Pride & Prejudice...and Pirates!

The game based on a movie about a book

What is Pride, Prejudice & Pirates?

Pride, Prejudice & Pirates (P,P & P) is a start to end board game based around the Jane Austen's popular novel, minus the Pirates. A game for 2 - 4 player, P,P & P surrounds the story of the Bennett sisters and their race to find a man. Mrs. Bennett is eager to have all four of her daughters married off as soon as possible and out of her household. As a result, each daughter will race through the board in an attempt to be the first to get hitched. 

On the way, however, there are several obstacles to overcome including Pride, Prejudice and, of course, Pirates! So where do Pirates play into the whole 16th Century era? Well, the concept is simple - Pirates want your booty! As they have for centuries, the Pirates in this game are after rare treasures which are believed to be obtained through the capture of young and single maidens. Heaven knows you've got to look out for the Jolly Rancher who isn't so forgiving should you land in his territory (rules are explained below). 

The game is quite straight forward and simple and must be played with its comical nature in mind. Though the game follows a certain so-called 'Code of Conduct', it is fast-paced and can be quite a lot of fun when played in groups of 4.

Game Time

The game can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour depending on the fate of every play. 

Contents

• 1 Six-Sided Dice

• 4 Player Gems

• 24 P,P & P Cards

Set Up

• Other than the game board, the only thing to set-up for play are the 24 cards which are shuffled and placed in the pile labelled 'Deck'.

• In addition, all player gems should be placed on the starting corner tile. 

Rules

• Once all 24 cards have been shuffled and placed on the game board and all 4 player gems are on the starting position, the game is ready to be played. 

• As stated in the Code of Conduct, first play goes to the last person to have read a Jane Austen novel or watched a movie based on one of her books. If no one has done so, play goes to the oldest person and passes left from then on.

• Once the dice is rolled, it's simply a matter of moving the displayed number of spaces and passing play on. 

• If a player lands on a P,P & P tile, it is his responsibility to pick up a P,P & P card from the deck. The effect of the cards vary with type.

• If the effect of a card lands a player on another P,P & P space, the player must not pick up another card but pass play on to his/her left. 
  
  
• An Honour card may be kept and saved to play whenever a player wishes. All other cards are effective immediately. 

• If a player finds themselves on a Jolly Rancher space (corner spaces - skull with cross bones), they must move back to the closest Jolly Rancher space before the one they are on. If the player happens to be on the first Jolly Rancher space, they must move back to the start. 

• First player to reach the end wins!

Game Overview

Pride, Prejudice and Pirates is a fun game to play when with friends. It begins with a player taking a roll and then moving to the appropriate space. The real fun begins when a player lands on a P,P & P space and must draw a card. Cards come in four different forms and are amusing to read. However, every card imposes a punishment whether that may be on the player picking up the card or another player based on the contents of the card.

There are four different types of cards:

Pride Cards

Pride cards generally display the negativity associated with having a chip on your shoulder and thinking you are better than most people in life. The purpose of this card type is to portray the manner in which Jane Austen attempts to explain to the reader how Pride can be harmful to the health of a relationship. This idea is especially expressed through the behaviour and fundamental attitude of Mr. Darcy who struggles with his pride to be with Elizabeth. Primarily, Pride cards hinder the player's own progression.

Prejudice Cards

The purpose of prejudice cards is to demonstrate how suffocating this trait can be towards the progression of love or marriage. Much in the manner that Elizabeth treats Mr. Darcy, Prejudice is meant to hinder other players (your sisters) from reaching the end and getting married. 

Pirate Cards

Although most of the game is quite clearly light-hearted, the most comical element within gameplay has to be the Pirate cards which are based off of absolutely nothing in a Jane Austen novel and have everything to do with the capture of booty. Pirate cards are simply  in play to extenuate the ridiculousness of the idea of pirate being present in a board game based on a story placed in the 16th Century. Pirate cards may hinder yours or another player's progression. 

Honour Cards

These cards are meant to be the only sane connection between Pride & Prejudice and Pirates. A code of honour is held with similar regard on the part of both 16th Century Ladies and Pirates. While Pirates may pillage lands and steal, cheat and lie, there has always been a code of honour between them. This shared ground is meant to benefit the player and may thus be played at will. 

Creative Process

When conceiving the idea for Pride, Prejudice and Pirates, my team spit-balled thoughts on different Jane Austen novels to explore. At first we thought about a card game built on Sense and Sensibility where it takes a good balance of both to win the game. However, we quickly decided to go with Pride and Prejudice due to the popularity of the book and the ease of information available online based around the novel. A central theme for game type was the use of cards, so we stuck with this idea and introduced it into a Start to End system. Since one of our options was a board game, we decided to run with it. 

When we got down to designing the board we decided to make the game as compact as possible, to make it easier on us when it came to designing the game itself. However, this was a decision I later regretted as outlined further below. We worked on several different options in using the board space and we came up with a monopoly-style manner of spreading out the blocks players will move on. We toyed with the idea of having a dice arena to avoid dice rolling off tables, but we decided to scrap the idea since it would make our game board less portable. 

We then decided to place the rules directly on he game board and to have the cards placed in the middle with a discard pile for used cards. Another idea being thrown around was the possibility for the game to go on should a player roll a number greater than what they needed to land on the end space, causing them to go in circles till they finally got lucky enough to land right on it. However, this idea was also scrapped as we figured the game had the potential to drag on for hours and eventually the 24 cards would run out and the game would begin to get boring once the cards were recycled more than once. 

Now that the prototype has reached completion, I think back on what could have been done to improve the gameplay mechanics and several thoughts come to me. For one, I'm disappointed with the lack of spaces to extend gameplay. If I had the opportunity to change anything, I would most certainly increase the game space to take up an entire bristol board. I would create more interesting cards and perhaps introduce an interactive aspect where players challenge each other to see who comes out on top. I might even stick with the idea of going around the board more than once by making the spaces bigger and having it so that players have to attend certain events and build up their reputation in a community to gain notice from suitors and eventually be married after certain criteria has been met. Pirates would act as random comical obstacles to the progression of your love story and the player must find a lady-like manner of dealing with such scum buckets without demeaning her integrity within society. 

Conclusion

After all the work that has gone into Pride, Prejudice and Pirates, I can honestly say that I am pleased with the result. It has been a challenge to integrate the strange world of oversea criminals into the 16th Century while maintaining a theme to base an entire board game around. However, this assignment has most definitely been fun and the end result is that perfect mix of witty, zany humor one can come to expect from the Innovative Innovators.