Sail

• Designer: Akiyama Koryo & Kozu Yusei
• Publisher: Allplay
• Players: 2
• Age:  11+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4j2RhbQ
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Strap up your piratical boots, and navigate your ship through turbulent waters in Sail, a co-operative trick-taking game for two players. Reach the end of this dangerous deep end, and avoid taking damage from the Kraken to win the game together…or your crew will be sleeping with the fish!

Before each round begins, players exchange cards, then play a series of tricks. Different game actions will be triggered depending on who wins each trick in combination with the unique character skills. However, the crashing sea water and the roaring Kraken make for a deafening situation, and players are unable to communicate about tactics and card information from the moment cards are dealt to the end of the action phase.

Players win the game as a team if they sail their ship into the final token before the Kraken reaches the Death tile or the Kraken deck is exhausted.

In this cooperative game, the two players will work together (without being able to talk) to move their ship to the end of the board or to defeat the Kraken that chases them relentlessly.  If they fail to do either, the game is lost.

The board is set up after consulting the scenario sheet – there are 6 different scenarios to play with, each with different locations for obstacles.  There are also two storms placed on the board which serve as intermediate checkpoints.  Each player can take one of the six different pirate cards; each providing a different unique ability.

The Kraken has its own board, and the Kraken Deck is created from the six cards numbered 1 and 2.  The Kraken Card is placed on the bottom of this deck.  The player deck is made from all the other cards, numbers 3 thru 9 in the three suits – and each player is dealt a hand of 9 cards.  At this point, the players may on longer talk to each other…   Before play begins, each player examines their cards and passes one to their partner; trying to use this card to communicate something to the other.

The round then begins, and the two players play a must-follow “trick-taking” game.  The highest card in the lead suit wins the trick, and the tricks won are tracked on the player board.  Many of the cards have icons printed on them, and if the trick contains certain combinations of icons, stuff happens:

• Wheel + Wheel – the ship moves forward in the direction of the player who won the trick
• Whale + Whale – the ship moves directly forward
• Tentacle + Wheel – The ship moves forward towards the winner, but the Kraken does one damage to the ship
• Tentacle + Tentacle – The ship moves forward towards the winner, but the Kraken does TWO damage to the ship
• Tentacle + Cannon – The Kraken is hurt!  Move the Tentacle card from this trick to the bottom of the Kraken Deck
• Cannon + Cannon – Flip over the top card of the player deck and do something based on the icon of the randomly revealed card.

If the Kraken damages the ship, the top card of the Kraken deck is placed in the discard pile.  If the Kraken card is moved, the Kraken meeple is moved one space forward on the Kraken track, and the Kraken card is placed back at the bottom of its deck (you will hopefully have placed cards there via the Cannon action).  If the Kraken card is ever the ONLY card in the Kraken deck, the players lose.

The player who won the previous trick now leads to start the next trick.  The round continues until one of the two players has won their fourth trick. The Kraken now damages the ship equal to the number under the Kraken meeple on its track.

All of the cards not in the Kraken deck are gathered and shuffled to form the deck for the next round.  In between rounds, players can freely discuss things, but once the cards are dealt for the next hand, all talking again ceases.  

The players win if they can sail their ship onto one of the designated End spaces at the end of the track.  The players can lose in many different ways:

• The second round ends and the players have not cleared the line of the first storm on the board
• The fourth round ends and the players have not cleared the line of the second storm on the board
• The Kraken card is the only card left in the Kraken deck
• The Kraken meeple moves to the last space in its track
• The fifth round ends and the players haven’t reached the end spaces

In the case where a win and lose condition are achieved simultaneously, the odds are in your favor and the players win.

My thoughts on the game

So I first played a version of this game (Hameln Cave) a few years ago in a bustling coffeehouse in Peoria, Illinois.  In between bites of a surreal danish, I learned the game and then proceeded to get blown out of the water.  What had seemed to be such a simple game from our rules read proved to be incredibly difficult and challenging.  We only had time to play one game that morning, but we learned our lessons and played a few more games over the course of the weekend, and we improved on our dismal first attempt at the game.

At the time, I had already resigned myself to never being able to own a copy; but, as with many of the gems of the Japanese gaming scene, local publishers have come to my rescue.  Allplay included this in one of their initial KS bundles, and it has been available for wider consumption since then.

The levers the game gives you to operate are the “must-follow” rules of the trick-taking piece and the symbols on the cards (which match their rank.)  One player leads a card and the other player follows.  It can be especially advantageous when one player is void of a color as this could give a lot of leeway in card choice when playing…  

There are so many things to consider here when playing the tricks.  First, you want to make sure you can move the boat.  When you move the boat forward, well, it (largely) only moves diagonally – in the direction of whomever won the trick causing it to advance. But in a game of 9-card hands, the rules dictate that each player can win at most 4 tricks before the hand immediately ends! How best to balance getting in productive actions while not short-circuiting the hand too much.  Also, don’t forget to pay attention to the obstacles on the board – you may be forced to win tricks in a certain order to get the ship past these tricky areas. 

If you can figure out how to play a trick with 2 “9s” in it, you’ll get the bonus of being able to move straight ahead; this is essentially equal to the movement of two regular tricks.   That’s definitely one of my goals for most hands.

Another goal is trying to set up as many Kraken hits as possible.  That Kraken deck is a constant pressure on you, and you’ll quickly learn that you simply can’t avoid the Kraken attacks.  Your best defense is to use your cannons to hit the Kraken and keep adding cards to its deck.  The more cards you can place in the Kraken deck, the longer it will take for the Kraken to advance on its own track.  

As you start playing the game, you might not remember that the Kraken will hit you at the end of the round based on the space it is standing on; but once it hits you for 4 or 5 cards, you’ll be sure to always be focusing on getting more cards into that deck.

The difficulty (but also the beauty) of the game is that you can’t verbally communicate with your partner.  You can give a limited bit of information in the pass. But, it’s only one card, and it’s not always clear what you are signaling.  But, that’s the beauty of the game, trying to work out what those non-verbal signals are.  

The game is definitely challenging, though I feel like the difficulty curve has been nicely smoothed out from the original version of the game.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want the game to be a cakewalk, but I also want a fighting chance to be able to win even the first beginner scenario!

For a challenging two-player game, Sail can take you on a mostly silent voyage of adventure. Highly recommended.

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Alison Brennan: This 2p trick-taker co-op limits comms to 1 card pass, and then you try to balance the tricks won and aim for icon combo’s in each trick to make progress. I’ve only played a beginner scenario and did fine (both being experienced trick-takers) but it didn’t show enough for me to want more. Playing silently wasn’t fun, I didn’t find the trick-taking satisfying (being only 2p), and the lack of interesting ways to comm things (like Sky Team with its order of placement, or Fox In The Forest with its effects) felt non-engaging. I’m sure later scenarios are more interesting and challenging, but unfortunately it didn’t make me care enough from the get-go to want to explore more.

Alan How: For me, part of the fun is the silence. It creates extra tension and I enjoyed the puzzle of the trick taking as you manoeuvre the ship. You kind of will the other person to play a specific card. And when the ship moves where you wanted it to, this was a very satisfying moment in the game. Even better when the ship goes straight forward! The only problem for me is that it is only 2 player as I get very little time for 2 player games. But when I do, this one stand out from the crowd. 

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Dale Y, Alan H
• I like it. John P
• Neutral. Alison
• Not for me…

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4j2RhbQ