Pirate Tails Board Game Review

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Pirate Tail’s Cardboard-Based Characteristics

Get Some Nuts!

I was sent a little package in the post by Skybound Games recently; it contained two little tabletop board games that I think will totally appeal to different crowds. One is a little family weight game about hiding nuts, and one is a social deduction-style party game. This is a review for the former; welcome to Pirate Tails!

Pirate Tails plays two to five squirrels for ages eight and above and comes in at a very short fifteen to thirty minutes. It’s a short, simple game that, like I said above, will appeal to new gamers and families alike.

In this game, you are all squirrels, not just any squirrels, mind you, pirate squirrels, which are the best type of squirrel if you ask me. You are all hunting for nuts on a tropical island, and whoever has the most bountiful hoard of nuts at the end wins.

Setup, Nuts and Raiding Piles

To set up, you place a number of hiding spots equal to the number of players in the centre of the table, then assemble the deck of nut and candy cards depending on the number of players. This deck will be made up of, at the most, eight different types of nuts and a handful of candy cards. The nut cards are numbered from zero to twelve for reasons we will discuss later. Return the unused stuff to the box, and the most recent player to eat a nut goes first. Bad luck if you don’t like nuts; you are never going first in this one.

Turns and Raiding Nuts

On your turn, you have just two options. Option one is to draw three cards one at a time and place them in specific locations. One in your play area in front of you face down, one in one of the hiding spots face down, and one in a different hiding spot face up. So you end up with a card that will score for you at the end of the game, one card visible on a raiding spot and one unknown to the rest of the players on a different spot.

Your other option is to raid a hiding spot. This option will rule you out for the rest of the round but allows you to add to your nutty hoard. You select a pile with a mixture of face-up and face-down cards, add it to the rest of your collection, and then sit back and count your goodies. You wait for the other players until they have raided a hiding spot and then start a new round. How these cards were when you collected them is how you display them in front of you. Face-up cards stay face up, and face-down cards stay face down. This adds a little bit of mystery and intrigue when selecting where to stash cards and who needs what.

Count your Nuts!

After three rounds, you tally scores and declare a winner. The scoring really makes the picking of piles and deciding what cards to keep very non-trivial, though. If you have one card of a nut type, you score zero for that nut type; if you have two cards, you score the lower of the two values; if you have three, you score the middle value; and if you are lucky enough to have four or more, you score the highest card you have of that type. You can see how keeping certain cards, hiding others and trying to make your friends take stuff they don’t want plays into the scoring.

Then you have the candy cards, and while they may be sweet, we all know too much of a good thing can be very bad. Especially if you’re a pirate squirrel. If you have one or two candy cards, they are worth five points each, but three or more are worth zero. So again, hiding candy in piles, people want can be very funny and give you an advantage come scoring time.

Cashews and Components

Component-wise, while there is not much to Pirate Tails, what is there is very pleasant. The artwork is clean, and the card quality is quite good, It is not linen-finish good, but they are thick and sturdy enough. What I did appreciate is the box size. Too many people put these little card-type games in boxes far too big, which really boils my blood. If a game is a deck of cards, the box should not be much bigger than a deck of cards, and here it is. Well done all.

Light-Hearted, Family Fun

I enjoy Pirate Tails, especially with my kids. The revealing cards and deciding what to do with them reminds me of Biblios; there’s fun to be had here. Turning over a card, liking it and keeping it, followed by turning over a better card and knowing you can’t have it, is always funny, as is deciding where to hide it afterwards. Deciding where to put cards and working out which piles your friends will go for is also a nice little decision.

Pirate Tails will not be on anyone’s top ten of the year, not by a long shot. However, if you have a young family, new gamers to a group or just want a chilled, quick card game, you could do a lot worse. It looks nice, never outstays its welcome and has fun moments. Right, I’m off to bury some nuts, laters pirate squirrels!

You can buy Pirate Tails from the Skybound store here.