This is a little game I wrote for my daughter for her 4th birthday. The idea was to make a board game that A) she could play, B) helped her learn to read and C) was about something she’d be interested in. I had some coins and some metal pirate ships left over from an unplayably terrible pirate board game. So she got a game about pirates.
I initially wrote this game back in May but never posted it. This was in part because I wasn’t happy with the initial rules. I didn’t have much fun, nor did Sophie. Adding in some dice and changing things a bit have made her much more interested in playing.
The blurb: You are captain of a pirate ship. You have a pirate ship and a treasure map to buried treasure. You have to follow the clues on the map to find the treasure. but the clues are actually letters, and the path to the treasure is spelling your own name.
The Goal: Find all the letters needed to spell your name. you can calibrate the difficulty of the game by increasing or decreasing the number of letters a player needs to win. Use nicknames (“Maddy” instead of “Madeline”) or choose different words to spell. Longer words will be harder to spell, so give those to older players.
Setup: Cut out the cards, shuffle them and place them face down in a 7 x 7 grid. These cards become the board that is also the ocean your ships are exploring. Each player starts in a corner of the board. Once everyone picks a starting space, everyone can turn the card that they are on face up and claim the card if needed (see below). Youngest player goes first. Play proceeds clockwise around the table.
On Your Turn: Roll a die. Your ship can move that many spaces, and then turn face up the card that you landed on. The card has a letter. If the letter is part of their name, they can claim the card. In two player games, you can generally pick up the card and put it in your hand. You may want to put a blank card or a stone or something on the board to mark that there’s an empty space there. In three or more player games, you should leave the card on the table but can write that letter of your name on a scrap of paper (or otherwise keep track.)
(Educational bit: Ask the child to tell you what letter they landed on. If they’re already able to recognize their letters, ask them what the rest of the words on the card are. Always ask if the letter on the card is part of their name/goal word.)
If a player is near the middle of the board, then sometimes they wouldn’t be able to move the spaces required. Getting a six while near the center of the board will move you off the edge of the board. In these cases you can take a coin from the bank instead of moving. After any roll, before taking its effect (moving or claiming a coin), you can spend one coin to reroll your die. You can do this as many times as you have coins to spend.
You don’t need to claim the letters in your name in order. You just need to get all of them.
And that’s pretty much it. Just a simple little educational board game, with some silly pirate doodles by me.