Cook Islands

• Designer: Klaus-Jurgen Wrede
• Publisher: Trefl
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 8+
• Time: 30-60 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link:
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Wspaniała przygoda na Oceanie Spokojnym, podczas której gracze biorą udział w wyprawie Jamesa Cooka i odkrywają nowe wyspy, na których budują swoje wioski.

W każdej turze gracze umieszczają na planszy kafelki morza, które powiększają teren, po którym można się poruszać i jednocześnie wskazują o ile pól będzie mógł poruszyć się statek danego poszukiwacza przygód. Zadaniem jest zarówno odkrywanie nowych wysp, jak i stawianie na nich swoich wiosek w najwyżej punktowanych lokacjach. Poza wioskami na planszy pojawią się również m.in. zatopione skarby oraz przeszkody skalne, które urozmaicają rozgrywkę. Grę wygrywa gracz, który zdobędzie najwięcej punktów za swoje wioski oraz zdobyte w czasie podróży skarby.

(just kidding, here is the publisher promo text in English)

A wonderful adventure in the Pacific Ocean, during which players take part in James Cook’s expedition and discover new islands on which they build their villages.

Each turn, players place sea tiles on the board, expanding the space in which they can sail and indicating how many spaces a given adventurer’s ship will be able to move. The task is both to discover new islands and to build villages on them in the highest-scoring locations. In addition to villages, the board will also include, among others: sunken treasures and rock obstacles. All elements diversify the gameplay, making it very replayable. The game is won by the player who scores the most points for his villages and treasures obtained during his journey.

To set up, the board is placed on the table and the grid is seeded with 7 starting tiles (based on player count). The pirate ship is placed at the bottom of the board in the cleverly named Pirate Hideout.  Each player takes the 2 ships and 12 settlement pieces in their color. Each player draws a starting hand of three Sea Tiles. Someone becomes the Start Player.

On a player’s turn, these three phases will happen

1] Place a Sea Tile – choose one of the sea tiles from your hand and place it in the column matching the number in the upper left (if there is a ? in the upper left, you can place in any column). The tile must go in the first unoccupied space in that column from top to bottom.  If it is a wreck tile, place a face down treasure token on it.  Calculate your action points for the turn by looking at the ship icons in the upper right corner.  You earn that many action points.  If the tile directly above it is exactly the same, gain a single bonus point.  Some tiles may also have special action icons on them which are resolved as soon as the tile is placed:

• Unfavorable winds – move one ship for each opponent one space away
• Expedition – draw an additional tile and play it, you also collect action points for this second tile
• Pirate Ambush – move the pirate ship to any space on the board (ships that are in the same space as the pirate ship must either spend an extra action to move away or must bribe the pirate with a gold treasure token)

2] Spend Action Points – using the points earned from your tile placement(s), you can do any or all of these three choices

• Move your Ships – move a ship horizontally or vertically one space per action point used. You can only move into spaces with a tile in them.  Note the first space in each column is available pre-printed on the board, and you can move into any column from the harbor.  If you have at least two settlements on the board, you can use a personal “Supply Route” and move from one settlement to another for a single action point.
• Find Treasure – if you are on a space with a wreck that still has treasure, you can gain that token for one action point.  Keep it secret until you need to use it.
• Build a Settlement – if you are next to an island that you do not yet have a settlement, for the price of the lowest numbered slot, you can place a settlement on the highest available numbered slot.  You can only place one settlement per island.  Note that some islands have a fruit icon on them.

3] Draw a new Sea Tile – draw a new tile to replenish your hand to three. If you draw an island or a sea obstacle, immediately place that tile in the appropriate column and draw a new tile.

The next player clockwise takes their turn. The game continues until six of the nine columns are fully occupied – at which point the current round is completed so that all players have had the same number of turns.  

The players now calculate their score:

• Points for fruits – score 1/3/6 points for building on 1/2/3 islands with the same fruit.  Score all different fruits
• Points for settlements – now remove your settlements and score points equal to the number on which they were placed
• Points for treasure tokens gained – based on their printed value (gold tokens are worth 1 point each)

The player with the most points wins. There is no tie breaker

My thoughts on the game

Cook Islands comes from a designer who I very much respect and a game company which has caught my eye in the past few years.  Needless to say, I was interested in learning more about it at Spiel 2024.  The game definitely leans a bit more into the family range than the gamer range – much of the game relies upon the luck of the draw when it comes time to place extra random tiles on the board.

The action choices are straightforward and the rules should be easy to grok. Hopefully you have a tile in your hand which you can place somewhere near your ship(s) so that you can take advantage of them.  In my first few games, I didn’t realize how useful it would be to have multiple settlements on the board as early as possible.  Being able to unthematically teleport your ships from one settlement to the other really helps you reach the best tiles.

The rules feel a little clunky with a number of exceptions for things.  However, the game isn’t overly complicated, and most gamers should get the hang of the rules (and their exceptions) by the end of the first game.   Icons could be better as well. Not sure why the Storm on the Horizon tile (which gives you an extra action point) doesn’t use the same action icon that is found in the upper right of every tile.  Also, it’s unclear why the gold treasure tile doesn’t have a small 1 VP icon on it somewhere to make it easier to remember that it is worth one point.

Overall, everything in Cook Islands works just fine, but I have found that there wasn’t quite enough there to pull it back out with my usual game group.  I suspect this is mostly because that group isn’t the intended target audience.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it.
• Neutral.  Dale Y
• Not for me…