Explaining Me Booty! 2

Earlier this week, I announced a new game: Me Booty! Part of this announcement was that I would be giving away 100 copies of this game, completely free. Also, I announced that I have no publishing plans for the game. Why? Well, you see, this game is a bit of a “second take” on Scallywags, my first published design. The game came about as a thought experiment of whether or not I could remove the physical coins from Scallywags and make it purely a card game. I’m very pleased with the results and I think the game could do quite well… but, that feels like competing with myself. It just doesn’t feel right. So, instead, I’m giving it away… but, that’s not what this article is about. I’d rather tell you about the game.

Me Booty! comes with 54 standard sized playing cards. Some of the cards are treasure and some of the cards are pirates. The treasure cards replace the coins in Scallywags and they function very similarly. They are worth a number of doubloons and can be kept for yourself or given to your opponents. Pirates are what makes the game work. Just like in Scallywags, they let you trade, steal, and de-value treasures.

Okay, so far, I’ve told you that Me Booty! was essentially the exact same game as Scallywags. It is not. I promise. While they bear many similarities, and the lineage is apparent, Me Booty! offers a much more compact game that plays a little quicker.

To start the game, you simply shuffle the deck, place it in the middle of the table, and flip over the top card. That’s it. On your turn, you draw 2 cards, play 1, and discard the other. You also have the option of playing the top card of the discard pile. If you take this option, you don’t draw any cards. So, you’ll never have cards in your hand. Draw 2, play 1. That’s it.

Treasure cards can be kept for yourself or given to another player. Just like Scallywags, you want to keep the high value treasure for yourself. In the end, the player with the highest valued take wins… so handing off a low value treasure to an opponent is a good play. You can only ever have 5 treasures in front of you, so if you get stuck with a bunch of low treasures, you aren’t going to score well.

The game ends once all players have 5 treasures in front of them. Scores are tallied and the player with the most valuable booty wins. Okay… so, pretty much… this game is just like Scallywags. But it’s totally cool and different! I promise! It plays much quicker, and has a bit more “take that” if you can believe it. While I upped the take that level, it’s also not a popularity contest. You have some margin of control over your take… unless you get ganged up on [read: you designed the game].

I’m really excited to share it with the world. Printing 100 copies to give away cost me a ton of money… I wouldn’t have taken a hit to my financial well-being if I didn’t believe the game was worth it. I want to give people something they’ll actually play, and something they’ll enjoy. I just hope I hit the mark, but like any publishing venture, I won’t know until I’ve released it to the world. I’ve explained the rules in their entirety here, but if you want a peek at the official rulebook, I’ve published it on the games page.

There have been quite a few questions about how people are going to find me at Gen Con. I plan on making myself as available as possible and when we get closer to the show, I’ll write out some plans. I really don’t want to take any of these games home with me and to do that, I need to make myself known. I CAN’T WAIT!

To keep the buzz going, please hop on over to boardgamegeek.com and thumb images and start up some conversations. I’d like to get people excited about this. Finding 100 people to ask me for my game isn’t going to be easy!