I’m Sailing Away…
There has been a huge amount of trick taking appear in the board game hobby over the last few years and since the explosion of The Crew on the scene in 2019, co-operative trick taking is now hot stuff! Trick taking goes back to the old handed down cards games like Hearts or Spades and sees players place cards in order to win a ‘trick’. Usually you are following suit with higher numbers winning, and sometimes there is a trump suit or a suit you don’t want to win at all. But co-operative trick taking is a relatively new idea. Well in floats 2023’s Sail, designed by Akiyama Koryo and Kozu Yusei. Sail takes the co-operative genre and strips it down to a tight two player experience. Players are pirates trying to navigate the dangerous seas, getting from A - Z without crashing into islands or being attacked by the Kraken.
Shiver me Timbers…
You start by creating the map. Represented as a series of connected tiles, the game comes with a number of scenarios showing you your starting place, your end goal, islands and Kraken locations. This is the fiddliest part of the game but it’s great that it takes you through levels of difficulty as you learn the game. The best part of the modular set up is that when you are comfortable with the gameplay, there is nothing stopping you designing maps yourself adding more islands and Kraken locations to make it harder. Once the map is built you take a pirate identity which offers you a unique power that will help throughout the game. I always love a bit of asymmetric powers in a game but there really needs to be more here. There are six to choose from but with clearly ‘better’ powers than others, you will find yourselves gravitating to the same ones over and over. Then we get to the game proper. Played over five rounds, each round deals each player nine cards, and then before anything else happens, you pass a facedown card to your partner. Passing information like this really helps offer your partner an idea of what you might have in yours, it is a vital part of the game if you are going to succeed but does take a bit of practice. Then we get into the trick taking itself!
Yo Ho Ho…
Suits come in three colours and are numbered 1 to 9 with 1,2 and 3 being Kraken cards, 4 and 5, canon cards, 6,7 and 8 movement cards and 9 the mermaid card. What makes this game so interesting is the different actions you can take depending on how you combo the cards during the trick. Standard rules of trick taking apply so you have to follow suit if you can and highest number will win but the combination of action cards will dictate what you will be able to do. Oh and I didn’t mention, you can’t talk during the round! If you both play movements then you can move one position in the direction of the person who won the trick. Easy. If you both play canon cards then you flip a card from the deck and take a special cannon movement action. Easy. If one of you plays a Kraken card and the other a canon card you get to attack the Kraken, tucking the Kraken card under the bottom of its deck and discarding the canon. This is important because at the end of each round the Kraken will attack you by adding cards to your discard pile and and if it runs out of cards, then you lose! Now we start moving into deeper water. If you both play Kraken cards, you get to move one but also take two damage or if one of you plays a
Kraken and one a movement then only one damage. Finally is the mermaid. This is the hardest to pull off but if both successfully played the 9, then you can move directly forward a space which is a big deal!
If you manage to get to your goal tile within the five rounds (there are also storms that you need to pass by round 3 and 5) then you win but if the Kraken ever runs out of cards or reaches it’s kill zone on it’s own little personal track, then down you go to Davy Jones.
Polly want a cracker…
Sail has a few little complex corners to get your head around but at its core it’s a really tight and interesting game that offers loads of replayability. The production is brilliant and with a Legacy version in the works, this is the time to get on board!
