Hello, travellers!

We're back with the answers to the questions you sent in for our Ticket to Ride CEO Q&A. A huge thank you to everyone who took the time to participate and send their queries via Steam, Discord, email, and social media!

Let's jump right in and see what our CEOs, Cristina Mereuta and Michael Willis, had to say:

1: Why are you charging us twice for the same game? When will you allow us to restore purchases of maps from the Classic Edition?

(Asked by asteiner, Babs5680, atlantic_workshop)

Marmalade have made a brand new game, built from the ground up, and completely reimagining what a Ticket to Ride video game could be. We are massive fans of both the physical board game and the Twin Sails digital version but thought there was an amazing opportunity to improve loads of things and bring this wonderful board game to a much wider audience as a brand new, immersive and more accessible video game. We offer a free upgrade to the Europe map for all owners of the Classic Edition but otherwise we are offering our game just like any other new game release.

However, perhaps in order to answer this question more fully, we should provide more context. Ticket to Ride Classic Edition was developed and published by Twin Sails/the old Asmodee Digital. About two years ago Asmodee came to the conclusion that it wasn’t going to be possible for them to continue developing and supporting the game long term. The old codebase made maintaining features or adding new features virtually impossible (e.g. players may remember the chat function was just removed rather than fixed, something we will bring back better than ever). Marmalade obviously played no part in Twin Sail’s decision to stop maintaining the old version or sunset the multiplayer.

Once Asmodee realised they couldn’t support the game anymore, they started looking for a developer and publisher who was passionate about the brand and willing to invest into making a new game from scratch and capable of bringing the digital Ticket to Ride experience up to date and ready for the next 10 years and beyond hopefully. We ended up being that developer and publisher and acquired the digital rights for Ticket to Ride. This presented us with a hugely exciting opportunity to build the game as a modern version that improves on the original. With a team of industry veterans and promising young talent, we have an impeccable 8 years long track record of making popular board games for various gaming platforms, topping the charts and delighting millions of players across the world. We also happen to be very big fans of Ticket to Ride. We remember playing the board game with family and friends long before we started our Marmalade journey and we had so many ideas for how to bring it to life and create a solid foundation that would allow us to evolve it for many years to come.

We have created a new game that we are incredibly proud of. We have a brand new engine, a new adaptive AI system, multiple ways to play, improved graphics and updated codebase which enables our future roadmap. We know the game has had some issues for some users (see next question) but we are fixing them and soon it will be the best and most complete Ticket to Ride game imaginable.

In conclusion, we, Marmalade, are absolutely not charging anyone twice. We are offering owners of Classic Edition the Europe map for free as a good will gesture, but we can’t restore purchases from that game because they are not our purchases to restore. We are very excited about the game we just released and have years worth of plans to support it and enhance it with both maps and features that the community is requesting. We are committed to serving the players to the best of our ability and hope to convert everyone into passionate fans going forward.

2: Can you talk about the stability issues in the game?

(By Nessorat, dalaczek, faintzog, Sam, gotravelwithstaci)

It’s an unfortunate but unavoidable fact of game development that no game will ever be bug free. Unfortunately, our new Ticket to Ride was not an exception and a small segment of our players did experience stability issues when we launched the game. Normally we would release a patch as soon as possible (same or next day in some cases) and fix the problem in order to not let it impact people’s experiences any longer than necessary. However, in spite of our entire dev team, our entire 10 person strong QA team plus two external QA agencies working together around the clock, a few weeks passed without us being able to reproduce the issues that players were complaining about. We ended up implementing a whole new online reporting system that enabled players to submit logs to us so we could see exactly what was happening on their devices and, with this help from the community, we were eventually able to fix the problems. We are very sorry it took so long to get to the bottom of this, but we promise you it wasn’t for a lack of trying and everyone was doing everything humanly possible to improve the situation. We are extremely grateful to the players who patiently helped us identify the issues and ultimately enabled us to fix them.

From all the data the platforms provide to us, as well as from our own analytics and telemetry, we see that the vast majority of our users are enjoying the game and all its modes with no issues. We know that for the few users experiencing issues, the fact that tens of thousands of people are managing to play problem free is of little help. We continue to work hard to investigate any issue reported by anyone. This is work that never stops for game developers and we want to reassure you we are committed to bringing each and every one of you the best possible experience.

3: How did you decide what features to focus on at launch?

(By Mark, Linda, Steven, Liz, Catherine, Christi)

When we acquired the Ticket to Ride licence, we knew the community had strong views on what the Classic Edition did right and what could be improved. We have been fortunate to work with this community throughout development and to be able to talk to some (sadly not all) of the top players in the Classic’s Hall of Fame. These players are the best in the world and were able to provide crucial insights into what they needed from the game. More widely though, Asmodee and Days of Wonder have been fantastic partners and shared all their learnings from the feedback they had gathered over the years from the entire user base, both casual and competitive. From all this research, several things came out.

The first priority that emerged was the need to significantly improve the AI. In both our game, and in the Twin Sails version, the majority of users only ever play single player against bots and one of the key areas that people wanted us to focus on was making the bots more life-like and smarter. We came up with an adaptive AI system that we’re very proud of, which adapts to the way the game is being played in order to ensure a good experience, regardless of how you personally like to play the game. We ran countless simulations and tweaked it endlessly and, like all good AI, the best thing about it is that it constantly evolves. Based on game stats, we are also nudging it in the right direction on an ongoing basis, so we are confident it will only get better.

Another significant area of focus was the look and feel of the game. The feedback we got was that players wanted a fresher, more exciting experience, with animations and immersive details, rather than just having to look at the board game map all the time. We have delivered this, but when we released the game we noticed that the more hardcore segment of our audience actually preferred the pared back look of the old game and didn’t appreciate the distraction of the animations. We then removed a lot of the animations based on this feedback and we got swamped with emails from the more casual segment of our audience demanding that we bring the animations back. This is a hard balance between readability and immersion. The board game map may be a more readable option, but what makes it clear and easy to digest is also what makes it flat and not exciting enough to the majority of players. We are still working on getting this balance right and considering various options to satisfy both the hardcore and the casual ends of the spectrum.

The main thing people seemed to appreciate about the Classic Edition was the variety of gameplay that 10 years worth of map expansions provided. This is something we absolutely aim to match and exceed in way less than 10 years. For launch we choose to prioritise the most popular content and features, but we have a very aggressive roadmap with multiple updates coming out this year. We look forward to making them available to the public as soon as they’re ready for release. And while we’re on the topic of variety of gameplay, we are also excited about the prospect of bringing to life some of the physical board game maps that have never made their way into the digital space before.

4. When will those who bought the "Round the World Ticket" get new content? Can you give more details on what map is coming out and when?

(By ThatDeafDude, mosier.wes, rysher, Yborx, bostondvd, elangab, Portcitybob)

Players who own the Round the World Ticket have access to the first 10 map expansions that we will release. They had the Europe map from the beginning and the next big one is the Nordic map, which will be released in a matter of days. The reason we don’t communicate the plans around maps in more detail is because the detail tends to change and evolve. The roadmap is quite flexible. We have capacity to release several maps this year for instance, one every 2-3 months, but the details of what those maps will be are not finalised. They change based on what we hear from our players, but also on data that we receive periodically about what is popular in the physical board game. We want to provide you with maps that were popular in the Classic game, but also with new exclusive ones that have never been brought to the digital platforms before. Watch this space!

5. When are you releasing local play? Will it need a companion app?

(By LordStrikerGTR, rysher, dius00)

Local play with companion app is actually our favourite way to play! We think it’s the perfect hybrid between recreating the social aspect of the board game and the automation and immersion of a video game. We are committed to releasing both pass and play on device and local play enabled by a companion app this year. Pass and play will allow you to play on the same device with your friends and family, without the need for a companion app. This will be released first, in the next few months.

Later in the year, we are planning to launch the game on consoles. Either at launch or very soon after that, we will release a free companion app. This will allow you to play on the big screen, with everyone in the same room controlling their cards via their mobile phones, through this companion app.

6. Will there be any kind of player ranking or levels in the game?

(By Rafiathos, Leviatrain, soda)

This is one of the most exciting features we are working on at the moment. We recognise the need for progression and the validation that you get from seeing that you’ve reached the next level. It also adds a lot to multiplayer games if you know you won against someone of a much higher rank for instance. We were disappointed we couldn’t deliver this for launch, but we really want to get it right. We are working on a feature that will give you all the competitive aspects and allow you to celebrate improving your skill. All we can say at this stage is that it is coming and it’s probably coming sooner than you think.

7. How big is your team and what are they working on?

(By Yborx)

The Ticket to Ride team is about 30 people and is split into 3 smaller development teams, each working on exciting things that you will enjoy this year.

We have a team working on the core game. Their main focus is releasing new features and optimising and improving the experience for all our players. We already talked about some of the exciting features they are busy working on, like leaderboards, pass and play and so on. They are also the unsung heroes chasing and fixing issues reported by the community or by our QA. The artists in this team are the ones constantly tweaking the graphics in an effort to hit the right balance between readability and immersion, like we mentioned earlier.

There is a second team working on the content roadmap. They are designers and producers who analyse data and work out what the next map should be. They are joined by artists who then make the beautiful art for the map, as well as the trains, locomotives, cards, tickets and characters. Finally, the programmers on the team focus on gameplay, integration and evolving the AI system to learn to play the new map as realistically as possible.

The third team is responsible for the console releases we have planned for later in the year. This is a significant development effort, but also requires a lot of art and UI/UX work to ensure the experience plays well on each platform. A mobile interface doesn’t work on PlayStation for instance, so we need to create all these from scratch for each platform. One other aspect that they focus on and that we’re very proud of is that our games allow cross platform multiplayer, enabling people on all platforms to play together. Ticket to Ride will be no exception.

These are the 3 main teams working on Ticket to Ride, but they are supported by multiple other teams in the company, like a back-end team who helps with all things Bubble for any game in the company, a QA team that checks each build for bugs, two very talented Community and Customer Support teams who have helped keep the communication channels open between us and the people who play our game and, last but not least, a Marketing and Publishing team who ensures each release is accompanied by all the right trailers and screenshots, all translated and cut to the right sizes for all devices and so on.

8. Could you talk about some of the ways that developing this game has been different from the other games in your library?

(By bostondvd)

Excellent question! There are two main things that come to mind. First of all, the biggest difference has to be the community. This was the first time we got to work with such a passionate community, who cared so much about the game and genuinely wanted to help. We are in awe of the wonderful people who took every opportunity to engage with us, to voice their wants and desires, but also their concerns when they felt things weren’t working out the way they hoped. The many volunteers who helped us write the AI system and then played against it giving us feedback are something we just haven’t seen before. The game would be very different if it wasn’t for your detailed and valuable input. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you! And thank you for continuing to work with us every day and sharing your thoughts on new features and priorities. You are truly spectacular!

The community involvement helped us understand that Ticket to Ride needs to cater to a wide audience and hit the right balance between accessibility and immersion because not all passionate fans want the same things. A classic example is the AI, which incorporates so many tactical options in order to give experienced players a proper challenge, but this can’t come at the expense of it being fun to play with. It also meant we needed to learn a new way to develop the game, which wasn’t at all like developing any of our previous games. We had to get comfortable with things changing based on recent intel and to leave room in our planning for reacting to the requests and feedback. This is quite different from a standard development, where planning tends to be more structured and regimented. It’s been a blast and it continues to be very fun and engaging for us. It’s also incredibly rewarding to have this direct connection with the players because we don’t feel like we’re developing the game in isolation. We couldn’t be more grateful.

The second biggest difference is probably the fact that for the first time ever we have been able to work directly with the creators of the board game. Our portfolio includes many popular board games who became classic over decades and, as expected, their original creators are no longer around. Being able to talk regularly to the Days of Wonder team has been hugely helpful in our process. On a personal note, we have to admit some of us have been quite star struck while doing this because at the end of the day, we are also just huge nerdy fans of this amazing board game, which we have been playing for so, so long without any idea that one day we will be making a video game out of it. It was quite a special experience.

9. Who made the music choice? Why did you take this direction?

(By retromac29, TVs Frank)

We think music is a crucial part of the experience and helps with the immersion. As such, we do a lot of research to understand where each game is set (each map in Ticket to Ride’s case), what was the music, what were the authentic instruments in the relevant region and era. We invest a lot into ensuring that we have bespoke music, created specifically for each game/expansion, music that is unique and captures the essence of the experience. The Ticket to Ride music, like the music in all our games, is created by a multi awarded Hollywood composer called Christopher Willis, with whom we’ve had a very long relationship.

10. What is your vision for Bubble?

(By bostondvd)

With Bubble we are creating a social platform for board games. The ultimate vision is that you could have a game agnostic account that holds all your stats, all your details, your friends and your chats in one place and you take this identity with you in any board game that supports it. It is now in various stages of completeness in the several games that enable it, but we are working towards a unified ecosystem of board games that can be played seamlessly by a group of friends moving from one game to the other.

Ticket to Ride has the back end foundations of Bubble and will continue to receive updates that bring more features into the experience.

11. How many hours have the CEOs spent playing the classic version? Have they ever played the board game? What are some of the things they like better in the new version than in the classic?

(By hplayer935)

Between the two of us, we have about 400 hours in our game and more in the Twin Sails version, accumulated throughout the years. We are both big fans of the board game, which we have been playing for more than a decade. The two versions of the digital game are difficult to compare because they are two fundamentally different products, which set out to achieve very different things.

The Classic Edition aims to be an extension of the board game, that passionate fans can pick up on the go when they don’t have anyone to play the board game with. It offers an experience as close as possible to the board game. While being very comforting and familiar to dedicated board game fans, this comes at the expense of casual players and new fans who aren’t as familiar with the physical board game and who feel like this isn’t a game for them.

Our version aims to bring the board game to life, to bridge the gap between competitive and casual and to offer an experience that satisfies both ends of the spectrum. We made a game that you can use to introduce friends and family to Ticket to Ride without the fuss of setting up the board and without the need to be in the same physical space. People who have never played the board game should be able to pick our game up and find it accessible and fun. As mentioned earlier, this is a balance that we are still tweaking and we’ll continue to release improvements and features that will cater to as wide an audience as possible.

Thank you once again to everyone for your engagement! Our CEOs have put their best efforts into addressing as many questions as possible, but If you have any additional questions, our community team is always here for you, whether through Steam, Discord, Social Media or even via email at [email protected].

Please keep sharing your thoughts, ideas, and experiences—we're here to listen and learn from you as we continue this journey together!

– Bella & Davi, Community Team