When Horrible Guild's Railroad Ink launched in 2018, it immediately catapulted its way onto the charts as one of the best roll and rights in the business. Given the insane popularity that board game genre has enjoyed over the last few years, that kind of instant success is impressive. And now, the team is back with a new edition that puts player interactivity at the forefront, a welcome change of pace from the original. Railroad Ink Challenge almost instantly cleared its Kickstarter funding goal, but the game is available to back for another three weeks. Give it a look.

At its core, Railroad Ink Challenge lets players build a bustling railroad network through careful dice selection. Each round, players roll the dice and use whatever comes up to decide where they'll add new railways. In the original version, you were pretty much on your own building out a railway. Sure, other players were there and you were indirectly competing. However, there was almost zero interaction between players.

That all changes with Railroad Ink Challenge. The new goal system means that players are constantly fighting to meet different conditions. You can't just passively build out your perfect rail. Instead, you'll have to pay attention to what everyone's doing so that you can always stay on top. The new version also adds special structures that can be activated to give you special powers. It adds a new level of depth that was sorely missing from the original game. The Kickstarter campaign also lets you purchase some wild new expansions. A few of them that could come with stretch goals include some interesting video game parodies. Want to add Pac-Man and Tetris to your railroad? Well, soon your dreams will come true. There's even a digital version coming soon!

Railroad Ink Challenge is available on Kickstarter for 21 more days at the time of this writing. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the original, and can't imagine this one not being better. Give it a look if you want to see what makes the roll and write genre such a popular one in the board gaming community.