Status: Searching for Publisher
1-4 players (more with larger maps)
30-45 minutes
Ages 8+
Weight: Medium
Mechanics: Action Selection, Pick Up and Deliver, Dice Manipulation
Components: 1-6 Map Boards
Gold Coin tokens, 1st Player token
Per Player: 4 standard dice, 3 ship tokens
Protospiel Tested
Les Petits Pirates is a mini game played on a single, small game board. In Les Petits Pirates, players are pirates, working to gather resources and gold while trying to prevent their opponents from doing the same. Through action selection and dice manipulation, players will plunder, attack, and sail the seas in their quest to bury enough treasure and enjoy a decadent pirate retirement!
Features: Les Petits Pirates will be an easy game to expand for more players or larger games. A single 5.5” x 8.5” game board can support 2-4 players with 3 ships each. Multiple game boards can be combined, or a larger board used to easily expand the game for 5+ players. Special rules and map also allow for solo play. More variety can be easily introduced by simply printing new maps that can be used alone or combined with other maps. The game can easily be re-themed for a variety of genres, like Vikings, Space, High Fantasy, etc. Les Petits Pirates can easily be played with just the game board and typical household items, like dice and coins, but the game lends itself to having a ‘deluxe’ edition that includes nicer components, player mats, screens, etc.
- Game Boards – various maps of lands, islands, ports, and ocean spaces
- Per Player:
- Set of 3 ship tokens (or coins of the same type - pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters)
- 4 D6 dice (3 12mm dice and 1 16mm numeric die)
- First Player marker (a pawn, meeple, bottle cap, peanut, etc.)
- 30x 1 Gold.
- 10x 5 Gold.
Each round is played in three phases, Action Selection, Action Assignment, and Resolution. Play goes until one player has collected and buried 20 Gold. Alternately, play until each player has been the starting player 5 times and the winner is the player that has buried the most gold.
Accolades:
- Les Petits Pirates won 3rd place overall and 2nd place People's Choice in the 2015 MicroGame Print and Play Contest on Board Game Geek.
- Les Petits Pirates was chosen as a finalist in the KBG Design Contest for 2016, hosted by publisher Korea Board Games. 163 entries, 32 finalists.
12/11/2016 - After Protospiel Madison in October I made a few minor tweaks to the rules. Players now start on an Open Ocean space on the map edge instead of in shipyard ports. Also, scavenging can always get 1 gold if you have less than 3 in your hold (1 resource otherwise). And the biggest change was the addition of rules that allow you to attempt to sneak past another ship by spending resources, but there's a chance that other ship could attack you if you are spotted. The last few games I've played with these fine tuning changes have worked very well. I've also officially made the base maps support 4 players and the larger map is for 5-6 players (it's OK for 4 also).
5/2/2016 - I have completely revamped the solitaire gameplay after testing out a number of different variations. The new solitaire game is much more challenging and more strategic. The Rules document has also been reformatted to easily print in booklet format. Finally, a few maps have been balanced a bit, particularly the solo map.
4/14/2016 - It's been a while, but I've made a few small changes to the game recently. I've added the ability to Scavenge on a turn, basically give up an action to collect a gold or resource (to mitigate being a slave to the dice if you lose or bury all your gold). I also made combat a tad bit more interesting by allowing resources to be used to re-roll combat dice in certain situations. Finally, I've created new maps that are a bit larger, about 8.5"x5.5" instead. The new map file contains the 1-3 player maps, but not the 4 player map yet.
7/15/2015 - Fixed a few typos and clarified a few spots in the Solo rules.
7/12/2015 - Added a new map and updated the PnP files so that one file contains all 7 maps.
6/7/2015 - Clarified a few minor things in the rules. Added a Quick Reference page to the rules (also as a separate PDF). Added a 4+ player map. Cleaned up a minor potential problem point with the Viking Map (the space with the 3/1 port looks like it might be accessible from the left and top right spaces, but it shouldn't be).
6/2/2015 - Changed the gold goal for a 3 player game, added the ability to lure ships away from their spaces, and added full rules and a new map for solo play!
5/31/2015 - Cleaned up the rules significantly, clarified some aspects about movement and attacking, added ability to force a defender to retreat when defeated by 2+ in lieu of collecting spoils.
5/30/2015 - Added Extras file with all the components needed for a complete game, except for the dice.
5/29/2015 - Added 3 new maps.
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| The Basic map! |
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| The Viking map! |
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| The Ocean Voyage map! |
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| The Space map! |
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| The Treacherous Waters map! |
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The Solo map!
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| 4+ Player Map |
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| Playing on the Viking map. |
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| Losing to my son. |
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| Another two player game. |
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| Playing two 3-player games simultaneously. |
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| A 3-player game. |
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| Playing two 3-player games simultaneously. |
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| A 2-player game with the new custom ship tokens. |
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| 4-players on the larger map. |
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| Custom ship tokens on the larger map. |
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| Six different custom ship tokens, enough to play a 4 to 6-player game on the larger map or on combined maps, or simultaneous 2 or 3-player games. |
Microgames Microgames Microgames! I love the way this looks. No shame in losing to your son though. I lose to my wife all the time and I design the bloody games. Good luck with this one
ReplyDelete-- cK