X Marks the Spot
X Marks the Spot Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
The Pirates
Christopher Condent An English pirate known for his brutal treatment of prisoners, sailed the seas in the early to mid 1700's. His exploits ranged from the coast of Brazil to India and the Red Sea. He died in 1770.
Jack Rackham Known as Calico Jack for the brightly colored coats and clothing he wore, Rackham was a classic Caribbean pirate, capturing small merchant vessels. After being pardoned once, he returned to piracy and was tried and hanged in Port Royal, Jamaica, in November of 1720.
Henry Avery Sailing the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in the 1690's, Avery was known at one time to be the richest pirate in the world. He is also famous for being one of the few pirates to retain his wealth and retire before either being killed in battle or tried and hanged.
Emanuel Wynn This French Pirate is considered by many to be the first to fly the familiar skull and crossbones or 'Jolly Roger' flag. He also incorporated the image of an hourglass to tell his victims that time was running out.
Playing the Game
Goal: The goal of the game is to make three X's out of your Pirate icons.
Setting up the Game: You will need a large flat surface to play. Take the four Pirate Flag Cards (shown on page one) and shuffle them. Each player takes one and does not show it to the other players. The flag you drew is your icon. Keep this face down in front of you. Now, shuffle the deck and deal four cards face down to each player. Place the remainder of the deck in an easily accessible place for the players. Distribute three Gold Doubloons to each player. Determine who will go first.
Taking a Turn: Draw two cards. You will now have six. At the beginning of your turn, always draw to six. On each turn you have two actions meaning you play one card from your hand as an action, then play a second card from your hand as an action. This allows you to strategically pair your cards.
Placing the Cards: Tile cards are placed on the table as if there were a large imaginary grid. Each square on the Tile Cards represents a square of that grid. Cards must be placed so that they line up with one another and must touch at least one other card, even if it's just the corner. Tile Cards can be placed on top of each other, either one of the two icons or both icons. According to the rules indicated in the Tile card section, an icon can also ALWAYS be placed on top of the same icon.
When a card is placed on top of other card(s) those cards are now considered 'covered' even if the covering card is only covering one of the two icons on the card.
Scuttle Your Ship: If during your turn you do not like the cards in your hand, you may 'scuttle your ship' by placing the whole hand at the bottom of the draw pile and drawing a new hand. This concludes your turn, no cards are allowed to be played. You may scuttle your ship either before or after you draw.
Winning: When a player can make an X out of five of their Pirate icons (see back page) they place a doubloon in the center space of their X. That spot is now immune to any action for the rest of the game. Remaining icons in the X may still be vulnerable to actions and may be used in the creation of additional X's. The first player to get three X's and therefore three doubloons placed wins the game! If at any time the placement of a single card yields two complete X's then they may place two doubloons.
Tile Cards
Most of the cards are Tile Cards. They are divided into two sections and will have any of the following icons on them.
The printed sheet shows four tile icons: a gold-and-black pirate icon, a silver/grey pirate icon (three skulls), a red pirate icon, and a green pirate icon, plus the Ghost Ship, Kraken and Open Water tile faces described below.
- Ghost Ship: A wild tile that can be used by any player, even as different pirates for different players. Also, it may be placed over any tile and any tile may be placed over it.
- Kraken: A dead tile that can only be covered up by a Ghost Ship or destroyed by a cannon.
- Open Water: A tile that can be placed over any Pirate tile or Ghost Ship and any tile may also be placed over it.
Action Cards
These are cards that players play on each other. They are then placed in the discard pile.
- Cannon: Play this card to destroy any Uncovered card on the table. A card is considered Uncovered if there are no cards covering either of its two icons and it is considered Covered if another card is covering at least one icon on the card.
- New Heading: Remove any Uncovered card from the table to your hand and replace it with a different one from your hand, even if the new card could not normally be played on that spot.
- Parlay: When you play this card, pick an opponent. You may offer to trade any number of cards in your hand for an equal number in theirs. They may accept or offer a different number, but you can force them to trade at least one. If you do not like the deal, other players may opt to trade with you instead of the original target player.
- Plunder: You may look at another players hand and take a card from them into your hand. Alternatively, you may take any card from the discard pile. In both of these instances, you must play the new card immediately. This counts as one action.
Sample Game
(The printed sheet shows a diagram of a sample board with positions labeled A through E.)
You can see how the game grows as you play. There are three X's so far in this game, A, B, and C. Note that there are two ways to make an X. A and C are orthogonal and B is diagonal. Successful X's will always consist of five of your Pirate icons. Ghost Ships may be used as any color; note A and B are sharing a Ghost ship. D illustrates that any icon may cover an Open Sea. E demonstrates that any icon may be placed on top of itself.
Transcriber's note: a fragment of clipped vertical text runs down the right edge of page 2 of the printed rules. It is cut off by the page edge and is not transcribed. Artwork and publisher credits and the publisher web footer are omitted.