Loot

The summer project blogs are in progress. In the meantime I thought I'd share some thoughts about some fun card and board games that don't take a long time to learn or play.

Loot is a great little card game where the players assume the role pirates attempting to gather up treasure ships.

Each player maintains a hand of cards that fall into the following categories: 

• Numbered and colored pirate ships. Color indicates fleet affiliation and number indicates strength; I believe there is 5 or 6 fleet colors and strength runs from 1 to 6 - or maybe 7.

• Captains. These are colored according to fleet affiliation. Each fleet only has one captain.

• Merchant Ships. These have gold coins imprinted upon them, indicating value. I believe the lowest value is 2, and the greatest is probably 8 or 10. Seems like most fall in between 4 and 6. 

• The Admiral. 

Gameplay

Players put merchant ships into play and attempt to claim them by playing the strongest fleet suits upon them. Captain cards trump, but a player may only introduce one that is affiliated with the pirate fleet they put into play on a particular ship. A player may never put more than one colored fleet against a particular merchant ship. The Admiral is kind of a wild trump card, but he is not all-powerful. 


I have fun whenever I get to play this game, and I highly recommend it for those looking for a good - and short - game that requires a little thought, but yet is not complicated. Four or five players can finish a game in about half an hour.