So in all my years of Bilgemunky.com, I’ve never reviewed a pirate app. I guess that’s largely because, until recently, I didn’t own a phone smart enough to handle such things. My phone was ok for making phone calls, was mil-spec rated for dust and vibration resistance, and could handle about 23 seconds of submergence in what I’d love to claim was rum, but was actually some sort of knockoff cool aid. Did I say 23 seconds? Cuz 24 seconds means it’s time to buy a new iPhone, as I recently learned.

Yup, I can now review pirate apps! And it just so happens that one was recently brought to my attention. Bridge the Gap: a Pirate’s Life for Me! is a quasi-physics based game in which the player must prepare the rough terrain with bridges prior to releasing a crew of pirates who are far too trusting of rickety architecture.

The “rough terrain” in this game is largely comprised of cliffs and jagged rocks, upon which our hapless pirates will gladly destroy themselves like so many cartoon lemmings if you fail to prepare a safe passage. Doing so requires dropping planks and barrels into makeshift bridges – easy enough at first, but increasingly difficult at higher levels.

Gameplay is fun, albeit occasionally a little buggy, and the piratey graphics and sound effects are quite cute. And for only 99 cents, it provides more than enough challenging entertainment while waiting around for the train, bloodwork results, or the next episode of Bilgemunky Radio.

Well, in this case I needn’t have worried on either account, and this fact is made clear right from the opening sequence. Yes, it starts with a Lego reenactment of the first scene from Curse of the Black Pearl. But then, just when the viewer thinks he knows what’s going to happen next, the Lego figures pull a fast one and do a little pirate dance – and it’s AWESOME. This is the key to this game – playing along with the audience’s expectations, and then suddenly shifting course for comedic effect. And as to the Lego thing? Well, it’s LEGOS!!! Everything is cuter/awesomer/more piratey when Legos are involved. I wouldn’t have believed it, but it’s true. 

First and foremost, Lego PotC is a puzzle game. The player controls the hero figures (who vary throughout the game to include pretty much all the favorite characters, major and minor, from throughout the movie franchise) to explore dungeons, rescue captives, demolish buildings, etc etc. As you travel throughout the pirate world, it’s remarkable to see how the movies have come to life, albeit in Lego block form. Strangely surreal, but very cool.

Players begin by tackling the Curse of the Black Pearl, and are free to complete a whole series of chapters to tell the entire story. However, they don’t need to complete this first segment to unlock the other movies, as each of the four has its own entire series within this game. As such, Lego PotC can keep you busy for a very, very long time. And if you’re truly a superstar, I understand you can even unlock secret puzzles that go beyond the movie, up to and including a Lego reenactment of the Disney ride that started it all (I’d LOVE to see this, but have a long ways to go before unlocking it.)

If you love Pirates of the Caribbean, then you’re bound to love this video game. If you DON’T love this video game, then you’re probably some kind of monster. Gameplay is easy to learn, but the puzzles are challenging no matter what your age. The humor is fun, the Legos are cute as buttons (especialy when they fight each other) and it’s all about PIRATES. Seriously, what’s not to love?

We had given up hope, mostly. True, it remained close to our hearts, but rarely at the forefront of our minds. Some fansites remained, although others had shut down for lack of material or purpose. And those in the know? They told us time and again to give up – there would be no more Monkey Islands.

Monkey Island represents a strange yet significant event in pirate history. Those of us who love pirates more than average; most of us would point to the Pirates of the Caribbean rides as the most influential element in our piratey formative years. This is a common experience we share across a wide age range – from the old to the young. But there exists a sliver of us – the piratey Gen Xers – that also largely fell in love with another piece of piratey pop-culture long before the floodgates were opened by the Disney films, and that was the 1991 videogame The Secret of Monkey Island. In many ways cutting edge at the time, today’s audience would likely view it as only a little better than Donkey Kong. But at the time, it was Pirate Monkey Magic, and no mistake. A game that existed solely to bask in a love of piracy, with little to no regard to history or realism. This was a game of pirate ghosts, pirate grog, entire pirate towns run by a pirate governor, and – of course – monkeys. Oh, the monkeys! And the music, for that matter. Cheezy midi tunes they may have been, they nonetheless carried power and emotion, and were catchy as all hell. To this day my phone ringtone library is almost exclusively made up of Monkey Island tunes.

Secret of Monkey Island inspired a sequel – LeChuck’s Revenge – that maintained the true spirit of the original. Curse of Monkey Island followed, and while a stark evolution in animation technology wildly changed the look, most fans more or less agree that Curse was a worthy successor (despite its not being written by the original author, and therefore not necessarily taking the story in the direction originally intended.) The fourth, and by all beliefs final game, Escape from Monkey Island, was something of an embarrasement with awkward, glitchy controls, a lame storyline, a dreadfully emasculated Guybrush, and a general “sequel for the sake of a sequel” feel.

And then there was nothing. For almost ten years, nothing. Not a peep. Fans would ask LucasArts about the potential for another Monkey Island sequel and get the equivelant of a sympathetic pat on the head. And then, out of nowhere, in June 2008 TellTaleGames announces Tales of Monkey Island to be released – not is some vague future – but in less than a month. They’d been working on it for some time, and yet not a peep ever leaked out. How they kept such a secret I’ll never know. But bless them, and may Neptune keep their socks dry.

Tales of Monkey Island is what’s called an “episodic” game, meaning it’s release in downloadable chapters rather than a single game on disc. Once all the episodes are released they can be purchased as a disc, but for now you have to buy them all upfront and then receive one segment per month. Episode 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, released in early July. This is the only part of the game I’ve yet been able to play, so the review should be considered accordingly. However, I fully expect that all the episodes will likely maintain the same level of quality.

The game begins with two ships in battle – the first commanded by the cursed pirate LeChuck, currently embroiled in a voodoo ritual and holding Elaine Marley (Guybrush’s wife) hostage. The second ship is manned by our beloved hero, Guybrush Threepwood, through who’s actions we live out the adventure. Following in the spirit of Escape from Monkey Island, Tales is a 3D adventure, albeit vastly superior to Escape. Not only is the art cleaner, but the new Guybrush look is much more appropriate (meaning less girly) and calls to mind the ghotee, blue coat sporting Guybrush of LeChuck’s Revenge.  He’s still the awkward, less-than-robust pirate we’ve known in past games, but let’s face it, in Escape he was downright dainty. This initial scene is solved through a few quick puzzles, this of course being a game of problem-solving and dialogue rather than outright action, and Guybrush is soon stranded on Flotsam Island and looking for a way to commandeer the island’s only ship so he can defeat LeChuck and save Elaine.

Throughout, the art style and humor is very reminiscent of Curse of Monkey Island, although I still don’t find myself laughing as much as I did when first playing Secret and Revenge. Perhaps it’s just nostalgia, or perhaps it’s the same humor losing potency over time, but subsequent games just haven’t been as endearing or hilarious. That said, Screaming Narwhal is still great fun. The 3D controls are easier to master than they were in Escape, and the puzzles are challenging without being overly so (well, for the most part. I may have cheated just once or twice.) This first episode ends with a small mystery, the nature of which I won’t share but I will state – for the record – my own initial gut reaction: Kate Capsize.

Fans of Monkey Island should need no encouragement to buy this game, but those new to this aspect of piracy may find it more of a crap shoot. If you enjoy puzzles mixed in with lighthearted piratey humor, definitely give it a go. If you’re looking for true swashbuckling or high seas action, you might find this game more tedious than anything. And if you’re a stickler for history, physics, or common sense, you certainly have no place with Monkey Island. I, however, had fun with Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, and I actually think the episodic release works well – it breaks the game down into digestible doses, as too much all at once might prove a little trying. But playing this game for a few hours a month over five months – that sounds gold dust to me. Next up is “The Siege of Spinner City”, whatever that is. I’m disappointed to note that Epsisode 5 is “Rise of the Pirate God.” Being as TellTaleGames has NOT asked me to cameo, I can’t imagine what sort of Pirate God they have in mind (or perhaps they’re trying to be ironic.)

Aye, I really should have reviewed this game some ages ago. Hell, it was only due to my participation as a DJ on the late YarRadio (official online station of Pirates of the Burning Sea) that Bilgemunky Radio ever came into being. And I’d spent a good amount of time on their beta - testing the waters, so to speak. But perhaps it was these very things that had my mind moving elsewhere by the time PotBS was released – my relationship with YarRadio had soured, and they’d pulled the plug on the station well before the game was even released. And though I’d learned much about the game, none of it was legally yet available for public consumption. And, lest we forget, the blasted game was in development for, what, five years?

So yeah, by the time Pirates of the Burning Sea finally launched, my reaction was sort of “meh.” I knew it looked good, and I knew it had a stellar ingame soundtrack (even if its official radio station had tanked), but I didn’t much feel like investing the time or the money to play, as MMOs (Massive Multiplayer Online Games) can be very, very time consuming. But then PyrateCon 09 came along, and PotBS was in attendance and handing out free copies of the game (free download and a free month of play). And so it was I finally gave it a go. Which is why, over the past several weeks, you may have noticed almost no reviews posted

Yup, as expected, Pirates of the Burning Sea is incredibly addictive. The mechanics are tricky at first, but easily learned. The animations – both land/avatar and sea/ship based are just plain beautiful (even if my particular pirate was somewhat on the homely side. Yar!) Ship and shore combat are tricky for non-MMO veterans, as the concept of buffs and counterbuffs are a bit foreign to me (I’m used to having “stab stab stab” buttons, not an assortment of special moves that must recharge, be used at certain times, or planned out into a sequence for maximum effect.

New players are first asked to design their look and select their nation (English, French, Spanish, Pirate) and career (Navy, Merchant, Privateer, or, in the case of pirates, Buccaneer or Cutthroat.) They’re then led through a brief tutorial before being cut lose to explore the islands and follow missions – some being standalone adventures, and others part of a larger storyline that guides your character’s development. Early ship combat is tricky, as it felt like a single spitwad could sink my ship. But as my character’s skills built (and I stole better ships) things got easier. Sword combat was similar, and once I got the swing of things, missions stopped feeling like death traps and more like something I stood a good chance of surviving. This of course changed around level 15, which I believe is when more missions are meant to be done in groups, and are a bit much to tackle alone.

The interactivity with other players is always a tricky part of MMOs. I’m very much used to games that I can pause, or that I can walk away from for a month and then pick up right where I last saved it. MMOs, however, keep on moving with or without you. If you ask another player to help you with a mission, they might ask the same down the road. If you buy something at the auction house, you’re buying it from another, real-person player. All this adds up to real in-game interactions, time tables, and (gasp) responsibilities. Which is the primary thing that makes MMOs tricky for me, but is also what makes for such a rich, limitless experience for those wishing to invest some real time and effort into the game.

Pirates of the Burning Sea is great addictive fun. Many of the various ports have their own character, with non-playing characters doing everything from playing music and dancing to gambling or “soliciting for sailorly affections” (I’m referring to prostitutes, not overly close shipmates.) Ships and avatars can be customized to your heart’s content, the variety of missions can allow you to explore the Caribbean in your own fashion, while also directing you along an overarching storyline. But despite all this, there is one reason and one reason only that you absolutely MUST play this game, if only for a week, and that’s Tortuga – you have GOT to visit Tortuga in this game. An enormous city made up of shipwrecks, caverns, and jungle forts, I was absolutely in awe of everything. Never before in a video game have I been so enamored with a peice of ingame real estate – I want to buy a condo there. Ships are constantly battling in the harbor, drunkards are firing their pistols into the air, and you can wander for days.

My only real complaint about PotBS is more a feature of its nature as an MMO than any direct criticism. Any game that extracts a monthly fee (understandable, since an MMO requires ongoing maintenance and upkeep by the developers) results in a game I feel I *have* to keep playing to get my money’s worth. If I get busy with other things for a while and only end up playing for a couple of hours, I feel I’ve wasted a month of subscription. This is in contrast to standalone games where you buy it once and it’s yours to play to greater or lesser extent as your schedule and interest dictate. But like I said – this is the nature of MMOs, and if you’re going to fork out $15/mo to maintain an online virtual life, Pirates of the Burning Sea would seem a far superior choice than some silly game where you’re an orc or a super hero.

Pirates of the Burning Sea – come for Tortuga, stay for the game. Or stay for Tortuga – that might be what I do.

Some pirate games are quite complicated – not only do you sail, but you also have to worry about swordfighting, minding your investments, replacing your old lame clothes with new, more piratey clothes, and so on. Not so with Buccaneer: The Pursuit of Infamy. This arcade style is quick and to the point – take your ship out, blow apart the enemy, and collect your reward. It’s a refreshingly simple concept that when combined with stellar graphics and rousingly piratey sound effects (not to mention music provided by Swashbuckle!) makes for a fine way to kill your real-world productivity.

The format of Buccaneer is mission-based, in which you are given a goal (generally involving sinking enemy ships, destroying towns, or occasionally rescuing shipwrecked or captured pirates) – the faster you complete the goal, the higher your endgame infamy, and therefore the higher your final score. Ship controls are easily mastered, and fit closely with the standard w-a-s-d controls used in many other games. My only two complaints were that you have to continually hold down the “w” key to continue going forward, and that in telescope mode you can only look directly ahead (really, what kind of crow’s nest sailor doesn’t bother to sweep the horizon???) These factors aside, game control was indeed very natural. Cannon-fire, however, does take a bit of practice, as I initially felt they were actually firing just a bit backwards of the ship, but this might be due to the forward motion of the ships while in combat.

Much of the campaign format is exactly as you’d expect from an arcade-style pirate game – as you progress and missions become more difficult, you can purchase newer, tougher ships, as well as upgrade your existing boat. What you can’t do, however, is collect ships – the purchase of a new one automatically replaces your old. With many games this would be problematic, but with Buccaneer there’s not much need to pick the right ship (faster vs. stronger, etc.) for the right mission – in my campaign I pretty much stuck with the best balance of speed vs. firepower in each class, and this saw me through well enough.

All in all, Buccaneer makes for a very decent game – so long as you remember to hold it to arcade-style standards. With most all pirate games having some sort of shore-based element, virtual human interaction (chats with governors’ daughters and such), and open-ended game-play, Buccaneer’s rather linear, strictly ship-based format can at times feel limiting. But it’s still a whole lot of fun, and being as Buccaneer also has a multi-player element the opportunity to battle your mates online makes for an intriguing bonus.

Let’s face it, most of us don’t live the sort of lives that allow us to indulge our love of piracy – we don’t own sloops with cannons, we can’t walk around our neighborhoods with swords strapped to our hips, and so on. This is where Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMO) are such a wonderful modern creation. For those not familiar with the concept, an MMO is essentially an online world where you create a character and do whatever it is you wish you could be doing in real life. For people like us, this usually means looting and pillaging.

Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean Online is a relatively young MMO – it’s only been live for a few months and is still growing and developing to best suit the desires of its players. In it, you create a pirate character – male or female – and customize their look to suit your tastes. The characters are a little cartoony, with the menfolk being rather burely and the girls leaning towards the cutesy, but this works well enough considering that the game itself is a bit fantastic and cartoony, rather than attempting to mimick reality outright.

Early game play is carefully guided by local non-player townsfolk, including some memorable faces from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Initial missions help you earn and learn the arts of cutlass, sailing, cannons, and pistols. It’s not long before the gameplay frees up, at which point you can continue on the main storyline quests (which get increasingly more difficult), but can also engage in ingame “extracurricular” activities to expand your skills and wealth. Things such as sailing and gambling can be done between yourself and ingame characters, but grow much more rewarding (and more fun) when you work alongside other players – real people you can interract with, learn from, chat with, etc. What you can’t do, noteably, is stab them and steal their money. This is a Disney game, after all, and Disney has made a great effort in keeping this game fun and safe for all, without sacrificing the piratey feel. There’s plenty of fighting, mind you, but you’re not allowed to shoot other humans (real or ingame), and cutlass attacks to foes merely result in the enemy falling down and dissappearing – no bloodshed involved. Of course, if the enemy bests you instead, you fall down and land in prison, being none the worse for wear except being “groggy” for a while, resulting in slowed reaction and health.

Pirates of the Caribbean Online is a very fun game, especially for newcomers to the MMO genre – or for folks who just don’t have the time to invest in a more involved MMO such as Pirates of the Burning Sea. It has surprisingly low hardware requirements compared to other MMOs, but PotC Online’s strength is also its curse – the simplicity of gameplay and missions makes it easy for all ages to enjoy, and doesn’t much penalize those who’s real world time commitments only allow them to play in small doses. But more mature players who want a full emmersion experience may quickly grow bored – the world is small, consisting of only four real cities, and a dozen or so smaller locations. Also, missions can tend to get very repetative, with countless errand-boy style challenges that bear little that’s new from previously completed goals (if defeating 5 skeletons is fun for a 2nd level player, defeating 50 isn’t necessarily anything new for a 20th level.)

PotC Online’s weakness aside, the game remains fun and charming. If missions get old, there is still much to be said for logging on after a hard day at work and meeting your friends to shoot cannons at the Navy for a couple of hours. And the game developers are clearly working to expand the game’s variety and playability – new clothing, haircuts, and tattoos were just added as ingame features (previously you were stuck with the look you chose at the beginning), and interviews have implied that new locations and missions are currently in the works.

There’s nothing like a game with physical substance. True, some of the best pirate games around consist of nothing more than cardboard and plastic, but there’s nothing quite like those few games that forgo these modern substances in favor of metal, wood, and glass.

Pieces of Ei8ht is a unique game in that it features no playing board, no cards, no dice – the only materials needed are an assortment of metal coins and a small velvet pouch. And while it might sound a trifle, there is nothing quite like hearing the jingle of these coins in their bag, the smack they make when dropped on the table, or the weight of them in your hand – these factors alone make the game so much more than it would otherwise have been.

To begin the game, two or more players must each select 13 coins from their collections (one box of Pieces of Eight contains just a few more coins than needed for a single player), one of which must be a Captain coin. The remaining thirteen can be whatever combination the player feels best suits them, as each has its own function – Black Spot coins, for example, can be used to make an opponent miss their turn. A Pillage coin, alternatively, allows you to steal a coin from an opponent, and so on. Once arranged into a “Deck” (stacked horizontally, like a loaf of sliced bread with a pirate captain in the middle), three of the coins are immediately in play – the Crow’s Nest Coin (single coin held in left hand and visible to all), the Fore Coin (forward most coin of the stack, facing outward and visible to all), and the Aft Coin (rear most coin of stack, facing inward so visible to the player alone).

Once set up, play is done in turns. Players have three options per turn – they can play a coin (use its abilities), call coins to the Captain (pull Fore or Aft or both coins to center of stack, so as to flank the Captain coin at the center of the deck), or destroy the Crow’s Nest coin (thus freeing the Crow’s Nest to take a new coin, which might help your strategy.)

If this is all sounding complicated, well, it kind of is. Many games have a learning curve, and Pieces of Ei8ht is certainly no exception. Early play is not exactly intuitive, and instruction sheets must be constantly referenced to determine what coins have what powers against what other coins. Indeed, if you begin your Pieces of Ei8ht experience with an opponent as equally new to the game, prepare for several rounds of tedium. But that said, with practice and familiarity, the game begins to take on a new life entirely. Very much like playing chess, the early grind of trying to remember what pieces do what is soon replaced with rhythm, strategy, and – oh yes indeed – fun! Coins begin to instinctively move into and out of play, may be destroyed and recovered, stolen or neutralized, and on and on again.

Once the initial learning curve is conquered, Pieces of Ei8ht seems a game of great possibility. The various coins can be used in countless combinations and patterns, and players can even customize their decks to better suit their prefered methods of combat (nimble and fast, or heavy and strong). As stated before, the coins themselves are a joy to handle, and also make this one of the most easily transported games around – players can easily carry it around in their pockets so they’re ready to play the moment boredom strikes.

This game is not suited for the very young, but late adolescents and up may find it a compelling passtime.

That I’m only just now reviewing the Pirates Constructable Strategy Games (CSG) is just shameful. Not only has it been out for some years now, but what’s more, I’ve been picking up their ships from Walgreens since the beginning. I’d never actually played the game mind you, but grabbing a pack now and again and assembling the ships to display on my bookshelf was enough to give me a small thrill.

So there you have it – a game you don’t need to actually play to enjoy. But I can’t take the sole blame for not fully appreciating the Pirates CSG. Even their own publicity material admits to being unprepared for their warm reception amongst consumers – their initial game release, planned as a two year run – actually sold out a month BEFORE the official release. And their various themed series’ (Pirates of the Crimson Coast, Pirates of the Frozen North, Pirates of the Ocean’s Edge, etc. etc.) have left many at a loss to determine what to actually call the overall game (“That Pirate Game” seems to be popular, again according to publicity materials.)

Long story short, the folks behind the Pirates CSG have long been making a highly nifty product, cranking out thousands of neat little ships that are loads of fun. And now they also seem to be regrouping and pulling it all together properly. Retitling the entire game as “Pirates of the Cursed Seas”, and even coining the new term “Pocketmodel”, they seem well positioned to usher in the next phase of mini-pirate sea battles that many a scalliwag should enjoy.

For those unfamiliar, the basics of Pirates of the Cursed Seas are very simple. Even a single booster pack (generally about $3.99) is enough for a short game, as it will always feature at least two main pocketmodels. Generally this means two ships, although it may instead include a giant sea creature from time to time. The ships and creatures are easily assembled, popping cleanly from their plastic card frames and fitting together with little effort. The results – the large ships in particular – are rather amazing. Full sails and flags, rows of cannons, national ensignia, even unique paint jobs on the hulls all contribute to some of the coolest (and cutest) warships you’ll ever see (this is a big part of why so many of them grace my bookshelves.) Honestly, my only complaint is that as the series expands to include more factions (vikings, seamonsters, the French) it gets harder and harder to get an acutal PIRATE ship in your deck. But, that’s why commandeering was invented

Basic play is simple – ship stats such as hull strength, speed, and special abilities are listed on the ships’ cards. Additional special abilities can be found by adding crewmembers (also found within the packs randomely.) The rules are really quite straightforward, and you can play a short game almost instantly. In a very few minutes you’ll be maneuvering your ships around each other, and blasting masts away like a veteran. But I don’t think Pirates of the Cursed Seas’ true strength lies in short, small games…

As modern pirate enthusiasts, it can sometimes be a challenge to find ways to emmerse ourselves in this subject for which we feel so passionate. Few of us own ships, and fewer still can legally fire flintlocks off our back porch each weekend. Pirate online games are slowly on the rise, but this can be cold and distant at times. And getting all garbed up to go drinking with your crew… it’s not always adviseable, particularly in towns that have a low tolerance for the unnusual. With so few options available, imagine this solution:

YOU, a commodore. Commanding – not a ship, but a FLEET. Maybe two fleets even! At your beck and call are scores of skiffs, schooners, galleons and frigates. Vikings, pirates, privateers all at your disposal, with even a giant squid or two just to add some variety. You and your mates can gather around the table and turn it into a vast ocean – and then proceed to blast the bejeezus out of each other. You may not feel the salt air on your face, but the twin tastes of victory and defeat should be no less sweet or bitter, respectively.

In short, this is a game that I envision making an outstanding hobby. It’s easy to grab a quick booster pack when you visit the corner store, and developing new strategies for your fleet could easily be a time consuming habit. Anyone seeking an inexpensive, reasonably safe and wholesome way of enjoying high-seas maraudery with thier mates should take a serious look at Pirates of the Cursed Seas.

No matter what your lot in life, there’s surely a deck of cards out there for you. This holds true even for us pirate-enthusiasts. And this is nothing new – Disney has long been making decks of cards based on Pirates of the Caribbean (both the movies and the ride), and there’s even a non-Disney deck floating around most novelty stores that features images from famous pirate woodcuts. The problem is, the Disney decks suck. And the other deck I mentioned – it’s decent, but nothing stellar. I want a pirate deck worth owning, and finally one has arrived.

Pegleg Pete’s Deck of Royal Rogues is a proper deck of cards – four suits, two jokers… the whole shabang. It was designed from the ground up, rather than from a normal deck with pirate images superimposed here and there – the suits are all the familiar clubs, spades, and whatnot – but rendered anew with a piratey flair. The face cards are all mirror imaged from top to bottom, just like a traditional deck, but instead of the line-drawn kings and queen, it’s skallywaggs and cutthroats ranging in emotion from amused to bloodthirsty.

One of my favorite aspects of the art in the facecards is the personality. Not only does each pirate clearly have his or her own special look and characteristics, but a general mood is played out consistently within each of the independent suits. Spades are clearly the angry brutes of the lot, while Hearts appear somewhat soft and naive. Clubs and Diamonds play more to the charming-rogue middle-ground, although Diamonds are my definite favorite – the Jack and King look like the most fun to share in a round of rum, while the Diamond Queen is certainly the hottie of the deck.

In other hands, a deck of this sort might be reduced to a novelty item – fun images that lack the necesities for full game play. But the designers of Pegleg Pete’s not only ensured these cards were printed on high quality, properly waxed stock, but they made the remarkable effort of preserving many of standard playing cards’ time-honored traditions. The Jacks of Spades and Hearts remain in profile – thereby retaining their “one-eyed Jack status.” The King of Diamonds too remains one-eyed, although for him by grace of an eyepatch rather than head position. Furthermore, the Jack of Diamonds is very much a “laughing jack” and the King of Hearts is holding his sword in a proper “Suicide King” fashion. For the fetishist-at-heart, the Queen of Spades could be considered a “Bedpost Queen,” but by virtue of a flogger rather than a scepter. The only significant deviation I noted, in fact, was that the King of Diamonds no longer weilds his axe – this is instead the duty of the King of Spades. In short, die-hard poker fans should be able to seamlessly merge from their boring normal deck to Pegleg Pete’s without compromising any of their beloved house-rules regarding “One Eyed Jacks and Suicide Kings.”

In addition to making a high quality, fully functioning deck of cards, Pegleg Pete’s Deck also has thrown in four “serpent” cards, marked with an X rather than a value in the corner – each featuring a seamonster and a suit. The deck instructions invite gamers to come up with their own ways to utilize these cards ingame, and to submit ideas to their official website. It’s an intriguing addition, and one that will no doubt result in all sorts of fun new house rules (with luck, many of them resulting in the coerced consumption of rum.)

Lastly, Pegleg Pete’s Deck took that one final step to make itself truly complete, and is available with two back colors – Black Powder or Blood Red. So for anyone playing games that require seperate back colors, or simply for those who prefer one color to the other – Pete’s got ya covered.

I love these cards – it’s just that simple. It’s a proper pirate deck from stem to stern, and is the definitive product of remarkable creativity and attention-to-detail. Every pirate should own at least a few decks.

By and large – and this isn’t necessarily a criticism – pirate tabletop games strive to emulate ship-to-ship combat, allowing players to travel between islands and blast cannons at each other. League of Pirates, however, takes a different approach.

Front Porch Classics has brought us some wonderful pirate games, with League of Pirates being from their new – more affordable – Discovery Edition line. In this game, two players face off to build their crews. Each has a board with openings representing crew vacancies, which they can fill with cardboard coins of quartermasters, mates, captains and the like.

To build a crew, each player rolls their dice to determine which one gets to make a move that round. Theoretically, the entire game could proceed with only one player ever doing anything (although the laws of averages are wildly against it.) Should they win the roll, the player can then opt to draw crewmen from a bag, kidnap crewmen from their opponent’s ship, or do any of several other things aimed towards filling their barracks before heading to sea.

In principle, it’s a simple enough game. But therein lies the beauty – gameplay quickly takes on its own rhythm. Rather than the larger, open ended gameplay of sailing and exploring styled games, this one is rather limited in scope, allowing things to proceed quickly even as the players try to outwit each other, and (of course) stab each other in the eye.

Game materials are high quality – the dice are wooden, and the game pieces are sturdy cardboard. Gameplay is rapid and fun – the only potential shortcoming is that it’s limited to only two players.

Definitely a recommended game for anyone seeking something different on a stormy, stuck-indoors sort of night.