Game Review: Pirates Crossfire
Today’s review is for Pirates Crossfire by Smart Games.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary game for review from Timberdoodle. All views expressed are my own.
Pirates Crossfire
Like other Smart Games, Pirates Crossfire is a single-player puzzle game. This one focuses on planning, spatial insight, problem solving, concentration, flexible thinking. It is recommended for ages 7 to adult.
What’s Included
Pirates Crossfire includes the game board, 8 “water” playing pieces (including two rocks, three pirate ships, and four navy ships) in various configurations, and a spiral-bound challenge booklet.
How to Play
The object is, obviously, to arrange the pieces on the board in a certain way. The twist is that there are four playing modes so you have to remember which mode you are in as you arrange the pieces.
Mode 1 is “Peace,” which means that neither the pirates nor the navy fires on the other. You’ll notice there are little cannons on the sides of the ship. As the pieces are arranged in this mode those cannons can’t be in the line of sight of another ship.
The rock pieces are fixed during challenge set-up and provide a break in the line of sight between ships. They also have to be worked around when positioning the pieces.
Mode 2 is “Pirates Win” which means all the pirate ships have to have their cannons pointed at navy ships, but none of the navy ships can fire at the pirates.
As you might guess, Mode 3 is the reverse: “Navy Wins” with opposite rules, and Mode 4 is “Total War” where all ships can be hit by at least one enemy ship and nobody wins. There are a total of 80 challenges (20 for each mode) in the booklet.
My Thoughts
Spatial reasoning is not one of my strong suits so I didn’t enjoy this particular game as much as some of the other SmartGames. That might be a sign that I should play it more, though, to help strengthen those skills.
Rebecca, on the other hand, did very well with it. I was surprised at how much she enjoyed and kept at it for several levels at one sitting. She likes to include a Smart Game on her daily study schedule, to give her a break from reading and writing.
I love how cute the pieces are. I could imagine a little boy adding the pieces to other small toys for imaginative free play. That’s always a plus in my book.
We enjoy having Pirates Crossfire on our game shelf as a single-player game for all ages.
More Reviews
If you’re intrigued by single-player thinking games check out these other Smart Games I’ve reviewed:
