Pointsman
| Category | Price | Seller | Device |
|---|---|---|---|
| Utilities | Free | Chimera Software, LLC | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
The Pointsman is 100% free with absolutely no ads. If you find yourself enjoying the Pointsman and want to support it, please consider leaving a tip via the app.
You can use the Pointsman during normal gameplay to confirm player scores, or just leave the scoring till the end and maximize your enjoyment! The Pointsman will tally up all player routes, route scores, station placements, longest train routes and other game specific bonuses, plus all destination tickets. Everything is presented on a beautiful “score ticket” you can share as a memento of your game.
Pointsman uses ARKit, CoreML and custom machine learning to recognize trains on the game board; training the models to make this possible is specific to each set. As such, the Pointsman currently only works on the following versions of the game:
Ticket To Ride (USA)
Ticket To Ride: USA 1910 Expansion
Ticket To Ride: Europe
Ticket To Ride: Europa 1912 Expansion
Ticket To Ride: Rails and Sails, The Great Lakes
Coming Soon:
Ticket To Ride: Rails and Sails, The World
Known Issues:
1. The Pointsman is not trained to recognize the transparent promotional train sets
2. The Pointsman is not trained to recognize the turquoise variant of the blue trains
For best results, stand in squarely in front of the game board and hold your device at approximately a 45 degree angle to the game board. To confirm that the score is accurate, you can perform the following two checks:
1. For each player the number of unused trains is printed on the score ticket, just confirm the number matches the actual number of unused trains.
2. Every connection for each player is listed on the score ticket, you can manually confirm each connection is accurate.
If the Pointsman does make a mistake, simply tap on the player's score to access the score editing interface to make the necessary corrections.
Want to try it out but don't have a finished game handy? Just go to http://chimerasw.com/pointsman/ and use the Pointsman on the image there!
Please note that the Pointsman is not affiliated with Days of Wonder or Ticket to Ride in any manner whatsoever. I am just a fan that finds counting trains to be quite tedious. If you are reading this then you probably do as well!
Reviews
Didn’t work
Thatguyaz
While it appeared to scan the board correctly it did not properly scan the goal cards that the players had (it said I had Boston to Miami card and didn’t complete it - but I didn’t have the card at all) and it incorrectly calculated the longest route. We calculated it the old way instead.
Nice once you get the hang of it.
Angsty Aggie
First of all, let me just say, kudos to the person that engineered this app. I really enjoy using this app simply for what it does and how cool it is that someone created something that, in my mind, does something so amazing. Mostly though, I enjoy sending the score cards to the group to rub in an exceptional victory.
Doesn’t work
ATL-MCW
Scans are not accurate and the manual edit is blank so it can’t fix a bad scan. To bad as this used to work
Almost perfect
TrainBlocked
The UI is great. Counts points well. Only issues are reading train stations and that I’m unable to view the editors to fix any errors. Nothing major and I plan on keeping the app. Great jorb!
Works pretty good…
Elhanan2
Once we figured out getting it to read the map it works pretty good. However, it has trouble with the clear purple train cars that were promotional giveaways at some point. It makes a mistake or two here and there that might be manually corrected but the correction screen has a problem. The switches to turn routes on and off are there but the names of the routes themselves are not… makes it kinda hard to figure out which ones to turn on or off. Otherwise it does a fine job of the tedious task of summing up the game.
Quick and accurate scoring
Robertrunner
Amazingly quick and accurate scoring for Ticket to Ride. Especially useful when you realize you have been forgetting to move the point markers. It does need sufficient light for the camera to get the proper image. We were playing in a dimly light room and it had difficulty, but illuminating it from above with a flashlight took care of it. Overall impressive and handy app if you are a fan of Ticket to Ride.
Fast way to score TTR
KB i-Pod
Took us a few tries to score the board correctly (it helps to read the directions and hold at a 45 degree angle) scores trains and tickets fast! Thanks for the app, looking forward to using it on more boards!
All 5 Star Reviews?
BigWill88
I tried multiple times at multiple angles and the scoring was all over the place, really not much consistent. Great idea, I had high hopes, but cannot rely on it.
Trains at 9, done easier.
TryWhat
I play Ticket to Ride nearly everyday at 9pm. This app has made our game play so much easier. There may be times it is wrong, (showing you didn’t complete a route when you did) but you can quickly adjust a route and solve the problem. Some of the ‘tickets’ in the app are backwards from what the cards read, 39 to be exact. We play the 1910 expansion pack and it has those few routes that are different from the original game. My biggest concern is Phoenix is spelled wrong and living in Arizona, it is an annoyance. This is the best app for allowing yourself to play the game and enjoy it, then count your trains/routes at the end. It gives a detailed list of what you did do you can have bragging rights at the end.
Needs options to turn off expansion pack bonus points
ALewski
We used this to calculate scores, and it did a nice job, but it added 15 points for a Globetrotter bonus that doesn’t exist on the original game. So take that into account if you are using this app without an expansion pack.
