Let’s go treasure hunting! That’s what we did last night as we played Key Largo. Mike and I were first introduced to this game by Shane and Simon at Gencon ‘08. Shane kicked our butts at it, but we liked the game anyway. In it players need to search the many shipwrecks and sell the lost treasures found there to the island denizens for as much cash as possible before a hurricane hits.  The game is played over a series of 7 days. Each day is broken into morning and afternoon. You must decide what you’ll be doing during your morning action and your afternoon action. Will you hire new divers? Buy new equipment? Search the deeps for ship wrecks? It’s all up to you. Unfortunately all of the other players are doing the same. Design by the same guy that did Pirate’s Cove, this game has a similar feel in that every player determines where they are going in the morning and afternoon. If everyone shows up at market to sell their treasures, the selling price for those treasures goes down. If everyone shows up at the store to buy gear, the price for gear goes up. So planning is key and having ESP is a great help. If you don’t have ESP you have to flounder like I did.
We were able to get two games in. During the first game we saw lots of big treasure being turned in. It was anyone’s game. Anyone’s but me, that is. Ben ended up winning. I was somewhere way behind him. So we played again. This time Owen tried a new strategy of going straight for the deep, more precious wrecks to plunder. It didn’t work quite as well as he had hoped. Just like the previous game, I had a diver eaten by a sea monster. In the end, Andy won. Andy had a cool card that allowed him to sell treasure at the end of the game. Mike stole my big Jewel. Although truth be told, I would have still been in last place even if Mike hadn’t stolen it. But it was enough to catapult Mike into second place.
We give Key Largo five thumbs up.