Designed by: Jordan Weisman,Tom McMurchie
Tsuro of the Seas is a development of the simple path-making game Tsuro. It’s still a very simple game where the players are trying to survive the longest, but as well as each other to worry about, there are now Dragons as well.
Each player takes a ship and places it at the edge of the board, which represents the sea. There are various starting points you can choose, and you maybe don’t want to be too close to anybody else at the start. As with the original game, you’ll have three tiles in your hand, and on your turn you place a tile on the board and advance your ship along one of the available paths on the tile. You can orient the tile however you like, and your only goal is to stay on the board. The last ship standing – or floating – is the winner.
However there are two things that may stop you. First of all, as the board fills up with tiles, there’s less room to move about it. If the path you’re sailing on links to other tiles, you’re obliged to continue along that path to wherever it goes. That’s fine if it leads to elsewhere on the board, but if it leads back to the edge, you’re out of the game.
Secondly between each players’ turn dice are rolled, and these move the Dragon tiles that are also roaming the board. If the dragon tile reaches you – or if your path leads to it – that’s you out of the game too.
There is plenty of potential to feel hard done by - by the dragons, another players' tile, or even your own tiles. As the game closes out you may find they cannot save you. But at least the game doesn't linger too long and you can have another go quickly.
There's not too many decisions to make - and as the game goes on, options diminish.
Not a heavy game at all. You may choose to keep your tiles hidden, but if it helps you can try them out in situ at different orientations before making a final decision.
It's half an hour to play and tiles come out randomly. Dragons, too,are unpredictable. If you prefer, you can ignore the dragons entirely and play standard Tsuro.
2-8
Players
6+
Years
30-60
Mins
Sam says
If the original Tsuro is a delight - as I perceive to be - because it's simple, quick, and potentially frustrating, then Tsuro of the Seas to my mind undoes that good work by adding the fiddliness of rolling two dice between everyone's turn, shuffling dragon tiles around and having to remove sea tiles from the board to make room for them. It looks lovely but it's just a bit too much work for a short, feisty game - the management of rolling/moving dragons slows everything down, and I much prefer the simplicity of the original game. That said, you can use this set to replicate the big-sister Tsuro, so I suppose if it's a choice between both then Tsuro of the Seas makes sense in terms of variety.