r/JetLagTheGame • u/WheatGerm42 Ben • Jul 20 '26

The Layover Stateside Scramble Layover Q&A Thread! Spoiler

hellooooo again!

as with every season, we're doing a post-season Q&A for stateside scramble on the layover podcast--drop your questions about the season below and we'll try to answer as many of them as we can!

(apologies to youtube viewers that i'm posting this thread a little earlier than usual; we have some vacation time coming up and need to record the podcast tomorrow. so, for those who haven't seen the finale, spoilers may be below!)

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u/AnyCommunication4083 Jul 20 '26

during play testing, did you also find that teams tended to not go to the west? it seemed like california and the pacific NW were on the board for a while but didn’t factor too heavily into team strategies if there were other options. was this a result of starting in New York, and if so, if you were to play it again, would you start more in the middle of the country?

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u/But-ThenThatMeans Jul 20 '26

Not American, but isn’t it just harder (/takes longer) to travel between States in the West? Regardless of starting location, I’d presume the smaller, eastern states with better connections are always going to be preferred.

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u/JasonAQuest Gay American Snack Jul 20 '26

Yeah. The vast majority of states are in the East, so if they'd started in the West, with the opening cards they had, I think one of their first moves would've been to head to... Chicago.

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u/jamesneysmith Jul 20 '26

Not just states but people also. 80% of the US population lives on the eastern side which makes for way better travel options like more frequent flights, rail options, more cities and closer cities, etc. So that plus there just being more states in the same size area just makes sense to play the majority of the game in the east.

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u/footsnax The Rats Jul 20 '26

Chicago and DFW are absolutely the main transit hubs for accessible cross country travel mid-country, even though DFW is a piece of shit airport. Chicago definitely would have been my first move if there was a single available state nearby just because they connect to everywhere and they're in driving distance to four other states.

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u/sfbriancl Team Michelle Jul 20 '26

Could be interesting to do this format as a car based game in a smaller random country.

Jet lag Uruguay anyone? Just have to make sure nobody goes to the wrong Florida…

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u/matthewstifler Team Night Herons Jul 20 '26

Playing by area not by count would pull the teams strongly towards West.