66 April 2019
PLAYED
With the exception of pirates stumbling
onto the motherlode by pure luck –
not impossible, if generally avoidable- Treasure Island masters its pace. e
clues feel well tuned to narrow the net
without leaving the pirates guessing
blindly or Long John feeling cornered
too early, ramping up the speci city at a
rate that makes the closing turns come
neatly down to the wire. Allowing Long
John to escape makes for a dramatic
nale, avoiding a jarring sudden nish
when time runs out. While the game’s
semi-competitive scavenger hunt sings
best with three or four people, it scales
comfortably to a one-on-one showdown.
Treasure Island’s great pleasure of
doodling is also where its few hiccups
arise. Vincent Dutrait’s artwork is beautiful,
but the lush forests and rolling seas of
the map often make the multicoloured
pens tough to see. As the board is lled
with scribbles, it quickly becomes an
overwhelming mess of information to try
and parse; something that the mini-maps
aren’t too well equipped to help with. At
points, the sheer amount of brain-burning
feels like it belongs in a three-hour strategy
heavyweight, rather than a sub-hour game
of pirate hide-and-seek. ere can also be
a fair amount of ddliness when it comes
to drawing lines – the rulebook encourages
an amount of exibility, so it’s not a
game to play with pedants. It’s worth
noting that the rulebook in our copy of
the game, which su ered from confusing
wording and poor structuring, has since
been updated with a signi cantly better
version available online.
A few small blips ultimately can’t
detract from Treasure Island’s buoyant
sense of fun and adventure. It’s a
simple pleasure wrapped up in a
brilliantly creative package that’s a
treasure well worth discovering.
MATT JARVIS
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED...
FURY OF DRACULA
Looking for another stellar one-
versus-many hidden movement
board game based on a classic of
literature from the turn of the 19th
century? You’re in luck!Golden Silver
Treasure Island
(^) PLAY IT? YES
The busy visuals can be a problem,
but the pure joy of seeking out
buried booty makes Treasure
Island a fantastic addition to the
hidden movement genre.
45m 2-5 10+ £45
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Five screens
◗ Four mini-maps
◗ Four memo sheets
◗ Five miniatures
◗ Four turn order tokens
◗ Game board
◗ Calendar board
◗ Four character sheets
◗ Two mini rulers
◗ Ruler
◗ Caliper
◗ Small search template
◗ Large search template
◗ Small compass
◗ Large compass
◗ Five markers
◗ 11 district hints
◗ Eight compass hints
◗ Seven starting hints
◗ 11 Black Spot hints
◗ Eight
information tokens
◗ Chest
◗ Six chest tokens
◗ Treasure token
◗ Long John Silver
mini-map
T
reasure Island is a hidden
movement game with no hidden
movement. at small caveat
aside, this pirate scavenger hunt is one of
the most inventive and original entries in
a genre populated by the likes of Fury of
Dracula and Whitehall Mystery.
It helps that the premise is so
irresistible: it’s a treasure hunt, plain and
simple. Long John Silver – controlled by
one player – knows where the booty is
hidden on the island, but has been locked
up. He ekes out vague clues to the rest of
the pirates, who are all out for themselves
in the search for the buried chest. ey’ll
share some knowledge, but other hints
given to individual players can be kept
secret. ey might want to consider
working together at least a little, though,
as Long John will eventually escape and
race to reclaim his treasure rst.
Lacking the fraught cat-and-mouse
pursuit of other hidden movement games
due to its static target, Treasure Island
manages to whip up just as much tension
and energy as the greats of the genre
by letting players draw on its laminated
board. e pirates move around,
conducting searches to narrow down
the possible locations of the treasure,
while every few turns Long John o ers
tantilising hints as instructed by cards.
e treasure’s somewhere south or west
of you! It’s not within ve miles of the
temple! It’s not in this district! Almost
all of the hints are accompanied by the
immense satisfaction of scribbling on the
board (or your own mini-map, in the case
of a private clue), using a caliper, rulers
and templates to quickly turn it into a
glorious confusion of lines, circles and
crosses. e simple act of drawing brings
the hunt for treasure alive – it’s impossible
not to feel swept up in the excitement
of working out the shrinking number of
places where the plunder could lie.
Of course, pirates aren’t exactly in
the business of honesty. Long John can
choose to tactically lie a set number of
times, with the unknown veracity of his
clues throwing just enough doubt into
the mix to keep the pirates guessing
throughout Treasure Island’s extremely
reasonable runtime. Meanwhile, the
pirates have a limited number of more
powerful special actions individual to
each character, making Treasure Island
more than a simple game of hot and cold.