Salvage Hidden Treasures is the first tabletop game produced by the British publisher Ocean City Games Ltd. It was funded via Kickstarter and released in March 2021. An expansion, named Bounties of the Abyss, was released simultaneously, adding more treasures and events to the game.
Up to four players take the role of salvage ship captains who command a fleet of up to three boats scouring the sea in search for sunken treasures. The sea is represented by a grid of 4x4 stacks of face-down cards which are either treasures or one-time events, which might help or deter the progress of the players.
On their turn, the players move around their ships on the stacks of cards and can pay money to discover what is on the topmost card on the stacks their ships have landed on. On a later turn, they can pay more money to salvage the uncovered treasures. But be warned, the boats has a maximum load capacity, so players must choose which treasures to salvage and/or keep carefully. Moreover, several treasures have special powers which, like the events, can be both good or bad.
The players have the option to sell one of their salvaged treasures per turn in exchange for money, and to buy more boats to both increase their load capacity and have more actions per turn.
The game ends after a certain number of turns, after which each player counts the total value of the treasures they possess. The winner is the one who owns the most valuable haul is declared the winner.
Salvage Hidden Treasures contains examples of :
- Anti-Hoarding: One cannot just hoard more and more treasures to win the game, as the boats have a maximum capacity of 10 weigh units each, and since the treasures usually weigh at least 3 units, the ship's hold will end up full rather quickly. The players can however buy more boats to increase their hold capacity, for a maximum of 30 units.
- Captain Colorbeard: One of the discoverable treasures is Captain Blackbeard's Treasure
- Cursed Item: Some of the more valuable treasures you can find have... unfortunate side effects.
- Blackbeard's Treasure doubles the income of every other players at the start of their turns.
- The Kraken's Eye, the single most valuable treasure in the game, stops you from moving any ship at all as long as you own it.
- The Aztec Gold robs you of your entire next turn if you decide to salvage it.
- The Ghost Crew Talisman isn't worth that much, but in increases the total hold capacity of your fleet by four... but it also reduces the worth of each treasure you own by 100£.
- Flying Saucer: One of the salvageable treasures is a sunken flying saucer. It can then be discarded to steal any treasure from another player.
- Joke Item : The Rusty Anchor. It is consumes a whopping five weigh units (which is half a boats capacity), isn't worth a dime and cannot be sold at the bank, meaning that once you salvage it, you won't get rid of it. However, it can end up as a Lethal Joke Item in specific circumstances, as rare events allow you to pass one treasure of yours to other players, severely impairing their own treasure hunt.
- Kraken and Leviathan: The players can uncover both Kraken teeth and eyes as treasures during the game if they own the Bounties of the Abyss expansion.
- Magic Compass : The Magical Compass treasure, which reduces the discovering cost of every card by 200£ for the player who owns it.
- Mega Maelstrom: The Maelstrom event, whick allows the player uncovering it to move of card to any space they choose.
- Money for Nothing : Zigzagged : during the game, money is very important as it allows you to discover and salvage treasures as well as buying more boats for your fleet, but at the end of the game, but at the end of the game, the money you own is as worthless as rocks.
- Pirate Booty: The players can discover Blackbeard's Treasure during the game.
- Sea Mine: Can be encountered as events, and it costs the player half the money they have to repair their ships.
- Sprint Shoes:
- The Fusion Reactor's Core, which forces the player owning it to move each of their boats each turn, and by three spaces instead of just one.
- There are also the Barrels of Diesel treasures. They are regular treasures when salbaged, but the player might discard them at any time, and doing so allows the player to move their boats by two spaces instead of just one if they so choose for the rest of the game.
- Threatening Shark: The Shark Attack! event has sharks attacking the player and damaging their scuba gears, costing them either 500£ or one of their treasures if they can't afford it.
