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RacingHippo — 2007-10-29T21:04:38+00:00

Box contents showing new treasure bag and tidy paper bag containing components

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Red Wine Pie — 2007-04-10T10:19:23+00:00

3 ships in close combat

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Red Wine Pie — 2007-04-10T10:15:59+00:00

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Werbaer — 2007-03-17T16:15:06+00:00

components closeup (promotion image from publisher, used with permission)

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Werbaer — 2007-03-17T16:14:43+00:00

components (promotion image from publisher, used with permission)

Thread: A Pirate Game! How Unusual!

dbucak — 2006-10-10T06:24:36+00:00

Piratissimo is a children's game which the box claims is for ages 6-99, though I would guess that 10 might be the actual upper limit. It's a press your luck game of collecting treasure and trying to get it back to your home port.

The components are 4 wooden ships, a board with an attached spinner, 64 wooden treasure pieces, a whicker basket which is too small to hold all the treasure, a special wooden die, a tornado piece which looks suspiciously like a wooden doorknob one might find on a sliding closet door, and a rules book in English, German, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese. The most important pieces in a pirate game are the ships and these are cool looking, colorful, with three masts and a translucent sail. Better yet you get to load them up with "gold" coins as the game progresses. On the down side they look like they could break with some rough handling. Combined with the easily swallowed gold coins, the ships are a good reason to keep the game out of younger sibling's hands.

During each turn, a pirate captain rolls the die and moves that number of islands clockwise. The die is numbered from one to four, with two additional 'ones' which also have a picture of the tornado. After moving, the ship interacts with the island it landed on. An island with no number does nothing. An island with a white number allows the player to load up to that number of treasures on his ship. A red two requires a player to load two treasures on his ship. If a ship takes on more than seven treasures, it capsizes and all the treasures are lost. A player who lands on another ship may steal their treasure or may (counterintuitively) load some of their treasure on the other ship, which may cause the other ship to capsize.

If a player rolls a one with a tornado, he first moves his ship one space, then can move the tornado counterclockwise around the board up to four spaces. If the tornado hits a ship, the player spins the spinner, which can cause the ship to lose some treasure, move to the next island, give one treasure to each of the other players or be teleported back to it's home port.

The game is a roll and move game with a fair amount of luck. However there are some choices to be made in how much treasure to take on and where to move the tornado. Some of the ways the game works are not necessarily what you expect. It is often desirable to get rid of some treasure, so you find yourself smacking your own ship with the tornado or loading your treasure onto other pirate's ship. The tornado can even win you the game by sending you back to your port.

My almost six year old son enjoys the game and his seven and a half y.o. cousin loves it. I'm somewhat ambivalent about it, but I am willing to play. It's fun, if a little long, and the pieces and theme can carry it a fair ways.

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Werbaer — 2006-09-08T13:56:51+00:00

3 treasures brought home, 5 already there. 2 more needed for the win.

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Werbaer — 2006-09-08T13:56:44+00:00

Closeup of the spinner. It determines the fate of ship that's hit by the tornado

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Werbaer — 2006-09-08T13:56:39+00:00

The wooden components: ships, tornado, treasures, die

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Werbaer — 2006-09-08T13:56:34+00:00

The game board

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Werbaer — 2006-09-08T11:42:13+00:00

inside the box

Game: Piratissimo

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Thread: A Pirate Game! How Unusual!

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