Shiver Me Timbers and Roll in Booty Dice

Roll for doubloons or walk the plank! Attack other pirates or push for the rare Blackbeard’s Curse, in this push-your-luck dice game of loot-hungry pirates.

Published by Messy Table Games, Booty Dice is a 15-minute dice game for 2-5 players, ages 8 and up.

Gameplay

Each player starts the game with 10 health and five doubloons. On your turn, you roll the six dice. You may reroll as many of them as you wish up to three times. After you finish rolling, you resolve their results.

Rolling a doubloon allows you to take two doubloons from the supply. An X forces you to discard two of your doubloons to the supply, unless you roll three of them, in which case each other player must discard three doubloons to the supply, with each additional X forcing them to discard an additional doubloon. A skull and crossbones allows you to steal two doubloons from another player. A shield allows you to take one shield from the supply. A cutlass allows you to attack another player: when a player is attacked, he loses a health. A shield can block an attack from a cutlass and then you discard it. A wave forces you to lose one health, but if you roll three waves each other player instead must lose one health, with additional waves forcing them to lose additional health. Finally, if you roll one of each die result, then each other player must lose two health and discard five doubloons to the supply.

If you ever manage to bring another player down to zero health on your turn, he is eliminated and you gain all his doubloons. After you resolve your dice rolls, it is now the next player’s turn. The first player to reach 25 doubloons wins the game. You also win if you are the last pirate standing after all other players have been eliminated.

Review

Booty Dice treads some familiar ground but does so competently and enjoyably. Something always happens on your turn, and there’s never a die result that just gets ignored because you didn’t roll the combination you needed. This makes the rolling more satisfying.

There is player elimination in this game, which might leave a player or two sitting around waiting (if playing at the higher player counts). However, it works well that there are two different strategies for winning. Also, the fact that you gain all a player’s doubloons when you eliminate them, helps speed up the end of the game.

The game looks great, with nice dice that are fun to roll and attractive tokens. Oddly, only two player aid cards are included to explain all the dice results. Yes, you can keep passing them around the table, but it feels like there should have been one included for each player across the possible player counts.

There are other games out there that are quite similar to Booty Dice. However, we quite enjoyed the pace of the game and the way each turn progressed or altered players’ positions. It’s light and enjoyable, and pirates are always a fun theme.

Pros: Every die result has an effect regardless of combinations you roll, plays at a nice pace

Cons: Not enough player aid cards included, there are a lot of similar games out there

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.