Kids Express Review

boardgamequest.com:

Colt Express has been in my collection since my early days in the board gaming hobby and I’ve enjoyed many plays of it over the years. My kids enjoy it as well, but it was slightly longer and more complex than what they tend to prefer, so when they heard about Kids Express they were immediately excited. I was curious to see how it would differ from—or imitate—its predecessor and, most importantly, if it would actually be fun for both the kids and adults.

In Kids Express 1-4 players take on the role of brave kids working together to stop the wily bandits from the original Colt Express. Playtime is about twenty minutes.

Kids Express features a 3D cardboard train with a locomotive and three train cars, as well as a stagecoach and horse. To prepare the game the locomotive and train cars are placed on the table and a stack of luggage tokens are placed on each railcar and on the stagecoach. The rearmost car is the bandits’ hideout, where you’ll place their four standees. Each player takes a player-aid board for their chosen character and places the matching standee in the stagecoach.

On their turn, a player may either move their kid standee to a location on the train, or attempt to shoot the bandits with a slingshot. Either way, if possible, they will rescue a piece of luggage from being stolen by the bandits by claiming it. Each luggage token has a symbol on the back which might cause the bandits to move and loot.

If players choose the shoot action, using their player aid as a distance marker they will place the slingshot token on the horse and attempt to flick it at one of the bandits in the train, hoping to knock them off and prevent them from stealing more loot. When one pile of luggage tokens runs out the game ends and all players compare their rescued luggage to what the bandits have stolen. If the kids saved more luggage tokens than the bandits stole, they win!

Kids Express is a fresh design. It’s not a re-implementation of Colt Express, but rather is its own game