Pirates. What better role could a young man or woman want than to be the captain of their own ship of minions, sailing the Seven Seas in search of every treasure and doubloon one could get a hold of! Today we will look at a game that allows you to do just that as you try to piece together the best treasure maps over your fellow Captains!
Bad Maps is a game for 2-5 players from Floodgate Games. Designed by Tim Armstrong and illustrated by Kristen Pauline this game is due to hit shelves in March 2019.
Components:
Island Board
Minion Tokens
Objective Cards
Blackout Cards
First Mate Tokens
Pit Tokens
Setup and Gameplay:
Bad Maps plays over two rounds where competing Captains will build a community treasure map for all of the Minions on the board to follow. Captains score points based on their Minions proximity to treasure. Captains will try to get their Minions to avoid traps, score treasure and be the most successful!
Setup can be done basic or advanced, giving unique starting positions and powers. For the basic setup, Minions start in their respective spots. Two decks are formed, one for each round and the Blackout cards are set aside as a deck as well.
Each player picks a Captain and takes all nine Map Cards that match their Captain. In each round, gameplay will proceed over these steps:
1-Land Ho!
2-Make Maps
3-Hunt for Treasure
4-End of Round
In Make Maps players assign a map card to the leftmost open Map slot for a Minion and place the First Mate token next to the first Minion to receive a Map Card. Each player beginning with the starting player will either place a Map Card or use the Captain Ability they have optionally. No one owns the Minions, and scoring will ultimately take place for multiple players sometimes on the same Minion. Once every map slot is complete, players will choose and discard another Objective Card face-down.
In Land Ho! players will first reveal the top Blackout card. This determines the face up or face down play of cards that round. Each Captain gets 4 Objective cards and keeps 3. These cards will indicate the points earned by the Captain if the Minion on the card ends the round in the space highlighted.
Next comes the Hunt for Treasure where players first discard down another Objective card to have a total of to in hand. Now each player will reveal and perform Map card instructions for the leftmost slot for each minion beginning with the First Mate Minion. This will continue down each slot. Minions will move according to their Movement cards and sometimes they may fall into the sea, bump into other Minions or fall into pits.
At the end of the hunt, determine the place for each Minion and reveal Objective cards. Place for the Minions is determined by their distance from the X. Count the smallest number of spaces to get there. Players keep successful ones and discard the others face-down.
Finally in the End of the Round, players will have their Minions dig a pit and return to their starting position. In Round 2, players will instead draw Objective Cards from the Round 2 Objective deck. Once the board is set back up the starting player is given to whoever has the least amount of points. Beginning with the Land-Ho phase round 2 begins as players have Objectives that are worth more points but the Island has become more treacherous overall.
For the end of the game Captains add up Victory points from their Objective cards and the highest scoring Captain is the winner!
Impressions:
What could be better:
Speed. This game plays well but there is a lot of downtime between player’s turns. I think something to adjust that speed might be a good change. Player count: As a two player game this isn’t the same experience. You really need to have more to see how this game sings. Two player games need a third “ghost” player set of cards to play it out.
What I liked:
Programming. There are not a lot of good programming games out there and this one does it well. If you like a game like Colt Express or Mechs and Minions, this may be a good one for you. It’s a straight forward way to play it which makes it an easier entry point for programming then some of its counterparts.
Quick play. This game allows for a quick 2 round game and then it’s time to score. For a game like this, overall game length means it will hit the table more often with family and friends. It really hits the sweet spot for a thirty minute game that is likely to see a good amount of play.
Player count. This game gives us 2-5 players as the options for play and it is nice to see the such a wide player choice. A lot of times 5 is a number we have at the table but we unfortunately have limited choices of gaming play.
Art design. I really like the pirate theme and I thought the detail work on this game was the right amount of fun that it needed. Overall it is an aesthetically wonderful game and one I look forward to sharing with others!
Overall:
Bad Maps is a well designed game from the studio at Floodgate Games. I have enjoyed getting this one to the table with my family multiple times and each time was a fun adventure full of suprise as the cards were revealed.
If you are looking for a programming game along the likes of Colt Express but more streamlined in length of gameplay, Bad Maps may be exactly what the pirate ordered. It has continued to deliver a fun experience for our family game nights. Make sure to check this one out today!
Be the first to comment