Something caught the eye of Kyle, the first mate of the good ship Garfield. Something in the water just off the side of ship. His legs were still trembling from the last encounter with a white dragon. Encounter wasn't the right word. They had simply lucked out and skirted the dragon. It looked like it was going to advance on them and they were so perilously close, but it just turned and looked like something to its right had captured it's attention. They had tried to be as quiet as they could but the wind was blowing and a ship can only be so quiet. Well at least this ship could.Those look like bubbles in the water. Well, that sort of thing could happen in these waters. Seven other ships had set sail and hoped to be the last one standing. One had already fallen to the red dragon in the south and two had rammed into each other, of all things, trying to avoid the green beast. They were doomed any way they went. I think the captain of one of those vessels was a little crazy anyway.That's not just bubbles. Suddenly a huge green serpent rose beside our ship. It shot strait up as if to show off how long it was. It hurt kyle's neck to look that high, but then it stopped, folded down making an arc, and started coming down. Down onto the good ship Garfield. He heard screams, one of them was his. And then he fell. His ship was broken in half and sinking. One of the spikes on the back of the sea serpent caught and pulled kyle down into the mess of splintered ship and sodden sail into the sea.And just like that, the game was over for me.Tsuro of the Seas is a game of chance and close calls. It is a tile laying game on a beautifully illustrated grid. On your turn, you play one of your tiles in front of your ship and follow the path in front of your ship. Each tile has four paths on them. If the tile you play is in front of another player's ship, they get to move ahead as you do, for better or worse.If yo utake a path that leads you off the board you are out. If you take a path that rams you into another ship you are out. If your path leads you into a dragon, you are out. Duh. Each turn you get to roll dice too, to see if the dragons wake or move. If too many dragons leave the board they get to spawn randomly. This is why they might appear on a tile you thought was safe- and then it's not. If the dragons wake they move according to the die roll. They may move in the compass directions or turn. If you roll the lucky number, a new dragon will join the melee. What fun!I hate to tell you what to do but...Dragons can't appear on the outermost rim, though they can move there. As dragons move, they remove tiles that were in their wake, allowing the game to go on longer than this games predecessor (Tsuro, way of the path: just play the game without the dragons and you've got it.) Naturally you want to steer clear of things that can kill you. 'nuff said.If you get the expansion, you can get cannons and kill dragons. That's nice, but then you have whirlpools and tsunamis to avoid, so its kind of sixes.ThemeI confess, I get sucked in, as I hope the vignette got across.BalanceI guess since it's a crap-shoot for everyone, it's pretty balanced, but only in the bad way. It is most often a short game (read 15-25 minutes), so the player elimination isn't usually too bad, but it could go as long as an hour, so... there's that.InteractionThis is tough, there really should be lots of cheers and jeers, but if you play with quiet folk, maybe there won't be. It's all up to you and yours. I like to give my kids titles they earn. . Dragon slayer, dragon skirter, dragon avoider, crazy cap'n, etc. It's a nice salve when they get eaten, unless their title was just Fodder or Dragon sweet Treat.Learning CurveVery low, if you could follow my disjointed blathering above, you should be good. My four year old can play so if you can't... The So it's rules are like two doubles sided pages- with pictures. Easy peesey. I confess though, you do have do know the minimum number of dragons that should be on the board, and how new ones come out. That is to say, my four year old can play if a savvy player is there to man the dragons.DowntimeYou do have to wait your turn, but people only have three tiles they can choose from so paralysis should be limited. And dragons can always come get you when it's not your turn, so it can be a nail biter while you wait. Maybe that's the worst kind of down time. Just use lee press on nails.What’s not to Like?It's ease of play leaves me a little wanting. The player elimination isn't my forte, but the speed of the game helps- most often. It's a very light filler game. Late comers can have fun watching players bite their nails.Collateral EndorsementsMy littlest games call for this game often, and it's predecessor. Sometimes we just play with dragon points in golf fashion rather than getting eliminated, then set a time limit. Whoever dies least in 30 minutes is the winner!