The components are well made and rather colourful and very much in theme with the game.
There are very few rules for the game which makes it simple to pick up but is also the downfall as there is no clarification and no proper examples of gameplay. Thus leaving a lot to player interpretation. A good example of this is the battle rules which do not clarify what happens if players tie. In all the games we have played we have assumed that a tie results in a draw and no-one wins so both players just lose their highest weapon as per normal battle rules.
The game is played by moving around the board as either a pirate (rolling one Dice) or once you have a crew card as a ship (rolling 2 dice). You move the full extent of your die roll when moving on the board or double the value if your first move is in the direction of the wind. The only time you can stop mid move is when you "Weigh Anchor" this can only be done under two circumstances:
1. You stop on a BLACK Cross (not the Red Ones for Skull island you have to end your move on them) when you can collect, bury or Steal Treasure (when you have a treasure map card)
2. You stop within 1,2 or 3 squares (Depending on the weapon you have)of an opponents ship or pirate (when you have a ship) and challenge for a battle
Everyone starts with 7 gold and 3 cards dealt face up.
There does seem to be a problem with starting with cards as you could either end up with crew straight away getting a huge advantage or you could get one of the bad cards and possible lose your first turn or even get stuck on castaway island which can only be left by rolling a 7 or 11 on 2 dice rolled on your turn, but you do get 3 attempts.This may also require another house rule that everyone gets specific starting cards or alternatively people just start with the 7 gold and no cards. Which would stop the huge advantage of starting with a Crew Card from the get-go.
Various symbols on the board denote whether you collect a card or a coin, lose a coin, a turn or a card. A spinner denotes wind direction which doubles your movement in that direction (this makes for a tricky mechanic as the players have to agree what to do when the spinner is in between directions)
As you go round the board you can weigh anchor at various islands and bury treasure for safe keeping, although if other pirates get a treasure map card they can pillage your buried treasure.
To win you have to be the last pirate standing, this is achieved by stealing all of another pirates cards and treasure. This can be done by having battles which the challenger places a wager on in a mixture of gold/cards which the opponent has to do his best to match and the winner takes all.
Battles can only be made ship to ship or ship to pirate so getting a crew card is vital.
I have played this now with both 2 players and 4 players. The 2 player games involved mainly burying treasure and trying to gain cards. Battles in a 2 player are fewer as you tend to remain fairly level in terms of treasure and cards.
The 4 player game involved more battles as 1 or 2 people seemed to acquire larger amounts of treasure and so became a target. They also tended to then pick on the other players with less in order to knock them out. In all three games I have played the game has not been completed as it proves very difficult to completely knock an opponent out of the game. In the 4 player which we played for 2 1/2 hours only one person (unfortunately it was me!) got knocked out, although a second was close to being knocked out.
I like the game but feel it probably needs some house-ruled additional winning conditions to vary the gameplay and speed up the whole game.
