Sea Shanties Review

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I’m tired of fantasy and space games. There are so many!

And lately, plant games. Specifically mushrooms. But whatever.

But I’m always down for a pirate game. Maybe I was just really into The Pirates of the Caribbean movies? Or maybe Muppet Treasure Island?

Thus, when I heard about Sea Shanties from Pleiades Games, I knew I had to check it out. Pirates? Yes please. Buried treasure? Don’t mind if I do. Singing tales of my glory? Uh, thank yuh very much.

AHOY!

In this game, you’ll be the captain of a pirate ship, hoping to have such an amazing career on the high seas that they sing great ballads about you. On your turn, you’ll have several options for actions. You can move around the map, drop off pirates on islands to get resources (or pick them up if you need them for other jobs), recruit a pirate, or go into battle with another player.

Any resources that you have at the start of your turn are “buried”, meaning they get placed on your player board. Once someone reaches 5 of a resource, they earn a “shanty”, giving them points at the end of the game.

There are also additional challenges to tackle as the game goes on. Should you finish them, they will give you extra abilities that will help you during gameplay.

Once all the extra missions are completed OR all of the shanty cards have been earned, players finish another round and then add up their scores. Whoever ends up with the most points wins!

X Marks the Spot

Okay, let’s talk about that game board right up there. It’s made up of, like, little map pieces. It’s so cool! It’s not something that I believe I’ve seen in a game, and it immediately helps to convey the seafaring theme.

The other components are nice, though nothing particularly special. Cubes represent the different resources, and you’ll have a little bitty ship meeple to move around the map.

I do like the artwork on the cards, particularly the Shanty scoring cards. There’s also some nice flavor text to help you buy into the payoff of the resource collection.

Ready the Cannons!

The game flows well from turn to turn. Players will have to find a balance between placing their pirates on islands to gain resources, but also keeping enough pirates on your ship to help when you are attacked.

Speaking of attacks, they’re one of my favorite parts. During a battle, each player is allowed to choose their attack power, though it cannot be more than the number of pirates that they have on their ship. Both players choose their power on secret little dials, then reveal. Whoever has the highest number wins, and they get to steal a number of resources from the loser equal to the difference in power, plus they gain a fear resource.

This process quickly leads to mind games. You see, while having more pirates and power certainly seems like a good thing, there’s a catch. The winner must get rid of a number of pirates from their ship equal to the difference in power. Thus, victory comes at a cost.

One of my favorite parts of one playthrough was when Erin decided to attack Ryan, who was underpowered. However, he chose a power of 0, while Erin went with 5. He only had 2 resources, which he probably would’ve given up anyway. But now, Erin had to lose 5 of her pirates, meaning she had less power to defend herself on future turns.

Points are scarce in this game. The shanties earn very few points, and the only other points come from completing challenges. Several of the people in our game finished with single digit scoring. While there’s nothing really wrong with this, some of the people playing felt like there wasn’t a payoff to all the work they had done on turns. It’s a “winner take all” approach, and that might not work for everyone.

Walk the Plank

All in all, I enjoyed my time with Sea Shanties. I don’t play a lot of cutthroat games, but this one held my interest throughout. It’s also not particularly long, so it’s hard to build up a big elaborate plan that then gets torn down at the end.

That being said, I do think this is a title that would work great for those who really like to go after each other. We never really got into making pacts with one another, or backstabbing, or anything like that. Truthfully, we probably weren’t being all that pirate-y. But with the right group, this game on the table could bring out everyone’s ruthless side.

And that sounds like a boatload of fun.