I usually do not mind scarce interaction, but this game is almost a solitaire.
Besides, I find it shallow (very few decisions, often obvious) and very repetitive... a disappointment.

It was cute, but it was a dicefest. And I think that it would get old really fast.

Dicefest? Most turns don't involve dice. Only drinking at the pub (not that common) and the end-of-round brawl for sleeping quarters. And given that there's 1st/2nd/3rd scoring for bunks, and you get to decide how many of your pirates you reserve for that brawl, I wouldn't label this a dicefest at all. Granted, it's hard to argue against the claims some have made that this doesn't belong in the Alea big box line. So if you're expecting PR or PoF, you're not going to find that here.

The game I played had several multi-tavern dice-offs, one of which had the final two people (I was one) roll the same number three or four times in succession.

We had tremendously long bunk-brawl dice-offs, including one where I had 6 pirates on the ship, someone else had 1, and another had 4. That can take awhile.

And you seem to have forgotten about the dicefest accompanying all the scorpion-topped treasure chests.

And then there's the fights against big (4-6) and small (1-3) bands of thugs. That's another dice roll. I'm probably forgetting others, too.

It's a ton of dice rolling for little more than deciding who's considered "unlucky."

You're right. I had forgotten about the scorpions.

Thugs & taverns weren't that common in my game, and thugs are only a single roll (and again in my game usually only attempted when a forgone conclusion).

Anyway, I guess I need to concede that there's a lot of dice rolling in the game. But I'd pick this any day over, say, Pirate's Cove. I guess for me it's just one of thos egames that is fun, regardless of whether it's a fair measure of strategy.

A dicefest with ugly graphics. No thanks.

Responding to Randy's comments, is there perhaps another example of the infamous "Gathering effect"?

"The game I played had several multi-tavern dice-offs, one of which had the final two people (I was one) roll the same number three or four times in succession."

For taverns, the latter players have to *beat* the earlier players. It sounds like you were playing it wrong.

"We had tremendously long bunk-brawl dice-offs, including one where I had 6 pirates on the ship, someone else had 1, and another had 4. That can take awhile."

This example has at most 9 dice-offs. Here, the latter players own the tie-breaker. If you weren't accounting for the tie-breaker here as well, then, yes, it would take a really long time.

In both cases, the presence of rum can extend the battle, but usually in an amusing way.

"And then there's the fights against big (4-6) and small (1-3) bands of thugs."

These don't use die rolls.

In any case, I strongly advise that, when you play, each player gets his own die and dice cup.

I played this twice (one of the few that wasn't my own prototype), and it worked great both times. The second time was right before a tournament, so we decided to play "no thinking". Though they didn't need to, two of the people left in the middle of the game to go stand where people were milling for the tourney. So and we played their cards randomly for them, and still had a great time.

I liked to say that it's Yahtzee with cheating.

"Pickomino on Steroids" or "Yahtzee with cheating"? I can't waiting for my first opportunity to pass on playing this game!

Did you get to play it with Karl-Heinz Schmiel? I saw some pictures of him at the GoF, seems like that would have been a pretty cool experience.

No, but I did see him, and talked with him (and finally picked up his Atilla in the swap-meet). Relative to most gamer personalities there, he's incredibly subdued. There were a lot of Germans there, and he seemed more comfortable among them, or other notables, meaning not me.

Speaking of which, I wanted to settle a long-running argument about Die Macher rules ( http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/20178/page/1), so I asked him, and he answered. But in hindsight, I'm not sure that (due to the language barrier) he clearly understood the question, and me his answer. So I won't say what he said.

Haha! I feel exactly the same way. Heading out to the thrift stores today, Curt. I'll let you know if I find an extra copy.

An extra copy? Holy crap, you people must live in gamer-poor towns. The best thing I've ever found at a thriftstore was an a-maze-ing labyrinth that was missing tiles. If I ever came upon a loopin' louie in one (let alone a copy with all the chickens that actually worked) I think I would crap my pants.

This is actually in print and easy to get in Germany, if you're ever placing an overseas order.

Well... I found my copy in a thrift store and it was only missing one chicken! To say I was thrilled would be an understatement.

Am I missing something? Has loopin looie suddenly become a hard to get classic or something? I stillh ave my old copy sitting by Trouble and Scrabble, and my friend has his, along with a lot of his older games. its a really fun game, but is it really that hard to find?