Pirates 'n' Dice
Shiver me timbers, here's a push-your-luck dice and gambling game that even the little ones can play. It's a race between 2-6 players to be the first to collect 20 gold by rolling the dice combos indicated on treasure cards and by betting on whether or not other players will be successful. Published by Djeco, the game is designed by Alexis Allard and Romaric Galonnier, with art by Alfredo Cáceres.
As with many of Djeco's games, the thick rule book can look initially foreboding but rest assured that it's only thick because it contains the rules in ten different languages; the English rules take up just four pages, and that's replete with illustrations and examples, and a key to all the icons. And the latter is hardly necessary because the iconography on the cards is intuitively clear.
Players take turns as pirate captains rolling dice to try to make the combos shown. The dice are standard six-sided dice except that there's parrot on the face that would normally have a 6; parrots are considered wild. Most cards require the captain to roll all five dice, with up to two re-rolls, but some cards limit the captain to using just three or four dice. Everyone has the opportunity once per game to flip their captain card to claim an additional re-roll. If a captain succeeds in getting the required combo, they take two cards and flip them to their reverse side where they will each show a value of two or three doubloons.
Pirates 'n' Dice keeps everyone involved on each other's turns because the other players 'bet' (ie: make their own prediction) on whether or not they think the captain will succeed in getting the combo on their card. They indicate their 'succeed or fail' selection by flipping their ship card (wreck side indicates a bet that the captain will fail). Players whose bets prove correct each score a card worth two or three gold.
