Batten down the hatches and get ready to set sail with the newest release from Gamelyn Games: Tiny Epic Pirates! This 1-4 player game propels players back to the golden age of piracy where players compete to sink merchant ships, steal booty, and bury treasure while dodging the Royal Navy’s ire. With a few safe havens scattered throughout, however, players can find refuge and watch the Navy sail on by. To prove yourself in battle and bury the most loot, gather your fellow landlubbers and prepare your crews to sail the briny deep in search of adventure and plunder!

As with the other titles in the Gamelyn Games’ Tiny Epic series, Tiny Epic Pirates was designed by Scott Almes. Also returning to the table are artists Nikoletta Vaszi, Ian Rosenthaler, and Felix Wermke. Additionally, Chip Cole joins the crew of artists for Tiny Epic Pirates. Cole is the founder of Squatchy Games and designer of one of our favorite restaurant-themed games: Cryptid Cafe. Tiny Epic Pirates was crowdfunded via Kickstarter in 2020. The highly successful campaign offered both a standard and deluxe edition. For this review, we are using our copy of the deluxe edition rewards.

Tiny Epic Pirates is a seafaring pick up and deliver type of game, so it makes sense that players would need to begin their setup by creating the “sea” before beginning each session. To do this, players shuffle the map cards and place them face up in a 4×4 grid. One search token is then placed face-down on each map card. Any remaining search tokens are returned to the box. The two Port tokens are placed on opposing corners of the sea along with the Merchant Ships. Each ship will start with a Booty Crate drawn from the Booty Bag. Next, players will want to set up the Market near the game board by randomly placing one of each resource cube on the Market Mat. This will denote the resource’s sale value. The first two cards of the Merchant deck are dealt to the bottom of the Market Mat and will designate the strength and rewards for each Merchant ship. The Crew deck is shuffled and the top three cards are revealed to form a row. Each player then receives a Helm Mat, Legend Mat, Gold Doubloon, and a random Captain Card. They will also receive a set of corresponding components all in their chosen color. These elements are set up in each players’ respective play area per the rulebook. Once the first player is chosen, they place the Navy ship in one of the unoccupied corners of the map. Starting with the first player, players will then choose any of the unoccupied Coves on the map to use as the starting position for their pirate ship. As determined by player order, each player will also receive their starting booty.

All players begin as lowly scallywags with little to no reputation, little coin, a slow ship, and a lackluster crew. However, as the game progresses, all players have the opportunity to become hardened seadogs with upgraded ships and a larger, better crew. Tiny Epic Pirates is played over a series of turns and ends once a player has buried three treasures. On a player’s turn, they will select their action for the turn by moving their captain marker to the next action on their rondel. They may choose an action further along if they have available deckhands to place in any spaces they want to skip over, but, if out of deckhands, they must select the next action available. Likewise moving onto or over previously placed crew will give you the option to reassign them to another location either on the wheel or back to the ship. The player will then be allowed to sail a number of spaces equal to their speed before performing the previously determined action at the space they stop on. Possible actions include plundering, combat, recruiting more crew, and others that are all explained in more detail within the rules. Combat itself is dice-based, but how it is carried out is dependant on who the opponent is (i.e. Merchant Ship, another player, or Navy). Each player will have a different action order and one of the pros and cons of this game is that it is equally possible to have a very optimized rondel as well as one that will leave you behind other players. Though the game is tiny, the rulebook is close to 20 pages in length.

There are two expansions available for Tiny Epic Pirates; Crimson Silver and Curse of Amdiak. Tiny Epic Pirates: Crimson Silver, honestly, is more like a micro-expansion than even a mini-expansion. It introduces floating fortresses and crimson silver as a new resource to the base game. Additionally, new crew members are added. Tiny Epic Pirates: Curse of Amdiak, however, is more full-fledged as far as expansions go. Curses, bedeviled pirate booty, relics, and even a ghost ship have been added to the game for added challenges and fun! Out of the two, Curse of Amdiak is probably our favorite to include at game night.

Tiny Epic Pirates has hit the table several times since our rewards arrived and, while we have enjoyed the game, we have always felt a bit disappointed and underwhelmed. Ryan jokingly refers to it as “Tiny Epic Merchants” with how much the game focuses on the pick-up and delivery mechanics. Missing are the epic sea battles between competing pirates and the drive to engage with other players for notoriety in the pirate world. In fact, there have been several games where I have more or less ignored the premise of attacking merchant ships for booty and had far more fun trying to work my way up the Legend track. While I may have lost points-wise, I found myself enjoying the game more that way than I had in prior sessions. It almost feels as if there were two games created with the same title that never really merged into one. This being said, Tiny Epic Pirates is still a lot of fun but may miss the mark when searching for something more thematic. Both of us wish there had been more “pirate” aspects to the game. When it comes to the playmats created for the game, we have found that the large mat is nice, but not really necessary unless players are really heavy-handed when moving their ships along the map made of cards. The individual player mats, however, are a lifesaver and are worth every penny spent! They combine the Helm and Legend mats into one, the Order tokens fit into actual slots, and everything is much more streamlined. Though we enjoy the game mechanically, we would suggest that players try it for themselves either through a demo library at a local game store or on Tabletop Simulator before committing to a copy.

All photos of Gamelyn Games product were taken and edited by Krista.