The Pirates of the Carribbean DVD Treasure Hunt game was purchased by another couple that my hubby and I like to game with. Lighter games seem to go over well when gaming with them, so this game was a good choice for them and a good time was had by all. However I think there are some pretty noticable flaws which would make this game get old fast, and would make game geeks probably not like this game much at all.

The components of this game were very well done and it looked lovely. There were 4 metal pirate ships with lots of detail that you moved around the board and there were nice chunky dice to roll. The board was really cool: it looks like a treasure map and is printed on cloth and comes rolled up and tied in the middle like a real treasure map. This was impressive, but the folds and wrinkles in the map from being rolled up made it hard for the ships to stay standing in some places, and hard to read the coordinates around the edge.

The gameplay is quite simple. There is a dvd which had an overview of the rules, but I found that the DVD rules were very brief and there were still lots of unanswered questions so we had to read the actual rules anyway. Everyone starts out with a secret card that tells you how much "booty" you have to collect to win. There are 3 types of booty: rum, silver and gold, and they are represented by cards. Everyone starts out with one booty card of each type, and you collect others by travelling around the map and searching the squares. You also get a fortune card and can get more along with more booty by completing mini games. There are coordinates around the edge of the map and you can search a square by entering the coordinates on the DVD. This is a neat idea, but it takes a long time to scroll through the numbers using your DVD remote to find out whether you found booty or if the sea is empty in that space. This would probably work better if there was a deck of cards to draw from as it would take less time. Players roll a black die to move and on it are numbers 1-5 and a tradewinds symbol. When you roll the tradewinds you select it on the DVD and it tells you how far you can travel - up to 12 squares. There are fog spaces on the board which you have to stop on when you reach them, to prevent you from moving too far in one turn, and there is a special button on the DVD for searching the fog squares for treasure. The booty obtained from the fog squares is good, but you have a big chance of being sent back to your home port. I found it hard to travel very far from my home port because I kept getting sent back.

Players can travel to different ports on the islands, and on these coordinates there are mini games. These are all simple, and mostly luck based. One island you must follow cards that are shuffled around and try not to choose the scull and crossbones. They cards are shuffled so fast that it's often just a random guess (at least for me, my hubby claims he can follow it). Another island gives you a number that you have to roll on using 3 dice and a number of times you must roll it within a time limit (ie: roll a 5 five times, roll a 3 three times). There is an island which spins a spinner and where it lands may give you booty. One game has 3 spinning coins which you try and figure out which coin is different and the "real" coin. This game ranges from easy (one skull on the coins has a nose and the other 2 don't) to really hard where you just guess. The more you played the game on this island the easier it got. There is a trivia island, but it's not really movie trivia, it's a simple clue that leads you to pick the right number associated with a key to open a chest. For instance one clue was about how many of these were in a day and the answer was 24, as in 24 hours in a day. Pretty simple clues. I never made it to this island as I always got sent back to my home port. The last island's mini game involved picking one of 4 chests to see what was inside. If you lose at a game you either get sent to the jail island, or to rumrunners island. The only way to escape these islands is to roll an odd number, to get bumped off by another player sent there, or to use one of the "get out of jail free" fortune cards. The games for the most part were too luck based, and are the type that would get old fast, lessening the replayability of this game.

If you are within one square of an opponent you may battle them for a chance to steal their booty. This is done by the attacker rolling a red die and the defender rolling a blue die. If you end up with a higher number when you are attacking you get to steal 3 booty cards from your opponent. If you lose they get to steal one booty card from you. If it is a tie nothing happens. For the most part we didn't battle except when someone was about to win. To win, once you collect all of the required booty you get a location from the DVD where you have to make it to and "bury your treasure" in order to win. If someone steals your booty and you fall below your goal you have to find more booty and get another location to bury your treasure. This part provided the most laughs for our group as we were 2 couples and we ended up attacking our spouses and stealing booty back and forth. Listening to the insults when booty was stolen was really funny.

Overall I would give this game a 6.5 out of 10. It was a good time, very simple and light and the fact that it was mostly luck based makes it a pretty even game when playing with less experienced gamers. However due to the reliance on luck it has limited replayability so it is probably not worth purchasing. Game geeks and very serious gamers probably won't like it very much, but it is still possible to have a good time. I think that this game best suited to people who like simple, luck based games, and families as it seemed like something that children would really like as well.