2-6 players
6 years and older
45-60 minutes
Yoho Pirate Captain… There is a heavy storm coming and your must steer your pirate ship "The Wind Of The Pirates” trough heavy seas. You yell at your crew: “All Hands on deck! Come about North by Northeast! Avast ye scurvy dogs!” Now, your crew will help you out, but only if you play your cards right...
Then, all of a sudden, the wind turns and your ship sets course to a bunch of nearby rocks… Your navigator, who make compasses to raise some extra money, shouts “Turn”. So, quickly you turn all your maps so you can choose the right direction for your ship to sail in and save your crew. If you survive this storm you and your crew will be rewarded with a cut of all the fee you have earned on this treacherous sea journey. But there can only be one King Captain Pirate that gets the most loot. Will that be you? Play smart and wise and don’t be too greedy and you might just come out on top…
Use the cards 1 - 56
A number of Multi Playing Cards decks, according to how you want to play
1 deck - No fee cards. You only earn money by making a compass.
2 decks - Black and White. Play the whole game.
4 decks - 2 x Black deck and 2 x White deck for more players or more game time.
Make a playing field from the black deck. Put 9 cards face down in a 3 x 3 matrix and make a draw pile of the rest of the black cards. Place this draw pile on the center card of the black 3 x 3 matrix. The black cards are fee cards and reward the players with money for every wind direction they play, but only if you play with more than one deck. If this is the case, you’ll also need a white deck. Choose a dealer, who will become Pirate Captain and will then proceed to shuffle the white cards. Every player gets 4 of these cards in hand. After this, the dealer, or Captain, starts the game and you keep playing clockwise as you go on.
The objective of each round is to create a complete compass, consisting of all eight wind directions. The players, or in this case, pirate crew, can only achieve this by substituting all 8 black fee cards with the appropriate wind direction cards. Every wind direction card a crew member puts in place, makes him or her a fee. The player gets the black card that was in the position the wind card is placed as a fee (in gold coins). The fee of that card is shown in field 7. The player who completes the compass, earns 500 gold coins and becomes the new Captain. But beware, you are among pirates and everybody will do their best to steal as much treasure from under your nose as they possibly can!
During a turn, a player:
1a. Player may play one Turn card. (8 small arrows)
1b. Player may play one wind card. (1 arrow in one of the eight directions)
(1a. and 1b. can be played in any order)
2. Player must discard one card onto a discard pile.
3. Player must draw new cards until he has a hand of four.
In the first round, the first player who plays a wind direction card determines the direction of the cards. This means you can play cards the right way up, or play them upside down. Every other player must adhere to the direction, until a “turn” card is played. This card is played, face up, on top of the black draw pile and can rotate the winds 180°. This, as you might suspect, can really mess up your plan. (for more information on turn cards, see: 7. Turn Cards)
The player who plays the wind card that completes the compass will become the new Captain and receive the compass (the eight wind direction cards, stacked into a small pile). The compass will be placed before the captain. Be sure not to mix up the compass cards with any of your other cards, because, at the end of the game, you’ll need to be able to count how many compasses you’ve collected. The new Captain then proceeds to lay down a new 3 x 3 matrix of black cards from the black draw pile and puts the pile back on the center card of this matrix.
If one or more turn cards have been played, be sure to put them back on the black draw pile in the exact same order and position as they were before. After all this has been taken care of, all players salute their new Captain and say “YARRRR!” in their most gravelly and menacing pirate voice, and the game continues. The new Captain may then play the first wind direction card on the table before he or she refills their hand to 4 cards.
There are 8 discard piles, which are going to be positioned around the white draw pile in a similar matrix as the black fee card matrix, minus the center card. These discard piles also represent the same eight wind directions. A discard pile is also an additional draw pile for any player, if they so choose. Every player may discard a card onto any of the discard piles. Every player may use any discard pile as a draw pile. A player can also draw cards from one or more discard piles in one round, but may only draw from the top of any pile. To get your hands on any underlying cards, you must also draw the cards that are on top of it.
A Turn Card can change the wind direction by 180°, depending on how it is played. As explained in the Basic Rules section, a turn card is placed on top of the black draw pile and can only be played in two ways. Right side up or upside down. All wind cards that are played after a turn card is played, must be played in the exact same direction as the turn card. So, if a Turn Card is played upside down, all consequent wind cards must be played upside down as well. So, if you have a card that features an arrow pointing east, this can now only be used as a “west” card. This effect can only be cancelled by playing another Turn Card and switching the winds back. A Turn card can also be played in the same direction as the previous Turn Card, if you so wish. This might come in handy if you need to get rid of any excess Turn Cards you might have. Playing a Turn Cards will not reward a player with a fee, seeing as how it is played on top of the black draw pile, instead of on a fee card. Turn Cards can also be discarded from your hand onto any of the eight white discard piles.
The fee that a crew member earns for playing a wind direction card is shown on field 7 of the Multi Playing Card. 1 equals 1 gold coin, 5 equals 5 gold coins, etcetera. This goes all the way to 500 Golden coins. A complete compass is worth 500 gold coins to the player who completes it.
If there are no more white cards available on the table and none of the players are able to play a card, the game ends.
When the game ends, all players count their loot. The player with the highest amount of gold coins, wins and is crowned Pirate Captain King.
All player salute King Pirate and say “YARRRR – HAIL THE PIRATE CAPTAIN KING!”, once again in their most pirate-y voice. If the crew decides to play another game, the Pirate Captain King will choose the new dealer.
Use the double blank card as a “No Wind” card. Bad luck; the card does nothing and cannot be played as a wind direction card. It can only be thrown away and picked up by another player.
- Use the discard piles for cards you think you’ll need later.
- When you’re new to this game, it may be wise to put the discard piles in the same orientation as the wind direction on the playing field. So North is North, East is East, and so on. Because you can discard any wind card onto any of the piles, seasoned players might like to mix things up and block their opponents’ strategy by putting different wind cards on top of different piles.
We wish you a lot of swashbuckling fun when playing Turn - The Wind Of The Pirates. Good luck… matey!