Game: Bermuda Triangle

Thread: Re: Components question - Card deck makeup

FerretOfTindalos — 2008-11-25T02:49:53+00:00

My copy - American - is still living at my mother's house, but I'll grab it as soon as I'm over and check for ya. I can't imagine WHY it would be different from a Dutch copy (everyone likes bananas, right?), but I'll double-check all the same.

Thread: Re: Components question - Card deck makeup

Der Das — 2008-10-23T07:19:16+00:00

I'm not sure if there are differences between various international editions or print-runs, but here's the card breakdown of my Dutch (also thrifted) copy:

8 Thuishaven (home port)
8 Suiker (sugar)
7 Hout (wood)
5 Olie (oil)
4 Bananen (bananas)

Card total is 32.

Thread: Components question - Card deck makeup

Windopaene — 2008-10-23T00:51:32+00:00

Recently thrifted this game, and cannot find anything that tells me what the breakdown of the cards are. I know there are supposed to be 8 home port cards, but no idea on the other ports' cards.

Any help appreciated.

Thread: Household boardgame league round 3

malletman — 2008-10-02T13:47:35+00:00

Stsndings after 2 rounds

Daughter (7) 3
Son (10) 3
Dad (Older) 0

Third game out of the hat is Bermuda Triangle. House rules state that the game ends either when somebody reaches £350k or when one player loses all his ships (automatically coming last in the process), when the winner is the player with the most money with ships still remaining.

Son takes an early lead with some good rolls and taking advantage of the storm being stuck in the South West. he gets 2 high value oil cargoes to Bermuda. Daughter and I lose a ship or two each and scrabbl for some lower value cargoes.

Unfortunately for Son, the cloud changes course and speds the remainder of the game travelling up and down the east edge. With three ships left, all in Bermuda he is forced to enter the danger zone and loses ship after ship.

Eventually all four ships are gone leaving Dad the winner by the small margin of £10k. If Son had survived one more turn, daughter was poised to reach Home Port adn would easily have overtaken me.

Standings after 3 games

Daughter 4
Son 3
Dad 2

Next game in the series is Caveman.

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arnaudel — 2008-08-15T14:52:38+00:00

French version

Thread: Re: Variable Player Powers options

reapersaurus — 2008-07-17T19:42:37+00:00

Thanks for reading/considering them!

I'm not sure about the balance of any of them yet, but I've mentally estimated their effect on the game. There is concern about almost all of them except perhaps the Rum Runner. I nerfed him pretty good, so he's only going to provide a $30,000 to $40,0000 bonus, and that's if he's kept alive. And I reduced the benefit of the Wind Chaser to only +1, when it easily could be +2. I'll see.
The Storm Chaser can still be landed on and sent back to the previous port, and can be taken out by the Pirate. And he is delayed by the storm, so he can't just sail freely anywhere on the board. He just isn't lost in the storm, and he CAN get out if he's at its edge.

The Pirate and Weather Witch are the most dangerous abilities, since they can't be removed easily. The Pirate's only going to be taken out by the Bermuda Triangle itself (ironically the Weather Witch can help accomplish this), but the Weather Witch can't be removed at all.
I'm wondering how effective she'll be subtly affecting the storm's movement.....

It'll be interesting to see the way they play out.

Thread: Re: Variable Player Powers options

Der Das — 2008-07-17T09:37:31+00:00

These powers seem like nifty ways of adding a little spice to the game. I'm not so sure about 'Storm Chaser' though, it sounds a bit powerful and goes too much against the cloud mechanism for my liking (unless I misunderstood your explanation).

Have fun testing them.

Thread: Variable Player Powers options

reapersaurus — 2008-07-16T21:34:58+00:00

I just played Bermuda Triangle last night for the 1st time with my 7 year old son last night (I haven't played it in over 10 years), and I was impressed with the game - enough to think of an additional power each player could choose from at the beginning of the game:

(roll to see who gets first choice - role selection proceeds counterclockwise, and the last player to select a role gets to go first, then play proceeds clockwise as normal)

* Wind Chaser -
one ship of this player catches the wind better than any other ship in the fleets - it may go 1 more space with each die roll.

* Pirate -
one ship of this player is a heavily-armed gunboat and may remove any other ship from the game when they land on them, OR when someone else's ship ends their move on the pirate ship.

* Weather Witch/Wizard -
Once per turn at any time during the turn, this player may move the cloud one space in each direction (North-South, East-West, and rotation).

* Storm Chaser -
one ship of this player is specially-outfitted with storm-tracking equipment, allowing it to be immune to the effects of the Bermuda Triangle. If it is picked up by the cloud, it may immediately be replaced in the same spot. It may move out from under the cloud if you can see any of it exposed. It may not enter into the cloud any further than a normal ship, nor may it travel through the cloud when it is completely underneath it.

* Rum Runner -
one ship of this player stashes contraband - it may gain +$10,000 each card that it picks up (including the Home Port card). Keep the Rum Runner card stack seperate from the rest of your fleet's.

One ship of each color would be marked on the bottom of it (put a sticker, or piece of tape or something).

I'm going to try out these player powers the next game and get some playtesting in.

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kidsplinter — 2007-12-12T18:09:44+00:00

Thread: Re: User Review

phxgator — 2007-09-28T01:09:28+00:00

...plus, growing up in Florida, in late summer this game acted as a 3-D Hurricane Tracking Map! (specifically, in my case, Hurricane David in 1979)

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waterborg — 2007-09-14T06:28:38+00:00

Will the red ship make it?

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waterborg — 2007-09-14T06:27:35+00:00

The dutch version.

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simonh — 2007-08-27T19:21:38+00:00

Shoana moves the storm cloud at the end of her turn

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simonh — 2007-08-27T06:24:48+00:00

The Storm encroaches on the Port

Thread: A Storm to eat them all

beaslera — 2007-08-26T22:12:06+00:00

The most interesting part of this game is the storm, so just think of this from the storm's point of view.

Right off the bat, "Mmm, green ships look yummy. I'll eat two of the four of them." Then "Woah, I seem to have traveled the entire length of the board and eaten absolutely no one."

Then "Oops, I seem to have lost a very important keepsake near the oil port in the northeast corner of the board. I will spend an extremely long time searching for it while everyone backs up behind me."
"Hm, maybe I should ask those ships for help." The storm grabbed both a yellow ship and a green ship, but to no avail.

By this time, the red player had acquired a valuable ($80k) oil card and had acquired more cards than anyone else due to her policy of ramming other ships back into port whenever able. Red was the player to beat.

The storm saw snacks all over the board and settled on a little of each, removing the green player from the game. The green player happily took over the task of moving the storm for the rest of the game.

The end game began, with the storm haunting the northern passage. Red had three ships on that route (and would win if she made it through), while the other players each had one. For several rounds the passage was blocked and one by one the red ships were destroyed. The blue ship was blown off course and the yellow ship got the nice oil. With red and green both out, blue handily defeated yellow.

The lessons of this session were to avoid bananas as they are cheap and yucky, run for home or oil whenever possible, block ports if it's not too much hassle, and laugh heartily whenever you hear the click of one magnet grabbing another...unless that's your ship under there. Not much strategy.

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William Hunt — 2007-08-01T22:33:57+00:00

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lordunborn — 2007-04-19T12:53:41+00:00

Box Cover

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fellonmyhead — 2007-02-22T16:27:25+00:00

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dipdragon — 2007-02-19T22:03:37+00:00

Bermuda Triangle Ship (With Central Magnet)

Thread: Re: A dangerous trip into the Bermuda Triangle.

teaguewebb — 2006-11-28T18:28:34+00:00

So, you recommend your own thread, eh? Well, I would hope so!

Thread: A dangerous trip into the Bermuda Triangle.

tikimadman — 2006-07-30T20:36:47+00:00

I have had this game for a while and am kind of a sucker for games that have cool moving parts.

In Bermuda Triangle you control four boats that you roll and move from port to port collecting various trade goods. The object of the game is to collect $350,000. Wok so this sounds perty boring right, sounds just like games like Monopoly, Sorry, or Life where you just roll and move around the board and do stuff. There is a catch to all this, there is this large mysterious cloud that moves around on the board and whose location is determined by a directional spinner. I know still boring, whats a cloud going to do, Niagara has a cloud but at least it does stuff. So what if I say that the cloud has magnets under it? I know so what the cloud has magnets, big whoop. What if I say each of your ships have magnets in them? Ahh now you are putting it together, so when the cloud passes over your ships they get sucked up by the cloud, we in our game group refer to this as the “Mysterious Cloud Suck Action”. I know what your saying now, I will just get my ships back and start over like all these games; this is where your wrong, once sucked up your ships are no more, they cease to be, they have thus been killed by the “Mysterious Cloud Suck Action”. The other funny thing that occasionally happens is the cloud sometimes, though very rarely, will only just nudge your ship where you have to put in the closest open ship spot to where it was mysteriously relocated to. You can also land on your opponents ships sending them back to the port they came from. You get a special bonus card that adds to your dollar total for getting back to home port, which doesn't happen a lot. Most games generally tend to end when you only have one player left with boats on the board.

The game components are top notch. The mysterious cloud looks very cool. The board depicts a nice looking nautical chart. You also get four of each red, blue, yellow, and green ships that are molded plastic with a small magnet in the middle of them. I have to say that the magnets are still going strong, considering the age of the game thats perty good.

For a cheesy roll and move game this one is a lot of fun. I also think the cloud gimmick is well executed, something that didn't always happen with these gimmicky games from the 70's and 80's. I place my Bermuda Triangle game amongst my snobby euro games quite proudly. This a light beer and pretzels game with good replayability. This game has hit the table many oh game nights sandwiched in between sessions of Power Grid and Caylus. If you have a fun game group that likes to laugh or if your feeling the need for some good gimmicky nostalgia I would suggest getting a copy of this.

Thread: Re: User Review

Bobo the Curious Dog — 2006-06-04T01:48:24+00:00

Nice review!

I remembered how the game always had at least one traffic jam, with players trying to correctly time when to start the hazardous journey from the "Bananas" port off the SE coast of the US to the "Oil" port in Bermuda. The cargo prices for Oil were very good (the highest single dollar amount card in the game was the $100,000 Oil card), but the track to get there took your ships right through the heart of the triangle.

It was a cool game, but relied a bit too much on luck for my tastes -- you always hoped to roll high and/or hoped that the cloud would move away from your ships. Very rarely did either of those two things happen.

Thread: Re: Questions

Imagine — 2006-04-24T08:04:27+00:00

Well, an easy way to give the active player a little more control is to let him/her decide (before moving the cloud) whether to spin it first and then move it, or the other way round. That can make a BIG difference.

Thread: Re: Questions

fmoros — 2006-04-24T02:31:43+00:00

Thanks,
It seems the right thing to do. To safe boats at port.
But yes, phisically is possible, using the cloud correctly to eat the boats at port. It would have been nice if the ports where out of danger, but they are not.

thanks a lot
happy games

Thread: Re: Questions

resin — 2006-04-23T19:14:03+00:00

Ships are definitely safe while in port.

Off the top of my head, though, I don't know how exactly this is enforced, since I seem to recall that it IS possible for the cloud to pass over ships in port. It should be rare, however, so double check to make sure that you are using the cloud right (easiest rule to forget: when the cloud hits the edge of the board, it resets back to center while retaining its current rotation).

My advice would be to move ships aside if the cloud is passing near and they are in port.

(edited once for typo)

Thread: Questions

fmoros — 2006-04-23T10:35:51+00:00

Hi,
i just took out this game and the kids had fun with it.
However i have a Q:

a- can ships been abducted while being stationary at a port? Many times the cloud ate ships at ports.. but that is kind of weird (I mean extra-weird for a game which is already weird enough )

Our game had a lot ships lost before players getting any freight
We ended with 2 player empty handed, and other 2 only with one card.

Even it was fun , I think the game would improve if we give some control to the players over the CLOUD. For instance, players after spinning could decide if the cloud moves or stay where it is. In that way you can avoid to eat your own ships.

happy games!

Thread: Re: User Review

mrspank — 2005-08-28T19:30:03+00:00

Nice review of this game. I used to play it with my sister quite frequently in the '80s. I swear that magnetic storm sucked up more of my ships than my sister's!

Thread: Low scoring game with lots of lost ships

KentuckyKid — 2005-07-20T05:22:04+00:00

The day started of normally enough, with Darin, Ryan (8) and Jared (4) all sailing around and trying to collect money from trade goods. Jared sails the seas with reckless abandon, and after about 4 rounds he had lost two ships. Ryan had meanwhile jumped into an early lead after claiming $40K for bananas.

Next, Darin proceeded to lose two of his ships in the vicinity of Puerto Rico, and Ryan lost one somewhere to the north.

That's when things started to get weird. The freak storm was next spotted just off the coast of Florida, and it just sat there, barely moving. Ships started piling up around the Florida bananas port, as no one could move further out to sea. The remaining ships claimed their prizes at the lumber and sugar ports, and the stock of bananas was exhausted. But, none of the remaining 7 ships could leave Florida. We rolled, and waited. We landed on each other, sending each other back to the bananas port, and waited. Our boat crews cheered each time they got sent back to Florida, since it moved them further from the dreaded storm.

Finally, the storm broke. It moved west with a vengence, and gobbled up Jared's remaning two ships. as well as a ship of Darin's. No one claimed any money from oil the entire game.

Final score:

Ryan $120,000 (2 ships lost)
Jared $110,000 (4 ships lost)
Darin $100,000 (3 ships lost)

Thread: User Review

EvilTimmy — 2004-12-06T15:16:10+00:00

I acquired this via eBay for under $10 and I have to say I'm quite happy with my purchase.

I wanted the game mostly because I was the weird kid who watched "In Search Of..." on TV when all the other kids were watching Emergency and S.W.A.T. in the '70s. I loved any movies or books on the paranormal and the Bermuda Triangle was a hot topic back in the day.

Gameplay
The game plays fairly quickly. Each player has four ships that each start in one of the four different freight ports around the board map. Each turn a player rolls a die and moves one of his ships around the one-way course (or race track) between the ports.

If a port is full (i.e. as many ships as players), the player must wait for entry. If a player lands on another player by exact count they send the player they land on back to the previous port.

A player may never have more than two ships in one port.

Upon arrival at each port, a player collects a freight card with a random dollar amount on it. Arrival at the one port on the board that has been designated as the "home port" gives the player an additional bonus card worth extra money. The first player to reach $350,000 worth of freight cards is the winner.

That wouldn't be much of a game in itself. What makes this game extra special is the "sinister mystery cloud" that randomly roams the board.

After each round of play a spinner card is used to determine where the cloud will move on the board. The spinner determines rotation of the cloud, direction of movement, and distance. The cloud is rotated first, then moved.

Embedded in the cloud are magnets(?) and each ship also has a small magnet in its center, so if the cloud should happen to pass over your ship there's a fair chance that the cloud will "swallow" you ship. Ships that disappear into the mystery cloud are out of play for the rest of the game. When the cloud ever reaches the edge of the play area, it is emptied of ships and replaced in the center of the board where it started.

The rules instruct you to rotate and move the cloud slowly so as to maximize its sinister ship eating ability.

A player may never move into or under the mystery cloud but must always move if they can and as far as they can.

The game can also end when one player loses all of their ships. Then the player with the most money wins (which could be the player who lost all his ships!).

Strategy
Not much strategy here. The only real options you have are trying to land on other players to send them backwards, blocking ports, and trying to collect as many of the home port bonus cards as you can since that port is especially fruitful.

Port blocking doesn't seem to be a terribly effective strategy since you eventually need to keep your ships moving and you simply cause a traffic jam at the port. This would only be effective if the cloud were close by and there was a chance it might eat some of the ships caught in the jam.

I would say that the biggest strategy is trying to get as many home port bonus cards as possible early in the game since there is a finite supply.

Components
The board is pretty to look at and adds atmospheric effect since it looks like a nautical chart. The plastic ships are cute. But the centerpiece is the sinister mystery cloud.

Fun Factor
I had a lot of fun playing this game. There is a fair amount of player interaction as players are sent backwards and you are always rooting for the cloud to wander towards your opponents. Everyone cringes and squeals as the cloud lumbers across the board towards their ships. Then a mix of cheering and disappointment as ships are eaten. What fun! Go mystery cloud, go mystery cloud, it's your birthday, it's your birthday!

Replay
I can see breaking this game out every once in a while for light fun. Definitely beer and pretzels fare for adults, and I'm sure younger kids would love it too.

Questions
What happens when you need to put the cloud back in the center of the board (after reaching the board edge) and it eats a ship? The rules don't mention this possibility but I presume a ship eaten is a ship eaten.

Conclusion
I love it! But then, I was the weird kid. If you were the weird kid too you'll probably love this game as much as I do. But even if you were one of the "normal" kids, this game should still be a hoot.