Minion Games Dead Men Tell No Tales Core Game

Product Information

Do you and your crew have what it takes to make off with all of the treasure and live to tell the story? Unique systems for tracking fire, enemy movement, and a player’s fatigue all combine into an interesting and unique cooperative gaming experience. The fatigue tracker is especially nice, and adds a good feel to the player board versus just having tokens that a play may add to their board. While some pirates abilities are fairly general, many have roles that almost turn them into specialists. Even though Dead Men Tell No Tales seems to borrow concepts from those games, I still feel like it’s different enough to stand on its own.

However, it's not a bad choice for experienced cooperative gamers who are looking for something a little different, but still relatively light. Captain Fromm’s (literal) skeleton crew has other ideas, however, and is rather rudely blocking the way. The expansion really enhances this game and I can’t see me wanting to play the base game without it, but this may be a double edged sword as I might be less likely to introduce the game to new players who haven’t played the base game already. Unfortunately, it seems not a lot of effort went into imagining the female figurines, whose heaving bosoms, skinny waists and gravity-defying bottoms are embarrassingly cliched, nay insulting, for 2022.

If too many treasure pieces have exploded, and therefor there are not enough to meet the game’s goal. No two games ever feel the same and the strong player interaction really promotes the feeling of a true co-operative experience, something that isn’t always guaranteed. You could make the valid argument that there’s too much to keep track of for a game of this weight, but I make the case that should be consider a strength of Dead Men Tell No Tales. Final Score: 4 Stars – A fun romp through a burning ship that combines a lot of solid mechanics with some challenging gameplay.

A cooperative game where players take on the role of a pirate crew, boarding Skelit’s Revenge for one purpose: treasure. Dead Men Tell No Tales: The Kraken is an expansion to the co-operative game Dead Men Tell No Tales, which sees you not only looting a burning ship, but fighting the mighty kraken whilst doing so! The pirate players use five action points (and any special abilities) to move around the ship to fight fires, swap items, fight the skeletons and more. Setup – The setup sees each player given a pirate character card with a special ability, one item giving players a second special ability, five action tokens and a player board.Moving around the ship can cause fatigue; whenever a pirate moves to a more fiery location he takes fatigue based on the increase. If enough treasure tokens have been destroyed (due to room explosions) that you can’t meet the game’s goal.

I don’t see it taking the place of Flash Point (which I play with my kids) or my preferred pirate games. If the base game didn’t already have enough moving parts for you, the Kraken expansion will finish the job for those who want more.

That includes strategic cooperation that encourages each player to run off and deal with a separate problem, as well as tactical cooperation that's seen in the innovative action-point and item-exchange systems. The game keeps you on the edge of your seats as your scour the burning ship, escape skeletal pirates, and escape with booty. There are two types of wooden pieces in this game, the player’s wooden meeples which look like pirates, and the deck hands which are adorable little skulls. At Way Too Many Games we feature a transparent review method divided into four segments: Graphics (25% of the final score), Gameplay (25%), Sound (10%), and Fun Factor (40%). A variety of things can happen from these cards, including spawning deck hands and increasing the fire level.

Each room has a dice that ticks towards six if left unwatched, triggering catastrophic explosions and, yep, your smoky end. If you don’t use all your actions you can pass them on to the next player, this is extremely handy at times! In recent years, my taste in board games has steered ever more toward heavier and more complex games.

It’s a simple addition, but improves the experience of the game by giving players greater flexibility on how they want to plan their turns as a group. The Kraken moves through the water at the rear of the ship unleashing attacks on the ship and those within it. This is because Minion Games released a set of character mini’s for the base game alongside The Kraken expansion, these are included in my photos but are an additional upgrade. From the inferno on the ship tiles to the well drawn pirate cards, I found the artwork to be both thematic and engaging.