4 to 6 friends, one screen. The game runs on your PC and everyone plays from their phone's browser, so the crew installs nothing. Recruit your crew, plunder the King of the Seas' flagship, and try not to be the one left aboard when it sinks.
How it plays
The PC is the table. Plug it into the TV and everyone watches the cards land, while each player's hand sits safely on their own phone.
Screenshots are from the game in development*
Phase 1
Every captain signs their own crew at the tavern door. Surface or Deep? Higher or Lower? Crew, Pirate, Siren or Kraken? Make three guesses about who's next. Every recruit joins your crew, right guess or not, and they'll fight for you in the plunder.
A wrong guess costs 1, 2 or 3 penalties.
Phase 2
You all sail under the King of the Seas, and tonight you turn on him to plunder his flagship. His loyal guards defend it in four waves: send a crew member of the same rank to fight one off and hand out penalties to your rival captains. One faction stays loyal to the King each wave, and the later the wave, the richer the plunder.
Get your crew into the fight: whoever has the most left idle loses the mutiny.
Phase 3
The plundered flagship starts to sink, and the losers of the mutiny are shipwrecked aboard it. The King's most loyal make a last stand at the lifeboat. Send your mutineers in: will the next one outrank the loyalist in front of you, fall below him, or match him? Break the whole line, including the one hidden in the smoke, before your 10 mutineers are gone.
A right Equal pins a loyalist for good. A miss drives you back.
Your phone is your hand
What you need
The lobby: join with the room code or scan the QR code.
End of the night: everyone's tally, the shipwrecked in red ink.
Two ways to play
Default
Count your penalties as you go. No drinking involved, and it's how every game starts.
Optional, 18+
The host can switch it on and confirm; penalties become sips of a drink of your choice. For players of legal drinking age only. Water counts, nobody should be pressured, and never drink and drive.
Questions
No. Only the host's PC runs the game. Everyone else joins with the browser on their phone.
Yes. Choose Tutorial on the main menu and join with one phone: a short game against computer players, about 3 minutes, with a tip before each phase.
Yes. The host can add computer players from the gear menu in the lobby to fill the crew up to 4.
Check that every phone is on the same Wi-Fi as the PC (not a guest network or mobile data). The first time the game starts, Windows asks whether to allow "Sip n Sail game server": allow it on private networks. The lobby's "Phones can't connect?" link walks you through the rest.
Not yet. Sip n Sail is made for one room: the PC and every phone need to be on the same Wi-Fi.
About 10 to 20 minutes, depending on how badly the shipwreck goes. Starting another round takes one tap.
Only if you want it to be. Games start in Penalties mode. Adult mode is optional, has to be switched on by the host, and is for players of legal drinking age.
Any recent smartphone with a web browser. Nothing to install.
English.