo, and they’re significantly harder, even at Level 1! Turns out, eleven people know a lot more than one person (at least, in this instance). That was fun, too! Trying to figure out the gaps in my knowledge and still learning something along the way. That pretty much covered the player count gamut, so I felt satisfied with the plays and writing about it for y’all.
That said, there’s something kind of nice about a quick experience with a game that’s going to be finite. I’m going to put both of the Linktos in my charity raffle and pass them along to friends with the explicit recommendation to play them with as many people as possible and, once they’re done, pass them on to someone else with the same advice. It’s nice to have some games be somewhat ephemeral experiences (even if I’d like to see another five levels or so). These kind of remind me (favorably) of the little board games and card games I’d pick up in a museum when I was much younger. Similarly ephemeral, but enjoyable in the moment. Linkto is a smart design and a solid system, and proving the case with a bunch of little trivia games is a great thing to do for the (usually finite, to be fair) genre of trivia games. It’s fun to get the group together and do something massive and impressive like answer 49 trivia questions about travel.
I will say that this set, in particular, is a bit interesting to me specifically because it’s “Travel”, which seems to encompass locations, tourist things, sci-fi (Space Tourism), and modes of transportation. “Food” was somewhat limited since it was just things people eat; this has a much wider range of applications under the Travel umbrella. That leads me to slightly prefer it to Food, but not really much in a way that matters, even if you’re religiously following my review scores (if you’re doing that; don’t). I think Linkto is a refreshing take on trivia, and I like what the Travel one does, here. If you’re a travel enthusiast, a trivia enthusiast, or you’re looking for a way to engage your cooperative-game-loving friends on one of those two things, I’d recommend taking Linkto Travel for a spin! You can learn a lot (and it’s pretty fun).
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