Galions, Canons & Doublons

EvEvanstar10,0

Each round of the game is two parts. In the first part a bunch of player and non-player dice are dumped into the lid of the box where you can't really see them. Then a bunch of random things happen taking some dice out of commission. Then, players flip tokens on their ship to claim non-player dice that they can reach by awkwardly measuring distances between those dice with the edges of cards. Once everyone is out of actions or patience and all the dice have been sufficiently moved or accidentally knocked into their final spots, battle is resolved where the number randomly rolled on the die determines winners and losers. Losers get some loot tokens for participating, winners get loot tokens plus victory points. In the second part, players can participate in a town phase where they can buy new parts for their ships, or buy cards with special abilities. The ship parts get added to your boat, which has this neat idea of being like a puzzle piece, so each upgrade you can actually see in place. These upgrades are awkwardly cut out however, and the boat itself doesn't lock in any way, so things end up going all over the place every time you brush the boat with your arm. Add to this that the rulebook is very poorly translated, and the cards generate a lot of rules questions and the fact that you play many rounds, and you have an experience that's unpleasant start to finish. ☆ Art, Iconography and components functional ☆ Clever or interesting mechanisms ★ Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players ☆ Multiple plays stay interesting ☆ Low or mitigatable luck elements ☆☆☆☆☆ Raw enjoyment