Telescopic Traders

From Ludocity
Telescopic Traders
Designer: Marc Vousden
Year: unknown
Players: 6 - 8
Stuff required: A paper telescope & eye-patch for each player, whistle for each merchant, tokens in 4 colours (~20 each colour), 4 port markers.
Crew required: One.
Preparation: Ten minutes.
Time required: 10 minutes per round.
Place required: 6m x 6m open space
Activities: Delivering, avoiding, catching.
This is a playable game - it's finished, tested and ready to play.
Cc-by-nc.png
This game is made available under an Attribution-Noncommercial Creative Commons licence. (What does this mean?)

Despite your restricted vision and inability to turn to starboard, deliver as much cargo as possible for your team. Avoid the other teams privateer at all costs. The team with the most delivered cargo by the end of the round wins.

Set Up

Set up the port markers ~5m apart to form a square.

Place token containers at each port containing "cargo" tokens that are not of the same colour as the port in question.

Place team scoring containers at each port.

Player instructions

All players are given an eye-patch to wear and a paper telescope to look through. Both of these must be used at all times during play.


A privateer is selected for each team. The remainder are merchants.


Merchants will visit ports, pick up one token at a time and deliver it to the appropriate port. If caught by the oppositions privateer a merchant cannot move till tagged by their own privateer, blowing a whistle to attract their attention.

Privateers will attempt to catch opposing merchants, steal the token they are carrying and deliver it to the right port to score for their team. Privateers cannot gain tokens at ports.


ALL players can only turn to port (left) when moving.

Play History

Run at the October 2012 Sandpit at the National Maritime Museum.