5-Minute Dungeon Sets Sail with 5-Minute One Piece

In this standalone game based on the hit Netflix series, work together and race against the clock to complete adventures on the high seas—but watch out for unpredictable challenges.

Published by Wiggles 3D, 5-Minute One Piece is a cooperative real-time game for 2-6 players.

Gameplay

Each player chooses a character, with its own unique ability, and takes that character’s deck. Everyone draws up to five cards. There are five adventure decks in the game, and players are told to play through them in increasing difficulty. The selected adventure deck is shuffled and placed on top of that adventure’s boss card. The challenge deck is placed below it.

Each round lasts between 3.5 and 6.5 minutes, depending on the player count and difficulty level chosen. When a round begins, the top card of the adventure deck is revealed. Most of these have a challenge rating, indicating how many adventure cards have to be completed in order to discard the adventure card and move on to the next one.

There are five possible icon types in the game. Each challenge card shows four icons. In order to complete a challenge, players must play the required icons, in the matching order as listed on the challenge card, to the four spaces on the main game board. Once these all match, the challenge card is placed next to the adventure card, and a new challenge card is revealed. Cards do not get discarded from the game board, so players can get lucky and find they already have one or more icons in the correct slots of the game board for the next challenge card. There are also some cards that allow players to move cards between the different piles.

The game does not have turns. Players act simultaneously and may play cards in any order. Each player also has unique action cards with useful abilities. These often require players to discard cards in order to use them. Some action cards also may be added to a player’s personal stash until they are used. Cards in a player’s stash do not count towards their hand limit.

Sometimes adventure cards have negative effects that go into play, and occasionally one will be an ally card that goes into a player’s stash and can act as a passed challenge card when they choose to play it.

If the players manage to get through all the adventure cards and defeat the boss, they win the round and may move on to the next adventure deck. If the players run out of time, or have no more cards left to play or abilities to use, they lose the game.

Review

5-Minute One Piece is a frantic, cooperative real-time game with an elegant amount of resource management thrown in. Players are trying to match the symbols on the challenge quickly, and do so in the most efficient way possible so that they will still have enough cards left in their decks to take on the final boss.

The game requires speed and also communication. The action cards are powerful, and players should be careful not to overlook them. Each character also has their own unique deck with their own unique strengths. As you learn the game, it’s fun to discover how the different characters work.

There’s a nice escalation to the game’s difficulty, as well. As players choose to progress through the adventure decks, the difficulty grows. It makes for a great way to learn the game, but it’s also fun to track your progression.

The third game in the 5-Minute line, it’s very similar to its predecessors, but has one or two small rule tweaks that set it enough apart to feel like its own take on the game, and not merely a reskin. For instance, the fact that cards must be placed in the correct order and are not removed from the central board between challenge card draws is unique to this game.

As with a lot of officially licensed games, if you don’t know the source material you’ll probably feel like you’re missing out on an element of the theme. It is a quirky setting, but it's clear there are pirates involved, and the art style does still feel unique and different.

In general, we enjoyed the look and the feel of the game. The cards are of a very nice quality and fun to play with. We would have liked the player mats to be tiles rather than just cards, and this is another case of a game that requires a timer without actually including one in the box, but the boat game board is quite well designed with four clearly defined slots for the play piles, and it’s just a fun game piece.

5-Minute One Piece is a fun game, even if you’re not familiar with One Piece. It’s based on a great game design but also brings its own twist to it. It’s enjoyable to try out the different characters, as well as to work your way through the different adventure decks and see what each one has to offer.

Pros: Not merely a reskin of 5-Minute Dungeon, nice component quality, each character feels satisfyingly unique

Cons: May be lacking something if you’re not familiar with the show, lacks a timer

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.