Age: 8+ (box says 10+)
Players: 2-8
Playing Time: 20 Minutes
Category: Card
Gameschool Area: History
Price: $13.82 on Amazon
Publisher: Gamewright Games
I look for games with strong themes to add a little something extra to our history studies.
We use The Well Educated Heart rotation schedule, and Months 1 and 2 include South Seas, Stars, Spanish Main/Pirates, and Ocean, all topics enhanced by a well illustrated and designed PIRATE game!
When we first played this game, my kids started asking questions about English money and how it compares to ours and what all the different coins that they’ve read in books or seen in movies were worth. We looked it up and had a very educational experience and good discussion about currency, economics, etc. All from a silly game about pirates!
But this is why we use games in our homeschool because they are a jumping off point for curiosity, questions, and discovery. Plus they help my kids learn to cooperate, take turns, follow the rules, and be flexible, all skills that are maybe more easily taught in public school. As homeschoolers, we value autonomy and independence, but learning those “classroom” skills are also valuable, we just have to be creative in how we teach them. Games are a great way to do it.
You know how much I love a game that allows for lots of people to play, and this is a rare one that can include 8 players. Eight is the magic number in our family, so that gives this game an extra gold star.
And just look at those beautifully designed cards…I just love those skulky pirates and all that loot!
This game took us a few play-throughs to really feel like we knew what we were doing and to get an idea of what kind of strategy would work. It seems simple, but it’s actually has a nice complexity to it.
- Each player gets 6 cards
- Take ONE of the following actions:
- Draw a card from the deck.
- Play a merchant ship in front of you.
- Play a pirate ship to attack a merchant ship or strengthen your
attack on a merchant ship. - Play a pirate captain to strengthen your attack on a
merchant ship. - Play the admiral to defend your own merchant ship.
Basically, players try to play and keep the most valuable merchant ships (the ones with the most number of gold pictured on the card) by defending it with pirates ships. You can add pirate ships of the same color every turn until someone runs out and the player with the most pirates wins the merchant ship. Pirate captain and admiral cards can be used to add extra strength to an attack.
It’s a game with a lot of variety and settling on an effective strategy is tough! It’s definitely a game that takes practice to master and can be replayed over and over again, with new possibilities for discussion and curiosity every time.
Pirates are a favorite theme at our house, and this is a great game to add to a wide variety of unit studies!
