Capt’n Pepe: Treasure Ahoy!

One of my 5yo twins got Capt’n Pepe: Treasure Ahoy! for his birthday a few months ago and we’ve played through 17 of the 25 chapters since. It’s currently his favorite game and the one he chooses to play after dinner each night (when I have time), but it’s definitely not for everyone.

The game itself is a legacy game from HABA. The gameplay is a cooperative abstract puzzle game, and the “legacy” parts are modular rules that get added to the main game. You have a 3d cardboard ship with different colored player pieces and different colored oars. Each space on the ship is a dot with lines connecting to other spaces, and on your turn you’ll move one piece one space. The goal is to get all the colored characters to their correct oar spaces, so you sometimes have to temporarily move characters out of the way to get others to their space. It’s a pretty simple puzzle, but the hard part is that it’s timed and you have to get everyone to their space before the sand timer runs out. I think it’s 3 minutes?

Each chapter in the game has a little story that you read and then setup rules saying which modules to use. As you get further on in the game, you open treasure chests to get the components for the modules, and then read a new section in the rulebook. The rulebook is all available at the beginning (no stickers in the rulebook), but it just says not to read ahead. There are also stickers at the end of each chapter that you put on a map and in your “treasure chest,” but they have no effect on gameplay. You get more stickers for getting a better score, and you can replay levels to unlock all the stickers. I’m pretty sure all the stickers that you get at the end of each chapter are just for fun/decoration, and each one also has an extra sticker that you can use outside of the game. There was one sticker so far that actually affected the game itself, but that was a sticker in one of the component treasure chests.

I’ve played the game mostly 2p with my kid, but since it’s modular it’s pretty easy for people to jump in for any game. My other twin joined after the first game (which was an untimed tutorial), so the first time he played it was difficult for him to understand what was going on. I’d definitely recommend young kids play the tutorial game first before jumping in, but adults could easily jump in the middle. I actually played 4p with my kid and two other adults at one point, and they were surprised at how quickly the timer went by. It’s definitely a lot easier at 2p than at higher player counts (especially with multiple kids), since doing every other move is a lot faster than alternating between 3 or more players.

My kid tends to get frustrated in games when they don’t go his way, so when we play with more players and don’t do as well he gets frustrated. It can be frustrating when people move something back and undo the move you just made.

One thing I find annoying is the oar components in the game – you’re supposed to place them on the side of the ship to be the goals for where the characters move. But there’s no place on the ship to hold the oars, so they’re just balancing there. I’m pretty sure one or more oars has fallen over in every game we’ve played (either in setup or during the game). There are also a lot of little tokens that easily get knocked off the table (which also happens every game – and we currently have one we haven’t found).

My kid is super into pirates so he loves the theme of this game. He also really wants to roll up the map and use it in his pretend play when we finish the campaign. He loves putting stickers on the map at the end of each chapter. He has also improved a lot at the actual game and it’s neat that he can actually plan ahead and move pieces out of the way. A couple of months ago I asked him if it was his favorite game and he said it wasn’t his favorite, but he likes it. But when I asked him what games he likes more he couldn’t think of any. So I think he decided it is his favorite game. I personally don’t dislike it (and I like seeing the new modules), but I do get a little tired of playing it and I get frustrated by the setup and components.

I think if your kid is super into pirates and likes board games (and stickers) then this is a great game for them, but otherwise probably not worth it.