presentation

Dark Seas

Pirates, islands and treasures

Pirates sail among the Plunder Islands on the search for crew, power, infamy and treasures. Each player has a central island tile in his color as well as six harbor tiles and three pawns for ship, captain and scoring. At the start, you receive two plunder tiles for your island display as well as a treasure token, three doubloons and four plunder tiles in hand.

In each of the twelve rounds, one player rolls all four dice and can re-roll once. Then, all players in turn use those dice results.

You can use a plunder tile from your hand showing one of the dice symbols, to receive doubloons, place pirates - maximum four in a harbor - or to draw treasure markers. By paying a doubloon you can upgrade a pirate to a Dread Pirate. Then you can move the captain, from one harbor tile to another harbor tile or onto the central island or from the central island onto a harbor card. On a harbor tile, the captain protects pirates and plunder tiles on it from plunder effects of other players. The central island provides resources, on a harbor tile you can then move the ship on this card; the ship moves from harbor to harbor, while either the captain is in the harbor or a die shows the symbol of the next harbor, and you can activate one or both plunder tiles adjacent to the bay area on a harbor tile. Finally, you can place a plunder tile, at the final position of the ship, adjacent to the bay area of a harbor tile.

At the end, you score wealth and power for infamy.

A nice game with a well-working topic, a nice, somewhat simplified rondel mechanism for the captain and a chance, to achieve good combinations with the plunder tile.

Players: 2-4

Age: 12+

Time: 45+

Designer: Anthony Rubbo

Artist: J. Hause, Todd Rowland, Garrett Weinzierl

Price: ca. 18 Euro

Publisher: Alderac Entertainment 2015

Web: www.alderac.com

Genre: Pirates, treasures, dice

Users: With friends

Version: en

Rules: en

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Mix of worker placement, track assembly and resources management, all quite simple

Good also for families with some gaming experience

Topic seems rather forced

Nice graphics, though

Compares to:

Games using dice symbols for action options

Other editions:

Currently none

Chance (pink): 3

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0