Designed by: Al Leduc
Deep in the heart of the Yukon, tourists arrive wanting to be taken to see the sights by seaplane – and you, the players, are pilots who take them places. The pilot who takes the most passengers is in with a shout of winning, but really, the key is taking these tourists where they really want to go. Which is not always possible…
The board shows a map of the Yukon and the destinations you’ll fly to from the ‘home’ city of Whitehorse, where the planes begin every round. Coloured dice representing passengers. Coloured cubes are placed on the destinations equal to the number of players, and whilst you can fly a passenger anywhere, if you take them to a destination of a matching colour, you’ve taken them somewhere that’s made them particularly happy, and will reap the rewards…
In every round players do the same actions in turn order – Boarding represents taking dice from a particular gate (there are six) and placing them into your plane. Flight is the act of placing the dice on destination tickets and then paying fuel to fly them to said destination, and income is a cash payment based on the places you flew to and how many passengers you carried. After all players have carried out all of these actions, bonuses are rewarded – if applicable – from Objective cards, (for instance taking a certain colour die gives you money or tickets, or you get cash for having fuel left in the tank) and then a new round begins.
That’s the nub of the game, but a number of elements bring extra complexity: first of all, your plane can (at the start of the game) only carry dice of a matching colour. The gate you collect passengers from gives you a little bonus, varying from extra fuel to extra tickets to the advantage of being starting player for the next round. And everyone has their own little plane dashboard with a number of dials and switches: they start at their most basic level (switches off; dials at their lowest position) but when you deliver a happy customer to their favoured destination you get to upgrade: pushing up a dial or flicking a switch that either improve your currencies of cards/fuel or give ongoing special abilities. There are five dials and seven switches, so there are variety of routes to go with how your plane is improved.
But the main spice in this Canadian dish is the other players, who may take a gate you wanted or, worse, fly a happy traveller to a destination and claim the cube before you can. You still get to drop off your traveller there if you want to, and earn money for it, but the precious upgrade has already been claimed!
At the end of the game players gain extra income from three potential revenue streams, the key one being how many destinations you visited – there is a considerable bonus for going to many of them: 5 destinations is a paltry ¢7, whereas ten or more is ¢37. What results is a tactical race, where the landscape changes from round to round and turn order can be absolutely key.
Although the game is forgiving - passengers can always be delivered, and you'll always get your destination bonus for doing so - missing out on upgrades can be pivotal, so seeing someone claim a cube before you can hurts!
Moderate. The game always has that capacity (see above) for indirect interaction and plan-spoiling, so waiting for your turn might be a breeze in one round but slightly protracted later (especially in the late game)
The rules are pretty easily understood: get passengers, use tickets to deliver them. What adds complexity is the manifold upgrade options and how that affects your strategies for the rest of the game - along with the not-inconsiderable impact of turn order.
There are a few different strategies to pursue, and the dice and cards both ensure a degree of randomess.
1-4
Players
10+
Years
60-90
Mins
Sam says
It's so lovingly made, with captivating designer notes about his father who actually ran the real Yukon Airways. And it's a solid game too, albeit with some thematic idiosyncrasies: I don't imagine the real airline would let the pilots choose about where the passengers go, and the one-colour-only passenger rule at the start feels comedically prejudiced. No green dice! ...I already have a blue die on board. But those foibles aside Yukon Airways does transmit its theme pretty well, with the tickets and the dials and so on, and seeds everything with increasing tension: you can never do all the things you want to, and turn order is critical. Going last in the final round can be a body blow! I enjoyed playing it. The only thing that really stops me recommending unreservedly is the amount of pauses-for-thought whilst everyone figures out what they want to do. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, of course, but for my preferences the game plays in a slightly staccato manner. Maybe best with three players for that reason?