Players: 3-5
Playing Time: 20 minutes
Difficulty: 1 (of 10)

The Components

Dead Man's Treasure comes with:

• 6 islands
• 2 pirate pawns
• 20 treasures
• 40 pirate cards
• 1 rulebook

islands: Each island is a thick oval of cardboard that depicts a strange island upon it, from Skull Island to Easter Island with lots of other things in between. They feature fun art by Randy Martinez. Two of the islands depict the starting points for the two pirates, but other than that, everything is color.

Pirate Pawns: 2 standup cardboard pirates, Ben Gunn and Captain Flint, each with a plastic base. Their backs remind you of which direction they travel (one goes clockwise and the other counterclockwise), while Ben Gunn has a treasure chest at his foot to remind you he's worth 10 treasure at the end.

Treasures: 20 small cardboard discs which each depict a treasure chest and a value from 1-7.

Pirate Cards: Half-sized cards printed on medium-light linen-textured cardstock. There are 8 cards in each of the five player colors (purple, red, green, yellow, blue), with that color marked on both front and back (which is important since the cards are played face-down). Each one depicts a value from 1-7 or a cannon.

Rulebook: A large glossy rulebook printed in full-color with numerous examples. The English-language rules are just 3 pages. French and Spanish rules are also included.

Playroom Entertainment Knizia games tend to be somewhat overproduced, with big cardboard bits in a medium-sized box. This is no exception, but the components are generally quite pretty and well-themed. They're also easy to use. Overall I've given Dead Man's Treasure a "4" out of "5" for Style: nicely done.

The Game Play

The object of Dead Man's Treasure is to loot the best treasures from a chain of mysterious islands.

Setup: The six islands are laid out randomly in a circle. Ben Gunn, the good pirate, starts on his deserted island while Captain Flint, the evil pirate ghost, starts on his island of lost ships. 2-4 treasure tiles are randomly placed on each island.

Each player is given a deck of 8 pirate cards.

Taking a Turn: A player takes his turn by placing one of his pirate cards face-down on an island.

He then reveals any face-down pirate on the island.

If a cannon card was revealed, both the cannon and the newly placed card are removed.

If a pirate card was revealed, and the island also had one of the pirate pawns (Flint or Gunn), then that pirate pawn is moved. Ben Gunn moves one island clockwise; Captain Flint moves one island counter-clockwise.

Ending the Game: The game ends when one of the two pirates circles back to his starting spot or when every player has played all 8 of his cards.

Now, all of the islands except the island with Captain Flint are scored. This starts with the island clockwise from Captain Flint.

Each player adds up the value of all of his pirates on the island. The player with the highest value gets the most valuable treasure on the island, the second the second highest, etc. If there are extra treasures after each player present on the island has received one, they all go to the first-place player.

Note that Ben Gunn is effectively an extra 10-point treasure. He thus goes to whichever player has the highest value of pirates on the island he ends up on.

After the five islands without Flint are scored, whoever has the highest value of treasures wins.

Relationships to Other Games

Dead Man's Treasure is a simple blind bididng auction, where there are effectively six auctions going on simultaneously. It's a very quick game, and thus pretty simple, but it also offers a fair amount of analysis for the genre because you increasingly know which cards each player has available to play.

It reminds me the most of Corruption, a Bruno Faidutti game that likewise has simultaneous semi-blind bidding on several different items at any time, and Caribbean, which is pretty different mechanics-wise, but is another blind-bidding pirate game.

This is the fourth small Reiner Knizia game put out by Playroom Entertainment. They've all been pretty consistently light, casual games. I thought the first few were a little weak, but I've liked this one and Knights of Charlemagne (which was released at about the same time) more.

The Game Design

Dead Man's Treasure is overall a pretty simple game. You play (up to) 8 cards, and you try to play them more cleverly than your opponents.

Nonetheless, there's some real strategy: you have to figure out which islands you're going to contest for, and which you're just as happy to get a lesser place than first. In addition, you have to think about how you're going to manipulate the movement of the pirates, and where you want them to end up. Finally, you have to think about when to use your pirates and when to use your all-important cannon.

If players over-analyze this game, they'll ruin it, but if they play quickly and lightly, this is a great filler.

My only problem with the game design is that the game can end way too quickly if players push the pirate pawns around the board, purposefully or accidentally. My first two games went out to their full length, but a third game with a different group went much faster, and having gotten the bug, they then pushed the pirates around even faster in the fourth game; each player just got to lay 2 or 3 cards, which wasn't at all satisfying.

Despite that it's an enjoyable and surprisingly thoughtful filler. I'd been considering rating it a low "4" before I started running into end game issues; I've instead opted to give it a high "3" out of "5" for Style: above average.

Conclusion

Dead Man's Treasure is a Reiner Knizia filler of strategic blind bidding. It's got some interesting analysis and depth for its very short gameplay, and other than issues with potentially too-short games, it's well recommended.

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