Mattel Games Sail Away Strategy Board Game

This game rocks! We had read some of the reviews and had some reservations....but Covid will encourage you to try all sorts of things to entertain your children. This game was easy enough to understand and explain...we saw a video that was real helpful. It is fun, and you can use all sorts of strategy in all sorts of ways. The hardest part are the specialty cards which change from game to game....but you only use a few so it is easy enough to remind people what benefits they each serve. Very fun, very clever....we haven't even bothered to put it away in the game cabinet because we expect to play it again soon. We would recommend this to any family. I would say probably 10 would be a good starting point, and adults will be entertained as well. Great game!

Bought this for my girlfriend for Xmas. It came with the German rules for some reason, but I was able to find an English translation online. Fortunately, there's NO writing on any of the cards or pieces, so with the translated instructions we were good to go! It's pretty fun with two players, but it's more fun with a few more people. More players = more islands to plunder so that's fun. There's also pirate cards which change every game so no two games are alike. A great game for game night!

This game is super fun, easy to learn, but doesn’t get boring. So many different twists and turns that can totally change the game. A good mix of chance and strategy. Works great as a 2 player game or up to 4 player.

Seriously. I bought this as a gift and nothing said "oh by the way GERMAN!"

My husband is a gamer and we have hundreds of games and this one was a keeper. It was entertaining for both adults and kids - something that's really important to us when we keep a game. It had interesting game mechanics, with a little bit of "take that" so you can get at other people a little bit but not so much as to upset children. The components were well made - the cardboard was sturdy, the cards were well made and the miniatures were great. Some of the pictures for the special powers required referencing the rule book which slowed things down but there were only a few per game so it wasn't that big of a deal. Solid lighter weight game.

We love board games, especially some that aren't just random luck, and have a serious closet full top to bottom. This sounded interesting, but we just couldn't really get into it. First, ours didn't come with English instructions, so we referenced a good youtube video that everyone seems to reference for this that explains how to play. Printed instructions would have been nice because at least we could reference it when we have a question trying to play. Honestly, it was really boring trying to learn it. Sometimes that is the case for any game until you really understand it, but this never elevated our interest in time. We found ourselves choosing other recent favorites like Ticket to Ride, Catan, Castles of Burgundy.We got this over a year ago, and have had it sitting next to our kitchen table the entire time, hoping that we would get into it, so I could give it a better review. But I think its time to call it -- just didn't like it. It appears to have the right ingredients, but it just wasn't captivating.

This game is both simple and convoluted at the same time. It's such an awkward game, I'm having a hard time figuring out how to review it. The first problem we encountered is that, like other reviewers, the game instructions came in German and ONLY German. We did find some English instructions on the Internet, thankfully, but it was a lot of printing. There are a lot of instructions for this game.The general idea of the game is fairly simple. Use your crates to collect resources from available islands and then move those onto your ships. When your ships are full they "sail away" and then when five of one player's ships have sailed the game ends and everyone adds up their points.Here are my issues with this game:1. There are pirate cards that players can use to throw a monkey wrench or two in the game. Unfortunately, they get forgotten about, and have to be constantly looked up on the instructions, because the cards themselves don't say what they do. It would be easier if the cards were simpler and said what the actions are so there's not constant instruction referencing.2. The various ships are worth different amounts of points, but it's hard to tell as you go through the game if you're winning or not and plan your strategy accordingly. We were playing the other day and I launched more ships than anyone, but they weren't high point value ships and so I actually came in last.3. There are too many variables. There are ships and pirates and a public objective and a private objective. There are simply too many rules and factors in the game. It makes it confusing and hard to learn, for what ends up being, ultimately, a really simplistic basic concept. Why should I spend so much time on something so basic?Ultimately, it just isn't as satisfying as many of our other games. Some of our family's favorites (my daughter is 8) are Ticket To Ride, Tokaido Board Game, and Dixit (Cover Art May Vary).

It is not convenient for English players. Prefer to have dual language instruction.