Goal: Create a great tourist subway map and score the most points in Tokyo. If you played Next Station London, the basics are the same, but there are several differences.
Overview
The game is played over 4 rounds, one for each subway line that players are drawing on their map sheets.
During a round, 5-10 cards will be flipped from the common station deck (which comprises 11 cards: 5 with green background, the rest are pink). Each station card lets each player add a line segment onto their current subway line, if possible (but a player may always pass if they choose). (See below for the construction rules.)
At the end of each round, the subway line each player drew is scored (see below), the station deck is reshuffled, and players start drawing a new subway line. Best score wins!
How to play
Flipping cards
Each turn, a card with one of four symbols will flip up. All players will draw a straight line from their starting point to a station with this symbol, following one of the dotted guides on the board. (Note players will see the same symbol, but each has a different starting point.) If a wild symbol flips, you can pick any symbol for that station, and players don't need to pick the same symbol. Also note that drawing a new subway route is always optional; you can skip any flip of a card if you want to.
Starting a new round
Continue this way until all five of the cards with green background have been flipped and resolved -- note this means each round will have 5 to 10 turns. Then, pass your color to the next player, and start the next subway line from the next starting point. Keep going until all 4 subway lines have been filled in.
Rules for drawing lines
- 1. A subway line segment can only be drawn on the straight dashed grey lines, cannot bend, and connects exactly two stations (you can never pass through one to reach a further one).
- 2. Each segment must connect to one of the two ends of the current line (unless the Railroad Switch card appears, which permits a segment to connect anywhere along the current line). If this is the first card of the round, the segment must connect to the Departure station for that line (these stations are denoted on the Map sheet with the line colors).
- 3. Subway lines can't cross themselves or another line -- including the green central line already on the map.
- 4. While a subway line can't revisit the same station (intersect itself); different train lines can visit the same station. (A station with multiple lines is called an _interchange_, and can score extra points!)
- 5. A given segment on your sheet may not be drawn more than once (unless the Double Rail Track card appears, which permits the segment to be drawn a second time only).
Special Cards
Joker + Double Rail Track
The only time you can continue a new line segment along an existing line is if the existing line is a different color and a Joker + Double Rail Track card was drawn. In that case you may optionally reuse an existing line segment (even a curved segment of the green track) at most once.
Railroad Switch
Typically your new line segment must always continue from the station on either end of your track. However if a Railroad Switch card is drawn, you may draw a new line segment from any station in that round's subway track, possibly producing an additional end to use in a future round. (Note that if the Railroad Switch is flipped first or second, it will have no effect.)
Orange Effect Cards
If playing with orange effect cards, they give an additional effect to the first card flipped of a particular symbol. (This is denoted by the blue symbol near the effect.)
Scoring
Line scoring
Each line scores separately. To score a line, count the number of districts it passes through. (Districts are regions separated by yellow lines.) Then multiply this by the number of stations visited by this line in one specific district -- whichever district has the most stations for this line. For example, if a line visits 5 districts, and 3 stations in one district, then that line scores 5 x 3 = 15 points. Then repeat this same process for each other lines, and add these line scores together.
Interchange and Tourist Stamp scoring
An interchange is a station that is visited by more than one color line -- including the existing green line. Each 3 line, 4 line, or 5 line interchange scores 5, 15, or 30 points respectively.
Each region touching the map edge also scores points if it has at least one interchange in it. The four corner regions score 10 points each, and the other four regions score 5 points each. (Note this is scored under the blue box in middle bottom of the score pad.)
Tourist Stamps happen when you form an interchange in one of the outer 8 districts. The 8 outer districts are the four corners and the four regions just outside the yellow octagon.
Green Miss Scoring
There are eight stations on the green line. Each one that you leave unconnected to any of your other colors is -3 points.
Objectives
If playing with objectives, each player scores 10 points per objective they completed