Dread Curse

Overview

Standing dangerously close to mutiny, you and your ragtag crew of pirates are throwing caution to the wind and ruthlessly picking each other’s pockets in search of a valuable coin or two. Can you protect your stash and steal the most valuable pieces before everything goes south?

Set Up

There are eight Crew Cards in Dread Curse, and you’ll begin by assigning one to each player. To do this you’ll pull from the bag one coin for each player (making sure one of the game’s two “Black Spot” coins is among those drawn) and place them face-down on the table. Each player selects one of these coins and reveals it. The player who drew the Black Spot becomes the Captain and claims that Crew Card. The Captain randomly hands out Crew Cards to the rest of the players.

Any leftover Crew Cards are left near the play area. The coins drawn by players in role selection will start their pile of booty, so they are placed face-down in front of each player next to their Crew Card.

The bag of coins, “Jacques Pierre” monkey card and deck of Pirate’s Code cards are placed in the center of the play area. Each player draws three Pirate’s Code cards (two if you’re playing with 7 or 8 players) and you’re ready to begin!

Gameplay

Each Crew Card has a “Rank” number in the top left corner between 1 and 8 – this number determines the order in which players will take actions through the game’s five phases.

Draw Coins
Each player will draw a coin from the bag according to the Rank number on their Crew Card (the Captain, with Rank 1, always goes first). 57 of the coins contain values from 1 to 5, one “Slug” coin has a value of -5, and two Black Spot coins contain no value – but eliminate you from winning if you’re left holding them at the end of the game. Several of the Crew Cards have special powers that allow players to draw more than one coin each round.

Steal
Once everyone has drawn their coins, each player in Rank order will steal a face-down coin from an opponent of their choosing. Early in the game you’ll know one of the Black Spots resides with the Captain… but the Captain will also have ample loot due to his ability to draw up to four during the Draw Coins phase. Do you risk nabbing the dreaded Black Spot for a shot at valuable treasure?

Pay Jacques
That cute (at least for a pirate) monkey at the center of the table has a sinister purpose: you bribe him with coins of value 2 or higher to claim additional Pirate’s Code cards… which invariably lead you to more ways to put the screws to your opponents. These cards have great power during gameplay, but also contain extra coin value for end-of-game scoring if unused during the game.

Cut and Run
This is your chance to get out if you feel your collection of coins contains enough value to ultimately win the game. When you cut and run you’ll be watching the rest of the game from the sidelines… but you’ll be impervious to further thievery from your opponents.

All Hands on Deck
The final phase of each round is the reassignment of roles for the next round. Each player will bid one of their coins face-down in the middle of the table (you get to keep your coin after bidding is finished, so this is more about guessing what value you’ll need to land the Crew Card assignment you want). All of these bid coins are revealed simultaneously – the player who bid the highest value is the Captain for the next round; the next-highest bidder gets to choose from the remaining Crew Cards and so on.

Rounds continue until one of two events trigger the end of the game:

• Only one player is left active after the Cut and Run phase. This player gets one more turn as the Captain before final scores are tallied
• The last coin has been taken from the draw bag. This ends the game immediately.

Any player holding one of the game’s two Black Spots is eliminated. All other players tally the value of their coins, and the highest wins!

Components

While there isn’t an abundance of pieces to Dread Curse, what’s there is top notch. The illustrations on the Crew Cards are lifelike and beautiful. The Pirate’s Code cards don’t have illustrations, but they’re still thematic – chock full of pirate lingo printed on top of a treasure map. All cards are high quality.

The coins are thick with an outstanding light-gloss finish that makes them very durable. These won’t fray from punching or playing.

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Dread Curse

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Learning Curve

Dread Curse is very easy to learn and teach. While there is a fair amount of backstabbing and “take that!”, at its core it’s a press-your-luck game. These are always easy to learn, and mastering depends only on your understanding of probabilities.

Who would enjoy this game?

Final Thoughts

Who knew stealing gold from your crew could be so much fun? Dread Curse is light-hearted backstabbing at its finest – it never gets too mean-spirited, but you’ll relish thwarting somebody’s planned pick-pocketing or getting back at the ruffian who stole your 5-piece last round.

Dread Curse can take longer than advertised… it’s not been uncommon for our games to go over 45 minutes. But you really don’t notice because you’re too busy counting the coins sitting in front of each player and trying to track where you think the Black Spots may be.

And like the best party games, it’s easy to get lost playing this one over and over. After all, you don’t want to call it a night with the taste of betrayal fresh in your mouth!