Until very recently, my son was obsessed with pirates. Luckily, there are a plethora of pirate-themed games from which to choose, so we have played quite a few. If your family likes relatively simple card games, and especially if they like pirates, treasure, or sailboats, then you need to check out Loot.
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Loot is another winner by Gamewright Games, so you know it’s going to be good! (It’s out-of-print by Gamewright, but looks like it’s been picked up by Outset Media.) The game is composed of a single deck of 75 cards: 25 merchant ships, 48 pirate ships, 4 pirate captains, and 1 admiral. Players are each dealt 6 cards to begin the game.
Playing Loot
On your turn, you have the option to draw a card or play a card. If you choose to play a card, you can choose whether you play a merchant ship or a pirate ship.
Merchant ships are worth between two and eight gold (points). Pirate ships have between one and four flags and are one of four colors: red, green, blue, or purple. There is one pirate captain of each color.
When you attack someone else’s merchant ship or defend your own, you must play a ship of a color that has not been played on that ship yet. So if someone has attacked a merchant with a blue ship, you have to choose a different color. You also have to pay attention to how many flags are in play. If one player already has 4 flags attacking a merchant, attacking with one flag will not do anything for you.
Once a merchant ship has gone one full round (so everyone has had a turn) without anything being played on it, then whoever has the most flags attacking the ship gets it. If no one attacks a merchant ship, then whoever played it gets it. In the case of a tie, the merchant ship is left in play until the tie is broken.
Captains and the Admiral
Captains trump any number of flags, but the last captain played beats any previously played. They can only be played on their color ships, so if you want to be able to use your captain, make sure you attack with the correct color. You can, however, attack with multiple colors, as long as no one else has attacked with those colors yet (and the flags stack). Admirals play the same as a captain but can only be played by whoever played the merchant ship.
After a battle, all pirates and captains are discarded. The discard pile is never reshuffled, so it’s important to keep an eye on the draw pile. Once someone cannot draw or play a card, the game is over and points are tallied.
Merchant ships still in play are discarded; no one gets the points. Any merchant ships still in your hand are worth negative points, so it’s important to stay on top of playing them. Whoever has the most points wins!
Loot is fun, light-hearted, relatively quick and simple to play, and includes lots of basic addition. Even though my son has informed us that he is no longer that into pirates, we will probably keep our copy forever because it’s so much fun to play.