Pirates, treasure, racing and battles! All of the components of a good game are present in Jamaica. I have been wanting to play this one for a long time and it didn't disappoint.
The objective of this game is to race your opponents around the island of Jamaica in your pirate ship collecting as much treasure as possible along the way. As you race around the island, you will need to feed your crew, pay to dock your ship, collect treasure, or enjoy a piece of open ocean depending on which spot on the board you land on.
Each player "pirate" has their own ship with cargo space to hold their food, gold, and gun powder and a set of action cards. Each turn, a pirate rolls two dice and assigns one of the rolled numbers as the daytime value and one as the nighttime value. These values correspond to symbols on the action cards and dictate what whether the pirate moves forward, backward, or how much food, gold, or gunpowder will be received on that turn.
The ship's cargo hold must be carefully managed because space is limited which means valuable resources must be discarded in order to bring new ones on board. This leads to really difficult decisions because gold gives pirates points at the end of the game; food is required to land on many of the board spaces; and gunpowder can prevent other players from stealing resources.
Pirate battles ensue when more than one player occupy the same spot on the board; the winner of the battle gets to carry off some of the loser’s supplies or bounty. We had a very bloody battle on the very first turn of our game as we all played a movement card which meant we all had to battle immediately. I won my battle and got to take a hefty sum of treasure from one of my fellow pirates which gave me a great head start and then I hightailed it out of the area before they could reclaim their booty.
Another way to gain treasure is to be the first person to land on a treasure chest space. While generally a blessing, earning the pirate extra points and items to help on the quest such as extra cargo room, sometimes a cursed treasure is drawn which results in negative points. During our game I managed to collect four treasures three awesome, one cursed which really gave me an edge in the game.
When the first pirate crosses the finish line, the round is complete and scoring begins. The pirate who crossed the finish line first gets a nice bonus of 15 points. Other pirates will either earn or lose points depending on how far away from the finish line they were at the end. Any gold coins earned during the round will add a point to your final scoring. I ended up winning this game due to my battle win, great luck with treasure and my strong finish.
Final Thoughts
The theme is so fun and incorporates all that we know of pirates in the game.
The game has one of the best box inserts I have ever seen. Every single thing has a place where it fits perfectly and everything is easy to put in and take out of the box. This makes cleaning up so easy. I wish every game was like this. The artwork in this game is awesome and I really like how colorful everything is.
The instruction manual, while nice to look at, is really hard to use because it unfolds like a treasure map making it awkward to use and pass around. Also, the player action card deck cards are long and thin so they are a little awkward to shuffle (they kind of bend inward when you shuffle them). Overall, I really enjoyed this game. It was light and very simple to teach and play.
Positives
- Theme is well incorporated and fun
- Insert is amazing
- Easy to teach to new players
Negatives
- Instruction manual is awkward
- The game seems more luck based than skill based
- Action cards are hard to shuffle
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