When a teenager, I designed dozens of board games, using only my knowledge of the few board games that I had at that point as a reference. All of these board games are now long gone (and a good thing, too!), but one that I remember fondly was a game called Professor Bodybuilder - in which players built monsters out of three cards - trying to match the correct body parts, but usually ending up with hilariously built monsters. As soon as I saw the basic concept of Skallywaggs (Bent Castle Workshop, 2005 - Ben Crenshaw and Chris Pallace), which was similar to my game but using pirates instead of monsters, I was intrigued and had to have the game immediately. The artwork was absolutely fantastic, and who can argue with a pirate theme in a game?
After playing the game, I must say that putting the pirates together is certainly the most enjoyable feature of the game. That's not to say the rest of the game is bad - I did enjoy the play, but the building of different pirates (ranging from ones that look interesting to ones that are just plain disgusting or wrong) brings hilarity to the game that will probably bring many repeat playings. I did think that the endgame was a little drawn out and fixed it in my games with a custom rule. The game is basically a matching card game with a lot of "take that" involved.
A deck of 120 cards is shuffled and ten dealt to each player. Nine cards are placed face up in the middle of the table (known as the "Commons"), and the rest form a draw pile. Players each draw a card from the deck to determine who goes first, and the player drawing the highest (a "head" is the highest, followed by a "chest", etc.) goes first, with play going clockwise around the table.
On a player's turn, they draw two cards from the draw pile then can take as many actions as they want to / can. The actions a player can take are…
- Creating Pirates: A player can play any "Head", "Chest", and "Leg" card to build a pirate (or some weird mutated being) on the table in front of them. They can add this pirate to their own Crew or place it in the crew of another. Once a pirate is on the board, a player cannot change any of the body parts of the pirate except through a special card or ability. There are twenty-six sets of matching pirates, each made up of a matching Head, Chest, and Legs. There are also twelve "specialty" parts, which don't match any pirate necessarily. Most pirates that a player will make are considered "simple" pirates, which are made up of non-matching parts. Players can also make an "active" character, if they have enough matching parts of the same pirate on the table. (The number needed is indicated on the cards).
- Play Event Cards: Event cards can be played, which do a variety of things, preventing a crew from "sailing" (winning), killing a crewman in every crew, etc. The most common event cards are the "Skallywaggs" cards (eight in the deck). These cards allow a player to swap a body part in any crew or the Commons for another one. Players can make their pirates better using this and hurt their opponents at the same time.
- Use the Commons: A player can discard a card from their hand to swap any OTHER card from their hand with one in the Commons. For each extra time a player uses the Commons on their turn, they must discard an additional card.
After a player is finished taking the actions they wish to play, turn passes to the next player. A player may have a maximum of ten cards in their hand at the end of their turn.
Many of the characters, known as "Major" Characters, allow special effects if a player has all three matching parts together. For example, if a player has a complete Cap'n Wargun, he counts as three pirates, is immune to some event cards, and if any pirate has the Parrot card as part of their body, they immediately join his crew. "Minor" Characters are the same, except they only need two cards to activate their special ability. For example, if I have a pirate with the Head and Legs of the Lookout, I can draw an extra card each turn, and my entire crew is immune to a specific Event card. Crewmembers, which are each identified by a specific number, provide no special bonuses when they are matched, but they are immune to the Skallywaggs cards. Also, there are many special parts that give a player special abilities, as long as that card is in play on any pirate in their crew. For example, the Monkey allows the player to draw one extra card per turn and makes the pirate it's with immune to Skallywaggs.
The game continues until one player is "ready to sail". To do this, a player needs a certain amount of "sea worthy" sailors (some cards indicate that a pirate may not sail). The number is determined by number of players (10 for two players, 7 for three players, and 5 for four players.) The player announces that they "are sailing", and each other player has one last turn to try and get that player down below the number of sea-worthy pirates needed. If the player still has the needed number at the end of their next turn, they win the game!
Some comments on the game…
1.) Components: The game is made solely up of a large deck of cards that comes in a box in which the cards are slid in, splitting the deck in half (I'm not a fan of this style of box.) The cards themselves are of good quality with absolutely tremendous artwork on them. Each drawing is unique, and you can tell that a lot of time went into drawing the pirates, who look menacing yet fairly comical at the same time. All the different parts fit seamlessly with each other (although they sometimes produce some hideous creations). All the information needed is printed on the cards, along with flavor text and symbols, etc. This is nice, but the amount of information on the cards can be overwhelming, and it's not always easy to distinguish which pirates of your opponent's can do what. The game itself is fairly simple - the cards just don't give that impression. Still, the artwork overshadows everything.
2.) Rules: The rules are on two sides of a folded sheet that comes in the box. While they explain everything in the game, they don't do it in the best way or order. Still, the game wasn't that difficult to explain to people, although those who may have played CCGs (collectible card games) will have an easier time in understanding it.
3.) Pirates: As I said, much of the humor and enjoyment comes from the matching up of the different pirates. The illustrations are tremendous, and all of the body parts fit together quite well (okay, some of them are just plain wrong). Players seek to try and put together matching pirates, but I often see players put together pirates that simply make them laugh.
4.) Characters: If a player gets a pirate who is a major character into play, they can gain some extreme advantages. A player who can get one of them early in the game can sometimes enjoy these advantages for the remainder of the game. This makes the game interesting, as players seek to build these more powerful pirates over the course of the game. The specialty body parts are especially useful, but players who gain major characters can often steal them from others, making the major characters that much more useful. It's also not too difficult to make other player's lives miserable; if I see you have a common pirate with two parts of the Boatswain down, and I have the third part in my hand, you can be sure that it's going to stay in my hand for a long time!
5.) Events: The event cards can have some fairly powerful effects over the course of the game. Many of them flat out kill a pirate in someone else's crew. Skallywaggs would seem to be dangerous, but in truth can usually only effect weak pirates anyway. Pirates who make players immune to certain effects are, in my opinion, the best pirates and should be a prime goal for any player to get into their crew.
6.) Length: Sometimes Skallywaggs turns into the game that never ends, because as soon as one player gets enough pirates that are seaworthy, all the other players immediately attack him enough to get him below the needed amount. This can occur over and over again, to the point of needlessly drawing the game out. To fix this, we simply lowered the needed amount of sailors. But doing this can often allow one player to win the game a little too quickly, which is another problem in and of itself.
7.) Fun Factor: Because of the length, the fun factor goes down slightly. I love putting the pirates together and trying to mix and match body parts to get the pirates who best help my crew is an interesting exercise for me, making Skallywaggs much more than your typical "take that" game. It's just that Skallywaggs feels like a filler that wears on a bit past its welcome. If the game can be shortened, then I really enjoy it and have fun with it. As it stands right now, I've found that the three player game provides the correct length for me (with only six pirates needed instead of seven).
8.) Skuttle Nuts: Another game can be played with the cards, which is simply a memory game, in which players attempt to turn over matching pirates on their turn. This is simply a variation on Memory Match, but I found that my young daughters loved turning over the different body parts and making pirates. It's a version of Memory that I would enjoy more with my kids than the typical one.
The general concept of the game is a good idea, matching and mixing the pirate bodies will certainly attract people, and the artwork is certainly interesting and helps the thematic nature of the game. The length may be a little too long; but if it can be shortened, I think Skallywaggs will appeal to anyone who is looking for a pirate-themed "take that!" game. It has a lot of good elements to it, although a good deal of luck is involved. For me, I'll keep it around, if only for the artwork; and the fact that it's a mechanic (the body shuffling) that I really enjoy.
Tom Vasel
"Real pirates play board games"
www.tomvasel.com
