My fifth game review in an ongoing quest to figure out just exactly what it is that I really like about games.
Brief Overview of the Game
Be the first to build all your pirate lairs around the Islands of Catan by trading goods and constructing new pirate ships.
My Overall Experience
I have a confession to make. I have never played the original Catan. I’ve heard of it of course, and I understand that it’s an absolute classic of modern board gaming, but for some reason it’s never really appealed to me, to be completely honest. On the other hand, there was also a part of me that felt like I ought to have at least something of a ‘Catan experience’. And I was also on the lookout for something to get my son for his 7th birthday that might encourage in him an enthusiasm for games.
Catan Junior seemed to hit the sweet spot between these aspirations, complete with a pirate-y theme likely to appeal to kids. And so it’s proved – we’ve played this game quite a lot, and it still appeals to the whole family and get played fairly often.
The Components
A bright, colourful double-sided board that folds in half to fit the square box. One side is for 2 players, the other for 3-4. Each side depicts a group of islands, including the skull-like ‘spooky island’, with sea-lanes marked out between them. One end of the board has a market where resources can be bartered. There are good, sturdy resource tiles – cutlasses, goats, wood, gold and molasses – and also, similarly sturdy ‘Coco Parrot’ tiles. Best of all are the delightful little plastic pirate ships and pirate lairs – and not forgetting the Ghost Captain.
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Newbie Eye View– The board and tiles are colourful and attractive, and pleasing to play with. But it’s the lairs and ships that bring the whole thing to life. They are remarkably detailed and, although I was afraid that the ships in particular might be rather fragile and at risk of breaking, they have proved to be plenty strong enough to survive numerous plays.
I have to admit that it irks me very, very slightly that the market area of the board is at a different scale to the islands in the main playing area, but it’s not something that I’m going to lose any sleep over. But overall, the components are charming and make the game a real pleasure to get ‘hands-on’ with.
The Play
This is a nice quick game to set up. Each player gets lairs and ships of their colour and places some on the board in their starting positions, and also some initial resources – 1 wood and 1 molasses. One of each resource is placed in the market, the pile of Coco tiles is shuffled, the Ghost Pirate is placed on Spooky Island, and you’re ready.
Players take turns to roll one six-sided die. The number indicated corresponds to numbers on the islands on the board and players with lairs on the relevant islands gain new resources as indicated. A roll of 6 allows you to move the Ghost Captain to an island of your choice. This gains you resources from that island, and prevents other players gaining resources from there until the Ghost Captain is moved again.
Next, you build, buy or trade in any order. You can trade resources with either the marketplace or the main supply. The market is cheaper, but you can only go there once per turn. Or you can buy a Coco Parrot tile (using specific resource tiles). This may gain you more resources, or allow you to move the Ghost Captain, or build either a lair or ship. The person with the most Coco tiles gets to have a lair on Spooky Island. Building lairs and ships costs specific combinations of resources. They must be placed on the board in the order lair-ship-lair-ship and so on.
Newbie Eye View– although this is fundamentally a fairly straightforward game (it’s designed for children aged 6+ after all) we did make a couple of mistakes early on, but soon got the hang of things. My old brain struggles a little bit to remember the necessary combinations of resources needed to buy/build, but each player gets a handy ‘building costs tile’ as a reminder, and the kids don’t seem to have any trouble remembering, so it’s not a problem.
The Theme
The theme is of adventurous pirates exploring mysterious new islands. To be completely truthful though, nothing feels especially piratical. You’re trading goods, not boarding rival ships and battling for them. Even the Ghost Captain feels more like a nuisance that anything particularly cutthroat.
Newbie Eye View– The question is: does any of that matter? The theme definitely attracted me to the game, but really, I don’t think you want anything too cutthroat for a family game. And crucially, I don’t think the kids have noticed that there is no actual piracy going on. For myself, if this was intended to be a more grown-up game, I think I’d want more of a clear link to the theme. But for what this game is trying to be, I think it pretty much hits the right notes: adventure, pirates, spooky ghosts, parrots – and get the kids interested and enthused.
Other Stuff
Everyone is potentially involved on each turn because they may receive new resources. But the fact that players can build/buy/trade as much as they like on their turn does mean that there is the possibility of relatively lengthy downtime. There is an optional rule to trade with your opponents, which we’ve never tried. I have a slight suspicion that this could lead to arguments e.g. if anyone refuses to agree to a trade, but I won’t know for sure until we try it.
Since each turn begins with a die-roll, you are at the mercy of luck a little bit, but since everyone can potentially benefit by gaining resources it doesn’t feel too much like there’s too much of an element of chance. You don’t get any choice over what resources you get, but you do feel like you’re managing your resources, and making decisions that will hopefully contribute to your winning the game.
The main problem with this game is that the Coco Parrot tiles seem rather too powerful. You need gold to buy them, and you can’t get gold until you’ve built at least one lair. But the first person to get gold is in a strong position, and it’s possible, if luck’s on your side, to buy several Coco tiles in one turn. And the return for buying a Coco tile is generally greater than the cost. My daughter plays a definite strategy of buying as many Coco tiles as possible, and the only way to beat this strategy seems to be if she gets so transfixed on the parrot that she forgets to build lairs!
My son was 7 when we got this for him. He has never had any trouble with understanding how the game works or with the length of the game. He doesn’t always make what I would consider to be the ‘right’ choices, but it doesn’t matter because he just enjoys playing the game.
Verdict
This a really nice, fun kids’ game. The components are lovely, the gameplay straightforward and the theme attractive if not really especially integral to what goes on when you’re playing.
For a family game, I think that the quality of the components and simplicity of the play balance out the relative lack of thematic integration (from and adult perspective at least). I think that I can conclude that I really do enjoy attractive playing pieces. Everything else about this game is just about right for family gaming, but for myself, I think I’d prefer something deeper and requiring more thought and strategy. My quest will continue.
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Brief Overview of the Game
Be the first to build all your pirate lairs around the Islands of Catan by trading goods and constructing new pirate ships.
My Overall Experience
I have a confession to make. I have never played the original Catan. I’ve heard of it of course, and I understand that it’s an absolute classic of modern board gaming, but for some reason it’s never really appealed to me, to be completely honest. On the other hand, there was also a part of me that felt like I ought to have at least something of a ‘Catan experience’. And I was also on the lookout for something to get my son for his 7th birthday that might encourage in him an enthusiasm for games.
Catan Junior seemed to hit the sweet spot between these aspirations, complete with a pirate-y theme likely to appeal to kids. And so it’s proved – we’ve played this game quite a lot, and it still appeals to the whole family and get played fairly often.
The Components
A bright, colourful double-sided board that folds in half to fit the square box. One side is for 2 players, the other for 3-4. Each side depicts a group of islands, including the skull-like ‘spooky island’, with sea-lanes marked out between them. One end of the board has a market where resources can be bartered. There are good, sturdy resource tiles – cutlasses, goats, wood, gold and molasses – and also, similarly sturdy ‘Coco Parrot’ tiles. Best of all are the delightful little plastic pirate ships and pirate lairs – and not forgetting the Ghost Captain.
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Newbie Eye View– The board and tiles are colourful and attractive, and pleasing to play with. But it’s the lairs and ships that bring the whole thing to life. They are remarkably detailed and, although I was afraid that the ships in particular might be rather fragile and at risk of breaking, they have proved to be plenty strong enough to survive numerous plays.
I have to admit that it irks me very, very slightly that the market area of the board is at a different scale to the islands in the main playing area, but it’s not something that I’m going to lose any sleep over. But overall, the components are charming and make the game a real pleasure to get ‘hands-on’ with.
The Play
This is a nice quick game to set up. Each player gets lairs and ships of their colour and places some on the board in their starting positions, and also some initial resources – 1 wood and 1 molasses. One of each resource is placed in the market, the pile of Coco tiles is shuffled, the Ghost Pirate is placed on Spooky Island, and you’re ready.
Players take turns to roll one six-sided die. The number indicated corresponds to numbers on the islands on the board and players with lairs on the relevant islands gain new resources as indicated. A roll of 6 allows you to move the Ghost Captain to an island of your choice. This gains you resources from that island, and prevents other players gaining resources from there until the Ghost Captain is moved again.
Next, you build, buy or trade in any order. You can trade resources with either the marketplace or the main supply. The market is cheaper, but you can only go there once per turn. Or you can buy a Coco Parrot tile (using specific resource tiles). This may gain you more resources, or allow you to move the Ghost Captain, or build either a lair or ship. The person with the most Coco tiles gets to have a lair on Spooky Island. Building lairs and ships costs specific combinations of resources. They must be placed on the board in the order lair-ship-lair-ship and so on.
Newbie Eye View– although this is fundamentally a fairly straightforward game (it’s designed for children aged 6+ after all) we did make a couple of mistakes early on, but soon got the hang of things. My old brain struggles a little bit to remember the necessary combinations of resources needed to buy/build, but each player gets a handy ‘building costs tile’ as a reminder, and the kids don’t seem to have any trouble remembering, so it’s not a problem.
The Theme
The theme is of adventurous pirates exploring mysterious new islands. To be completely truthful though, nothing feels especially piratical. You’re trading goods, not boarding rival ships and battling for them. Even the Ghost Captain feels more like a nuisance that anything particularly cutthroat.
Newbie Eye View– The question is: does any of that matter? The theme definitely attracted me to the game, but really, I don’t think you want anything too cutthroat for a family game. And crucially, I don’t think the kids have noticed that there is no actual piracy going on. For myself, if this was intended to be a more grown-up game, I think I’d want more of a clear link to the theme. But for what this game is trying to be, I think it pretty much hits the right notes: adventure, pirates, spooky ghosts, parrots – and get the kids interested and enthused.
Other Stuff
Everyone is potentially involved on each turn because they may receive new resources. But the fact that players can build/buy/trade as much as they like on their turn does mean that there is the possibility of relatively lengthy downtime. There is an optional rule to trade with your opponents, which we’ve never tried. I have a slight suspicion that this could lead to arguments e.g. if anyone refuses to agree to a trade, but I won’t know for sure until we try it.
Since each turn begins with a die-roll, you are at the mercy of luck a little bit, but since everyone can potentially benefit by gaining resources it doesn’t feel too much like there’s too much of an element of chance. You don’t get any choice over what resources you get, but you do feel like you’re managing your resources, and making decisions that will hopefully contribute to your winning the game.
The main problem with this game is that the Coco Parrot tiles seem rather too powerful. You need gold to buy them, and you can’t get gold until you’ve built at least one lair. But the first person to get gold is in a strong position, and it’s possible, if luck’s on your side, to buy several Coco tiles in one turn. And the return for buying a Coco tile is generally greater than the cost. My daughter plays a definite strategy of buying as many Coco tiles as possible, and the only way to beat this strategy seems to be if she gets so transfixed on the parrot that she forgets to build lairs!
My son was 7 when we got this for him. He has never had any trouble with understanding how the game works or with the length of the game. He doesn’t always make what I would consider to be the ‘right’ choices, but it doesn’t matter because he just enjoys playing the game.
Verdict
This a really nice, fun kids’ game. The components are lovely, the gameplay straightforward and the theme attractive if not really especially integral to what goes on when you’re playing.
For a family game, I think that the quality of the components and simplicity of the play balance out the relative lack of thematic integration (from and adult perspective at least). I think that I can conclude that I really do enjoy attractive playing pieces. Everything else about this game is just about right for family gaming, but for myself, I think I’d prefer something deeper and requiring more thought and strategy. My quest will continue.