PAN AM Fun Strategy Board Game For The Whole Family

Bought this game as a present for my partner, we are both huge fans of Ticket to Ride and therefore I scoured the internet for games similar and came across this little wonder. I am struggling to find any link to the actual game play between Pan Am and Ticket to Ride, other than the overall ‘travel’ theme the two games are very different. Pan Am involves owning the rights to certain travel routes to ultimately build your empire and eventually sell to Pan Am. The strategy involved is fairly complex, but don’t worry it is not overwhelmingly so. For each round you are required to basically chose how to spend your assets in order to grow, keeping in mind the choices of your opponent.
We have a fairly substantial two player game collection, and although this is certainly up there with the better ones, it is also one of the most difficult to grasp. After reading through the instructions twice we were still baffled and left with many questions, panic not…there is a solution at your fingertips. If you look on YouTube, there is a rather sweet (possibly slightly irritating) instructional video read in the style of an airline safety video by an old school American airhostess. This explains everything clearly and concisely preparing you for game play. The board and pieces are clearly well made, strong, sturdy and very pleasant to look at and use. For a two player strategy game with plenty of different routes to explore, Pan Am is definitely one of my recommendations.

Ich habe in letzter Zeit sehr viele Spiele gespielt und Pan Am hat sofort gefunkt. Einfaches Regelwerk und toller Spielfluss. Auch in meiner Spielgruppe ist das Spiel sehr gut angekommen. Bleibt auf jeden Fall in der Sammlung.

I bought this game beat up from Amazon warehouse. Part of the box was broken, but I eventually fixed it with glue. Maybe the cover was uninspiring, maybe I ended up buying other games and forgot about this one, so it made its way to what board game enthusiasts call, “the shelf of shame”. It really was a shame, because I finally dragged myself to open the game and learn it. And I really, really liked it!

I only have about 200 games. This game is not in my top 20, but if I took out all the party games, then yes, this would be in my top 10. For me, I value time with family – which includes a teenager, a pair of older folk (70’s and 80’s), and my husband (not in his 80’s), hence party games are played more often and make my sides hurt. This game is NOT a party game. This game likely will NOT make your sides hurt.

But it does have airplanes. The three males in my family have some military fascination. My mom and I are in the medical field. But, my dad did used to own an airplane and I grew up with an airplane like some privileged, snotty entitled person. I hope I’m not, we couldn’t afford the gas or the hangar fees, so it was college education or airplane. My parents chose college – for me.

Apparently I was alive when Pan Am went out of business. It seems like some big fantasy airplane business that should still exist today. Our family friend’s daughter was a Pan Am flight attendant in Lockerbie. Whenever we bring up Pan Am, we remember her. So I am personally invested in this game and totally biased.

I think the rulebook is outstanding. There are so many games out there and 10% of them have a wonderfully done rulebook. This is one of them. I like to learn the game from the rulebook without aid from Youtube, sorry Watch It Played. This was well done and the rulebook even helps bring you into the setting and theme – that is fantastic!

The components are good. They aren’t AMAZING. Amazing would be metal planes that are painted and accurately detailed. And the Control Tower would have glass windows. And the stocks would be real vintage stocks. No. This game is also affordable. So plastic airplanes in color tones matching the game that try to convey the era. No ugly primary colors here! The Engineers look like fancy pawns. They are a little disappointing, but they do have gears and Engineers like to tinker. The Pan Am tokens are cardboard and AMAZING would have been bakelite, shiny, clicky pieces. The die is custom because it has the routes and it is adequate. The cards are NOT linen finish, but the card stock is thick enough. The coins are weird – they’re green. I’m missing the reference if there is one. The blue trays have a nice color. They work for what they do. There are only two in the game. I would have preferred that each player had their own box for their pieces, but as I commented in the photo, there is logic behind it. Because we gave each player a tray for their planes, it was a little too easy to “accidentally” stick their hand in the tray and grab a plane they hadn’t paid for yet. There is also a rule that if you auction for a plane but there aren’t any left of that type in your color, you still have to pay the bid.

The game play itself is relatively easy and there is a player aid on the player mat. This kind of makes the game “procedural”. But like a pilot, you have a checklist you have to do. The game starts with revealing the event for the round (there are 7 rounds). The event is tied to something historical that happened – that’s cool! – which affects stocks – like in real life! Then players in order assign their engineers one engineer at a time. The actions are labeled A – E and a player can be outbid by another for airports, destinations, and planes, in which case they take back their engineer and place them again on their turn.

After actions A – E, players claim routes in the order they placed their engineer. They claim routes by placing an airplane on a route that is less than or equal to the distance the plane can travel which is demarcated by size and bars on the wings. See picture!

Then Pan Am goes and buys up routes. This might SEEM like a bad thing, but it isn’t. If your route is bought, you get your plane back, which means you can claim another route later. However, you won’t gain income, so it might not be in your interest to claim a route near Miami. You will get money back, but if you had left your airplane in a route = 2, you would gain income 2 per round, so by the 7th round, you would have gained $14 from that route. It’s part of the game and your strategy – do you want to be bought out early and gain income now, or not – it depends on what destination cards you have and if you had the planes to claim routes.

The game isn’t all strategy – there is gambling involved. The stock can go up or down. You can sell your stock also for money and maybe even profit, but the goal of the game is to have the most stock in Pan Am.

I really enjoyed this game and that is not at all influenced by the fact that I haven’t lost yet. I’m sure it was all luck. Or at least basic high school economics. And maybe some college econ too.

The CONS of the game: it is 7 rounds. It does seem to be long – because you can’t buy the jet until round 6. And I don’t care if I win or lose, I want that jet. This means, normally, only up to 2 players will be able to bring out their jet. The game can go long especially for new players and for 4 players. Sometimes players have a hard time making decisions – called “analysis paralysis”.

I like the bidding and the buying of planes, being bought out by Pan Am and making profit, and buying stock when it’s low. The game is strongly thematic. The way the game looks is nostalgic for someone who has no nostalgia. After playing this game we started watching the Pan Am TV show that was cancelled and I got a book written by a Pan Am flight attendant. The game encourages players to go and learn something new and that’s something valuable for me as a board gamer.

My dad who is in his 80s did not mind this game but did think it was a little long. He also had no idea what was going on, but he recognized the locations and he just focused on routes to places he wanted to go to. And he ended up making money from Pan Am, but he did get stuck in a pointless bidding war and that’s what did him in. He did need assistance in playing, but he may be interested in playing this game again.

The game is not easy. But it isn’t very hard either. Set up is fast compared to lots of other board games, but not as fast as Black Jack or Poker sure. The rules are helpful and clear. What you do each turn is not difficult and it is repetitive. It definitely becomes easier the more times you play. If you need help you can always go to Youtube to watch a video on how to set up and play. If you are internet savvy, you can go to Board Game Geek’s website and check out the forums. If this theme appeals to you like it did for me, then I would definitely recommend this game.

Another airplane game to check out is Wayfinders. That game has nice clicky plastic pieces and colorful artwork. It is a little bit easier, but is more abstract and there are a few minor details that have to be remembered in scoring, versus this game you just compare the number of stocks per person. If I had to pick only one game to keep, I would definitely choose Pan Am over Wayfinders.

Hope you like my review and check out Pan Am!

It’s quite a step up from Ticket to Ride in complexity, and the first time you open it out, get the pieces ready and read the rules, it is quite hard work. In fact, we got it out, set half of it up and read half the rules, and then came back the next day to get through the rest of it – but it was worth the effort.

Highly recommend.

First and foremost: don’t trust negative reviews here (saying it’s complicated or incomprehensible), just buy it while it is available, otherwise you will regret that you missed such fantastic game.

I can’t understand why people who can read rules of it, could wrote that they don’t have a clue what to do in game or how to start playing.

Rules of PAN AM are divided into sections and – most important – they explain game flow from top (brief description of what phases each game round consists of) to bottom (detailed information about each step of each phase). And every important point has examples with pictures.

About what to do from the beginning – I can’t understand which sentence of “Take components of your color – Planes, Airports, Engineers, Player Mat and Income Tracker”, “Take Destination cards, Directive card and 12$” and “Determine first player and give him First Player Marker” is so unclear that complaining persons can’t understand or do it.

Seriously, it’s one of the best games I have and played ever concerning game’s rules and concepts.

So, I assume that all who blame rules, didn’t want to think for a minute about what is unclear to them and comprehend it (and re-read appropriate rules’ section).
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Second – PAN AM has game mechanics so tightly and smart interconnected, that it looks like masterpiece to me, starting from auction bidding for Airport and Planes building as well as for Destination cards retrieving. I saw a lot of games like it, but this game stands out of the row. I though before it that I will never play games with auction mechanics, but now I’m sure i was dead wrong 🙂
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Third – game looks magnificent – it has:
* amazing game board, huge but folded into little square, looking vivid and stylish (I’m not the fan of retro, but this one strikes me right in the heart),
* tons of beautiful planes (which could be distinguished easily one from another, though they have not much details in their exterior)
* awesome Destination cards – each having most recognizable tourist attraction reminiscences and signs of that era (motorcycles, cars, women dresses and so on)
* stylish Directive cards looking like they were printed on old-school writing-machine with office red stamps on the bottom
* Rulebook reminding of Golden Era of air travel booklets
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Fourth – PAN AM plays perfect with each number of players – 2/3/4, and – good news! – for 2 players it’s not so straightforward as others, you can’t always say for sure what is your opponent up to.
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Fifth – this game has huge replayability thanks to the different Destination cards coming out each round and the Event cards (which could comprise 16384 (!!!) combinations).
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Sixth – it plays very aggressive which is highly unusual for euro-games (I suppose that’s because developers are americans, so it’s quite natural that they added ameri-thrash into euro 🙂 ), and this raises tension to the sky, so many experienced players will definitely love.

Meanwhile, beginners can play this one in avoidant manner if they want, and later move to the “next level of engagement” (last word in quotations is the most suitable in this case).
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Seventh – PAN AM is totally money’s worth and even more: for 22+$ you receive 52 Plains, Engineer and Airport figurines, tens of Destination and Directive cards, gigantic replayability (which more expensive games have lack of), gorgeous and highest-quality game board and neat Victory Points. Not many games nowadays can boast of it.

PAN AM now is one of the most played and loved games in my boardgaming circle, and I wish you to have the same fun as I have playing it (or even more 🙂 ).

The game looks good has a set number of rounds and easy to follow. Bit of strategy required if your competitive but a fun all round game and worth every penny.

Prospero Hall, the guys behind this, Horrified and Jaws really are on a roll with another IP-linked board game – this time covering the golden era of the now-defunct airline company, Pan-Am.

If you’ve played Ticket to Ride and want something a little more involving, this may be a good next step. Everyone plays as a fictional, small airline, starting with a few vintage planes with the aim of having the most victory points in the form of Pan-Am stocks.

PA looms over throughout, buying up various air routes that you may or may not own throughout the game and the real meat of the experience is to bolster your fleet and routes on the map (illustrated in an unusual North Pole-focused view which is looks great) and more importantly, cashing them out for game-winning PA stocks.

For such a cheap (in-comparasion to other contemporary board games) game, it offers good components, such as the little planes, great artwork on the cards and neat map.

I thought I’d reached a point where I’d seen it all when it comes to less time consuming, straightforward board games.

Pan Am is fantastic and add a tiny additional layer of complexity to say monopoly, but gets people thinking more strategically whilst being incredibly fun at the same time