Ticket to Ride Free gScript and Statistics Sheet

by | Jun 8, 2016 | Programming

ttr sheet capture

Every once in a while, we like to break away from the purely digital entertainment thing and throw down with a little old-school, analog board gaming. One of our family favorites is the outstanding “Ticket to Ride” series by Days of Wonder.  The only problem with analog? It totally doesn’t fulfill my deep-seated, borderline compulsive need for detailed statistics and progress tracking (known by my family colloquially as “Dad’s rub-it-in-your-face sheets”)!

To resolve that absence, I recently created the Fully Automated Single Game + Long-Term Stat Tracker Google Sheet template that is free and open for anyone to download and use.  Since it’s Google, you should be able to use it online, in your browser, and even on mobile devices (though I haven’t tested that).  It does use some javascript macros (or, technically, gscript code) to perform some of the statistical analysis and related functions, so you’ll have to give authorization for those to run. The scripts are all completely visible and documented though, so you can check and see what they do (and before you add a comment, yes, I know my variable naming conventions are tErrible!).

This fun project actually started out as a “proof of concept” for my local school district of what was possible in Google Sheets. In the end however it was nearly as much fun for me to create and get the calculations “just so” as it was to play the game itself! Anyone who has played TTR will immediately see the value in not having to chase little wooden pieces around while playing, double and triple-checking people’s addition, or verifying that all of the trains are still present either on the board or in a bag – this sheet will do all of that for you. I also included a few of what I considered the most relevant graphs and charts, though I’ve heard from other players that I’m missing a few important ones.  Let me know what I can add in the comments here.

I invite you to check it out, download it, improve it, etc … have fun!

  • If the links above don’t work, copy and pasting this into your browser bar may help:  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aihqewrs7Ds6dGJLS0dlZDBUSU1aZUNDNWRMeEtTcGc&usp=sharing
  • Alternatively, it also exists in the Google Template miniverse, and can be found with a search on “Ticket to Ride” or via this link:  https://drive.google.com/templates?q=ticket+to+ride&view=public 
    UPDATE 7/12/19:  Google has changed the way their templates directory works, so the document can no longer be found this way.
  • Don’t forget you’ll need to approve the scripts for the calculations to work properly.

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