Winter time is for playing family games by the Christmas tree. So why not play some family games solo? I've retreated to Santa's Workshop in northern Lapland to continue working on Blizzard, my solo variant for Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries. It uses the normal multiplayer rules, with a card controlled opponent that blocks tracks with snow (the white player pieces). The game turns into a fast playing race and the bot is easy to control. It uses a deck of seven cards (or six

'She asked how many players, and I said one. She then said Woohoo!'. BGG user Sara Bear has written a report on what happened when she tried to play Ticket to Ride with the Amazon Alexa device as both her assistant and opponent. Days of Wonder, the publishing company of the Ticket to Ride series of games has recently partnered with Amazon to release an Alexa-compatible TTR program. So far this works with Ticket to Ride (USA) and Ticket to Ride Europe. Alexa can teach the rule