Just because you’re pirates doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate a lovely afternoon tea!
What Is Pirates of the High Teas?
Pirates of the High Teas is a worker-placement game for 1 to 4 players, ages 8 and up, and takes about 45 minutes to play. It’s currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with a pledge level of $39 for a copy of the game (or $79 for the deluxe edition). Although it’s about pirates, they’re not at all fearsome, so it’s still a game you can enjoy with younger kids, and the rules aren’t too complex.
Pirates of the High Teas was designed by Emily Vincent and published by Pink Hawk Gamees, with illustrations by M.G. Patiño, Ammon Anderson, and Oleksandra Shchaslyva.
New to Kickstarter? Check out our crowdfunding primer.
Pirates of the High Teas Components
Note: My review is based on a prototype copy, so it is subject to change and may not reflect final component quality. Some of the cards in the photos have little “under construction” icons by the images—those are temporary artwork that will be replaced with illustrations.
Here’s what comes in the box:
- 2 Pirate Ship boards
- 4 Treasure mats
- 30 Tea cards
- 72 Dish cards
- 8 Pirate meeples
- Gear Tokens:
- 12 Monkey tokens
- 12 Parrot tokens
- 12 Cannon tokens
- 78 Coins
- 10 Round Bonus tiles
- 16 Captain cards
Kickstarter backers will also receive the small Bottle of Rum expansion, which was not included in my protoype, but includes 4 more captain cards and 8 bottle of rum tokens.
The pirate meeples have unique silhouettes for each player color, also shown on the player boards, which is a nice touch. Not only does it just give them a little more personality, but it also makes them more easily distinguished for color blind players. The tea and dish cards are also dual-encoded with both icons and different colors on the flags.
The pirate ship boards are double-sided, one side for each player count, and the player treasure mats are also double-sided, with one side used for multiplayer games and the other side used for solo games.
The teas and dishes are all gorgeously illustrated by M.G. Patiño, with a wide variety of teapots and teacups, and mouth-watering dishes that remind me of the concept drawings on The Great British Bake-Off. A lot of the dishes have nautical touches, like the whale-shaped eclairs and the Battenberg the Hatches Cake. The tea cards are larger, tarot-sized cards, and the dishes are regular sized cards.
How to Play Pirates of the High Teas
You can download a copy of the rulebook here.
The Goal
The goal of the game is to earn the most doubloons by putting together the best sets of teas and desserts to serve to the pirate captain.
Setup
Place the pirate ship board for the current player count in the center of the play area. Shuffle the teas and place the deck above the ship, revealing the top 3 cards as the tea cupboard. Shuffle the dishes and place the deck below the ship, revealing the top five cards as the pantry. Place the supply of coins and gear tokens nearby. Place the “2x” round bonus token on the matching space at the top of the ship board. Shuffle the rest of the round bonus tiles and place them randomly on the remaining spaces, and then turn them face-up. (Leftover tiles are returned to the box.)
Each player gets a treasure mat and one of each token—monkey, parrot, cannon—to store on the mat. Every player draws 1 tea card and 2 dish cards to form their starting hand. Everyone takes a pirate meeple of their color (in a 2-player game, each player takes 2 meeples).
The player who most recently drank tea is the first player, placing their meeple on the first space of the turn order track, and the rest of the players follow in clockwise order. (In a 2-player game, use the order A-B-B-A.)
Gameplay
The game takes place over nine rounds, also tracked by the bonus tiles across the top of the board.
Each round has these phases: Round Bonus, Deployment, Actions, Clean Up.
Round Bonus: Everyone gets the bonus shown on the round bonus tile, and then the tile is discarded. When the “2x” tile is reached, place it on the Captain’s Quarters area of the ship—players may now serve two teas per action.
Deployment: In turn order, players place their pirates onto the action spaces on the ship. Note that you do not take the actions at this time.
Actions: From left to right on the ship board, players take the actions where their pirates are placed. After taking your action, place your meeple on the turn order track, so the player with the lowest action will get to go first the next round.
The Smuggler’s Hold lets players take tea and gear—the total number of items they can take is based on the space they are on, and tea may be taken either from the face-up tea cupboard or the top of the deck. (Note that cards are not refilled immediately when taken.)
The Galley lets players take dish cards, either from the face-up pantry or the top of the deck, and the number indicates how many cards they can take. Some of the spaces also allow the player to take one gear token.
The Captain’s Quarters is where you can serve tea and earn doubloons—also, after serving the tea, you’ll get to draw either a tea or a dish, depending on which space you’re on.
While here, you may serve a tea, paired with 3 dishes (or serve two teas if you’ve reached the “2x” bonus tile). Each tea card has two types of requirements: flavor profiles and fleets (the colored flags). There are three flavors: salt, fruit, and chocolate, and the requirements may want all dishes to be salty, or all three to be different profiles, or for each dish to have two flavors. The fleet requirements include: all the same fleet, all different fleets, or all from a specific fleet. When serving dishes, you may “smash” dishes if they don’t have the required flavors by tucking dish cards behind others. The tucked cards only add their flavors—they do not affect the fleet or add to the bounty.
For example, in the photo above, all three dishes have the pink macaron flag, which fulfills the fleet requirement. The flavor requirement is at least two flavors per dish. Since the Japanese strawberry shortcake only had fruit, I’ve smashed some fish tacos into them to add salt. (Hey, if the captain likes it this way, who am I to disagree?)
You will earn coins for each dish you serve (as indicated on the dish), and the bounty for the tea is based on whether you match the flavor requirement, fleet requirement, or both. You must meet at least one of the requirements, or you can’t serve that tea. Discard the served teas and take your doubloons from the supply.
At any time during your turn, you may discard a gear token for its effect:
- Monkey: draw a tea or dish card from the deck.
- Parrot: discard a tea or dish card to get its parrot doubloon value (shown at the bottom of the card).
- Cannon: Clear and refill either the tea cupboard or the pantry.
Clean Up: You must discard down to 5 gear tokens (though you may use parrots and monkeys instead of just discarding if you wish). Then, discard down to 10 cards total. Refill the tea cupboard and pantry if needed.
Game End
The game ends after the end of the ninth round. All players may serve their remaining teas and dishes to the crew for half points (rounded down), or use monkeys and parrots to earn doubloons if possible.
The player with the most doubloons wins! Ties are shared.
Advanced Mode: Captains
There are four different pirate captains, with multiple cards for each captain. At setup, draw one card for each captain and set them next to the ship board.
Each time you serve tea, you will gain bonuses if you meet the requirements of the captains—it is possible to earn rewards from multiple captains at the same time.
Why You Should Play Pirates of the High Teas
Back in October, I reviewed Knitting Circle, a sequel to the puzzly quilting game Calico. It’s Emily Vincent’s first published game (or will be, when it’s released later this year), and it’s a nice, cozy game that does a good job with the knitting-and-cats theme. I got to meet Vincent at OrcaCon in January this year, where she was running demos of Pirates of the High Teas, and I was immediately captivated by the silly title and delectable artwork, and then sold after I sat down to play it.
The gameplay is pretty straightforward: worker placement lets you collect the teas and dishes (and gear tokens for bonus actions), and also determines your turn order for the next round. If there are cards in the tea cupboard or pantry that you really want, then you’ll want to take an earlier action so they’re not snapped up by other players … but that means you’ll get fewer things total. If you show up too late, you might find the cupboard bare—better make sure you have a cannon or two so you can refresh the card market!
The ultimate goal of all that jostling in line, of course, is to serve your teas—but that also puts you at the end of the line for the next round. There’s a bit of luck in whether the cards you want will show up at the right times. I’ve had turns where things just all came together perfectly, and some where I’ve spent multiple cannons refreshing the market, and multiple monkeys drawing dishes from the deck … and still couldn’t quite put together the right spread. In those instances, I had to make a choice between serving a tea but scoring fewer points, or spending some extra turns gathering dishes or teas to get something better.
The game goes quick, though! Even though nine rounds sounds like a lot, the game moves quickly. There are only so many opportunities to serve tea, and woe to the pirate who has finally assembled a complete tea service … but is too late to get to the Captain’s Quarters! I guess you’ll just have to wait until next round. The 2x token is a nice touch—it gives players extra opportunities to serve teas as the game approaches the end, and gives the game a little boost toward the finish line.
Just like the pirates in the game itself, Pirates of the High Teas manages to smash together two seemingly incongruous flavors—pirates and fancy teas—to create a lovely dish that will delight your crew. I like that there’s humor in the theme, but the presentation of the dishes and teas is no joke, and they look good enough to eat! I think the game is a good fit for folks who like medium-weight games, somewhere between the mindless fun games and the serious analysis games. It gives you a bit to think about tactically—when do you collect cards and when do you cash them out for points—but doesn’t strain your brain about remembering a lot of complex rules.
For more information or to make a pledge, visit the Pirates of the High Teas Kickstarter page!
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Disclosure: GeekDad was loaned a prototype of this game for review purposes.
